The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (20 page)

“Maggie!” Kara called. She could hardly hear past the ringing from the blast.

Tail between her legs and ears flat against her skull, Maggie ran to Kara. She grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged her up the stairs as fast as she could. With her hearing temporarily lost, she couldn’t tell if more of the crazies followed, and she didn’t bother to look back.

Her heart thudded against her ribcage. She barged into the master bedroom. Her mother lay in the bed, a twisted expression of worry and pain across her face. Kara pushed Maggie farther from the door. She locked it then pulled the nearby dresser toward it. Adrenaline and fear throbbed in her veins as she heaved the heavy oak dresser. An ornamental jewelry box fell and spilled pearls, necklaces, and a tangle of earrings, but Kara ignored the mess. Once she positioned the dresser against the door, she moved to a second dresser, lower and wider than the first. She ran behind it and lowered herself like a defensive lineman. She pressed her hands against the lip of the dresser and shoved. Her legs burned with the effort, but her ears began to recover. The first sounds greeting her were her own grunts and belabored breaths as she struggled to move the furniture. When the second dresser thudded against the first, she dropped to the carpet, breathing heavily.

The door suddenly rattled. More pounding and scraping joined in the cacophony. While most of the door was reinforced by the dresser, there was a foot-and-a-half gap at the top. The wood there splintered. A hand burst through, clenching and unclenching.

Another hand thrust through.

Maggie growled, the hair on her haunches standing up. She prowled to the edge of the dressers. Kara didn’t intend to let the retriever try to defend her again. She climbed over the first dresser and aimed the barrel of the shotgun into the gap where the crazies splintered the wood.

Kara pumped the shotgun. She pressed the stock against her shoulder.

The hands tore away more of the flimsy wooden door. The face of a woman greeted her like some macabre birthing. Once-blond hair had turned crimson and brown with blood, both fresh and old. Wounds along the woman’s jawline wept crimson. Her reddened eyes bulged, and her teeth chomped. She peered into Kara’s eyes. For a moment, Kara hesitated. Despite the woman’s bloodshot sclera, her irises burned an intense, intelligent green.

Another human. Sick maybe, but human.

Holding her breath, Kara closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. The blast kicked her shoulder back. Warm blood sprayed across her face. Again, her ears rang. She pumped the shotgun as another crazy took the woman’s place.

Kara pumped and fired until the internal magazine was empty. Yet another crazy wailed and reached for her. She dug into her pocket for the extra shells she’d grabbed earlier, reloaded her weapon, and took aim. Blast after blast, she fired until the crazies’ screams stopped. For five minutes, Kara continued to aim the smoking muzzle at the door. Her arms trembled, but she didn’t dare lower the weapon. Maggie cowered in a corner. Bethany lay still, apparently unconscious.

Kara moved to the en suite bathroom and washed her face. Pink tendrils swirled in the sink until enough blood saturated the water to turn it a deep red. The sight made her heart climb into her throat until she reminded herself the blood wasn’t hers.

She peered into the mirror to check that she’d cleaned the gore from her face and gawked at herself. The full realization of what she’d done hit her. She crumpled to the tile floor and pressed her palms over her eyes. She wanted to cry, wanted to break down, but the tears didn’t come. Mostly, she felt angry. These people had tried to kill her and her family. They’d
forced
her to kill them. She let out a long, furious scream that made Maggie cower again.

She wanted to feel sorrow for the lives she’d taken, but each time she had pulled the trigger it had become easier. In the span of one day, she’d gone from a freshman biology major at the University of Maryland to a killer. Maybe she was more like her father than she thought.

Would the families of the people she’d killed be looking for them, wondering why they hadn’t ever come home? Would someone be out searching the city to look for their wife? Would children be waiting at their school for their parents to pick them up and tell them this nightmare would end—that they’d be safe if they just went to bed and woke in the morning to a bright new day?

Those thoughts finally summoned the tears she thought deserved to be spilled. They reminded her she was still human and still possessed a conscience.

The clamor of yelling crazies echoed down the street. With the back of her hand, she wiped at her eyes. She stepped up on the bathroom counter and peered out a small window overlooking the garage.

