The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (13 page)

“All walkers and runners accounted for, sir,” Masters said. “Teams deployed as ordered, and all REAPR modules are functioning. No one’s gonna have to sit this one out.”

“Good. I don’t want any repeats of Doralville.”

Masters snorted. “No, sir. Jones still bitches about that, sir.”

“I would too if I’d had to sit on my ass in the Stryker for seven hours.”

“Yes, sir.” Masters held a hand to his ear, then looked at Reynolds. “Sir, Echo reports they’ve deployed the first of the secondary sensors.”

Reynolds grunted but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the report. He still wasn’t convinced with this new REAPR upgrade. The techs had designed the “secondary sensors” to extend the range of the REAPRs’ operability. This allowed them to function in a much more expanded support role. With their range increased tenfold, the REAPRs could use mortars, good for long-distance bombardment of targets. Often, they used high-explosive or incendiary rounds to maximize the destruction.

“Charlie and Delta teams report ready, sir.”

Reynolds nodded. “Very well, send them in.”

“Charlie, Delta, go, go, go.”

Reynolds watched from the back ramp of Stryker One as the closest team, Delta, kicked open the door of a small convenience store. He could just hear them coordinating their sweep as they moved inside, and even that faded. There were a few shots from both sides of the street, and Reynolds poked his head into the Stryker to listen.

“Charlie Three, walker down.”

“Delta Two, walker down.”

“Hey, did you hear that?” one soldier said. “Sounded like a baby crying.”

“No, wait—”

“Oh, shit! Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Get it off me, man, get it—” The transmission ended with a scream of pain, and Reynolds closed his eyes. He knew what was coming and walked around the side of the Stryker with Masters in tow.

There was a sharp, loud blast. A shotgun, devastating in the confined space of the store. Delta team exited the structure on the south side of the street, and Masters jogged over. He held a whispered conversation with the wounded soldier, who was pale and holding one hand over the other. There was blood everywhere. Masters motioned for the man to follow him and ordered the remaining members of Delta team to continue with their task.

Reynolds sighed. It hadn’t even been an hour. Not even thirty minutes. He was going to have a chat with the training staff when he returned, and they were not going to enjoy it.

“Sir, we have a Code White,” Masters said as he brought the wounded soldier forward.

Reynolds read the name stitched into the man’s uniform. WALLIS. “XO, get me a QC pack from the medkit.”

“Yes, sir,” Masters said and moved to the rear of the Stryker.

“Corporal, you have a choice to make,” Reynolds said. The young man was shaking. “I know you know that, and we’ll talk about it in a minute, but first, tell me what happened.”

“It was a fucking baby, sir!”

“A baby, Corporal?”

“Well, a toddler, anyway. I heard what sounded like crying from behind a door, and when I opened it, this little kid came rushing at me, sir. He knocked me off balance, and I fell over. I was trying to push him away and he… He took my finger, sir.”

Reynolds looked down as the corporal gestured with his hand. “He bit it off?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief despite having lived through it.

Masters returned with a small foil packet marked
QuickClot
. He ripped it open, grabbed the corporal’s mangled and bloody hand, and thrust it into the packet. True to its name, the clotting agent worked quite fast, sealing off the blood vessels in his ruined hand. But it was by no means pain free.

“Son a bitch!” the corporal screamed. “Fuck, that hurts!”

Masters made sure the wound was no longer bleeding, then took his canteen and rinsed the stump. He wound a bandage around what was left of the digit and wondered what had happened to all the stone-cold badasses he used to work with.

“You’ve taken care of the walker?” Reynolds asked as he looked at Masters.

His husband nodded. “Wallis here did that for us. Splattered the damn thing all over the wall.”

“Walkers don’t cry, Corporal,” Reynolds said, crossing his arms. “And there haven’t been any babies in Eatonville since before you were born.”

“Dammit, I know that. It was just instinct. Might’ve been more of a moan, but it was high-pitched. Weirdest damn thing—”

“You know the procedure for a Code White.”

Wallis blanched and took a step back. “But it’s… I don’t even feel…”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, son.”

“You’re fucking
sorry
? You want me to kill myself, and you’re sorry?”

“I don’t want that, Corporal, and you know it. But it’s that or…”

Masters unholstered his sidearm. The Velcro closure made a distinct ripping sound as it pulled apart.

Wallis glanced at the captain and licked his lips. “I see your point.”

“I thought you might. Do the right thing, son. Get back in the fight for as long as you have.”

“It’s a bitch, ain’t it? Just too bad for ol’ Wallis that the treatments weren’t ready yet. It wouldn’t have mattered then.” Wallis reached into the top pocket of his ACU and withdrew a small plastic box with two small, white pills. “We wouldn’t even need these anymore.”

Neither Reynolds nor Masters said anything more, but both looked at the young man with compassion and more than a little sadness.

Wallis sighed, popped the box open, and swallowed the pills in a single gulp. “I’ve heard it’s like floating, sir. Is that true? You don’t feel anything?”

Reynolds nodded. “That’s what they tell me, son. You’ll be stronger and faster, and you won’t feel the pain in your hand.”

“Good. Might as well go out fighting, right?”

Reynolds nodded and looked at Masters. “Captain, do you have a screamer on you?”

“Yes, sir,” he said and took one from a pocket to hand to the corporal.

Reynolds looked back at Wallis. “Set your watch. Give it thirty minutes, then run. Find a good spot and activate it. Take as many of them with you as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

Masters took the soldier’s weapon from his back where he’d slung it and held it out for the man to take once more.

The corporal checked the weapon’s action, then turned to face Reynolds. He came to attention and saluted. “It’s been an honor, sir.”

Reynolds returned the salute, then shook the man’s good hand. “Go get ‘em, soldier.”

Masters and Reynolds watched him haul ass to find Delta, where he joined back up with them as they exited another building. Without turning, Reynolds spoke. “Not even an hour, Adrian. Not even one fucking hour.”

“I know. It was bound to happen, though.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“No, no, it doesn’t.” Masters sighed. “I liked that guy.”

“Me too,” Reynolds said. “Let’s make sure he’s the last, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

Staging Area
Outside Eatonville, Washington

Wallis wasn’t the last to die that day.

“Blake, you got anything?” Lieutenant Marquez asked, his voice barely above a whisper in the afternoon quiet. Or what should have been quiet. Except for the noise the civilians were making as they re-cataloged and reorganized the supplies. Even though they’d cataloged and organized it before setting out.

Eden knew everyone was testy, waiting to hear back from Reynolds and his team. She had every confidence in ExForce’s second-in-command, but even so… Well, patience had never been her strongest virtue.

“Negative, no contacts,” she replied and clenched her jaw to keep from yawning. She’d been in the same spot for three hours since her squad’s last positional rotation. Same bushes, same trees, same silence.
Wait, what?
She perked up and paid closer attention. There was no such thing as absolute silence in these ruins unless there was a predator around.

She listened close and knew something was up. Not a sound coming from the woods encroaching on the old parking lot. All the noise was from the civilians. The rank odor of rotting meat floated to her from out of the lengthening shadows, and she knew what it was. She’d only smelled something that foul one other time.

She pulled her camouflage facemask up around her nose and mouth. It was more to block the scent than to provide concealment. She sank lower in the seat of the rusted-out SUV she’d chosen as her lookout. Tinted windows let her see out without others seeing in. It was the perfect spot for a Hunter. Eden