More of the crazies milled about beneath the streetlights. She saw a group banging their fists against the windows and door of a house down the street.

The Weavers
, she realized.
Sadie.
She imagined Nina huddling in a closet with their two grade-schoolers, Leah, nine, and Zack, eleven. Their father, Joe, would be standing protectively before them. And Sadie—who knew if Sadie was even still there? If she was lucky, maybe the Weavers had told Sadie she couldn’t go outside until they knew it was safe to get her to her family.

The pounding on the front of the house grew louder as Kara watched. Could Joe defend his family, defend Sadie against those things trying to get in?

Kara recalled a time when she and Dom had returned from a hunting trip. Joe had meandered over for idle chitchat and expressed an interest in someday hunting with Dom. He’d also asked about their guns. He’d claimed he’d never owned one but was thinking about buying one. He wanted Kara’s father’s advice on what to look for as a new gun owner.

Had he ever actually bought one? She prayed he had. But then again, what if his interest in firearms was merely conversation? What if he’d never picked up a handgun or shotgun? She had plenty of weapons stowed in the basement. Briefly, she considered leaving the protection of her house to help the Weavers, but the sheer number of people running amok like rabid dogs sent her shivering.

There was nothing she could do, and her mother needed her here. Kara could only wait to see if Bethany’s illness would go away. It was no different with her neighbors:
Wait and hope.

Her bottom lip started to quiver, and she could feel a wet sheen form over her eyes. Those things out there frightened her. She didn’t hesitate to admit it. And although they might take her life, she wouldn’t let them take her humanity. There was nothing more she could do for her mother—but maybe she could do something to help her sister.

Kara eyed the small window above the sink. She judged she was thin enough to fit through. She punched out the screen and slipped out the window with her shotgun before she could talk herself out of it. Her fingers clung to the window frame as she lowered herself to the roof above the garage.

A cool evening breeze tickled her skin as she surveyed the area.

The crazies flitted in and out of the shadows. Two prowled past Kara’s driveway, but the trio that had been pounding on the Weavers’ window was no longer in sight. But on the front porch, a puddle of broken glass shimmered in the moonlight.

They were inside. She didn’t have much time.

***

M
eredith held the night-vision binoculars to her eyes. She surveyed the landscape in its dark shadows of black and contrasting bright flashes of green. Wind whistled through the trees and underbrush where she hid on a hill at the edge of town with Shauna and Eric in tow. Progress had been slower than expected as she’d led them away from major roads to avoid contact with others as much as possible. They’d also lost their sole connection to what was going on in the rest of the world when the local AM news station they’d tuned into finally went dark.

“What do you see?” Shauna whispered.

“Seems to be lots of activity near Detrick,” Meredith replied. Fires burned in the distance, flaring in the binos’ lenses. A bustle of activity near Fort Detrick drew her attention. “Something’s definitely going on there.”

“You think they’re mobilizing?” Eric asked.

Shauna spoke in a low voice again. “Maybe they’re taking out—what did you call these people, the Skulls?”

“Could be.” Meredith surveyed the scene. They were still too far for her to really gauge what was going on at Fort Detrick. In any case, the base was between her and Dom’s daughters.

Maybe she’d be able to use her CIA badge to get in and speak with someone there who might have a better handle on the situation. It could be risky if the agency was still looking to bring her in for treason, but she doubted anyone cared that much about one rogue agent, given the more pressing concerns posed by the Skulls.

“It might be worth checking out,” Meredith said. “Maybe they’ve set up a shelter. You two would be a lot safer there than out in the woods.”

She rummaged through her backpack and withdrew the components to the single-shot, bolt-action Pack-Rifle. The pistol grip clicked in place with the carbon fiber stock, and she reassembled the aluminum barrel. It took only a few seconds to put the weapon together. “One of you want this?”

Shauna gestured to Eric. “I’ve never fired one.”

Meredith thrust it out to Eric. “This works more or less like the twenty-twos you fired in Scouts.” She showed him how to cock it. “It doesn’t have a safety, so watch yourself. Got it?”

“Yeah, got it.” He nodded and took the weapon. At least he was careful enough to keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

“Hopefully, you won’t have to use it.” She screwed on the suppressor to her pistol. “If we run into hostiles, let me act first. The Pack-Rifle isn’t deafening, but it’ll be louder than mine.”

They crept among the trees until the acrid scent of smoke welcomed them to Frederick. Meredith guided them through the foliage to a creek. Trees and bushes covered the edges of the muddy waterway as they followed it to Fort Detrick. Distant howls and yells rent the air. Even the buzz of crickets and cicadas came only in intermittent waves between the inhuman cries and sporadic gunfire. Shauna shrank into Eric as they marched onward.

The bushes ahead of them rustled.

Meredith motioned for them to drop. She sank to the ground, pressing herself into the mud. She trained her pistol on the spot where she thought something—or someone—would burst from the foliage.

A man, looking to be in his late twenties, crashed through. He was far enough away not to have noticed them hiding. Meredith considered calling out to him, but it was impossible to tell whether he was a victim of the Oni Agent or a normal person on the run.

The man splashed through the creek and disappeared beyond the other bank. Crouched, Meredith crept forward with her pistol at the ready. She motioned for Eric and Shauna to follow.

Another inhuman cry exploded to their left. She swiveled and trained her gun to where it had originated.

An unseen woman’s voice yelled out. “Oh, God!” Her cry of alarm devolved into gurgling yells. A brief silence preceded a sound like bones breaking and flesh tearing beyond the bushes flanking the creek. Shrieks echoed from where the woman had called out. There was no doubt the animalistic cries belonged to a pack of Skulls.

“Let’s move!” Meredith said, her command terse. She didn’t want to give Eric and Shauna—or herself—any chance to consider the violent scene beyond the vegetation.

They ran along the creek for some time without meeting other people, Skulls or otherwise. The chorus of hunting cries resounded from beyond the trees. Those howls were soon drowned out by the thwack of helicopter blades. A squadron of choppers sped low overhead, kicking up whirlwinds of leaves around Meredith, Shauna, and Eric. Meredith judged they were close to Fort Detrick. She led them out of the creek and through the forest line. They snuck toward the edge of a road littered with abandoned cars. Using the vehicles as shelter, they crossed a wide tarmac of a school bus depot. A large warehouse towered above the asphalt at the end of the depot’s parking lot.

Meredith pointed to it. “That should give us the view we need. I can scout out a safe path to the base.”

Gunfire sounded from all directions, followed by the howl of Skulls. Meredith’s heart leapt with each sound.

“Then let’s hurry, man,” Eric said, holding the Pack-Rifle close to his chest.

Meredith sprinted to the warehouse. The other two followed. On the opposite end of the lot, a couple of shapes rushed past a streetlight. She watched them until they moved beyond her line of sight and set her pack down. “You two stay here. If you have to, run back to the creek for safety, but try not to go too far. Okay?”

“Understood,” Shauna said as gunfire flashed and cracked near Detrick like distant lighting. She and Eric shrank down.

“I’ll be quick.” Meredith ran to a bus parked near the warehouse. She scrambled up its hood and jumped to the roof.

Her feet ached with the miles of hiking she’d endured, and a dull pain throbbed in her knees. She took a deep breath and ran along the roof of the bus toward the warehouse. At the end, she pushed off. Her hands gripped the edge of the warehouse’s sloping roof. She fought for purchase and pushed up with both feet.

With a grunt, she hoisted herself onto the roof. Once there, she didn’t need her night-vision binos to see the firefight at the fences of Fort Detrick, especially near the gates. But when she did raise the binos, a grisly scene unfolded before her.

Bodies lay strewn about military and civilian vehicles. People scrambled over one another. Some appeared to be trying to get into the military base, probably seeking protection. Others attacked each other, maybe influenced by the Oni Agent or maybe just crazed by desperation. She watched one person dive onto the next and tear at them with their teeth and hands.

Salvos exploded from soldiers stationed around the base. Bullets tore down civilians and what Meredith judged to be people slowly turning into Skulls. Meredith couldn’t tell from her vantage point who was who anymore. The high-caliber rounds tore down the sick and the healthy alike. Her heart sank at the sight. They were already at the point of no return. She knew any data or information the personnel at Detrick might have on the Oni Agent would be secure behind that hail of gunfire. No CIA badge would protect Meredith through that mess.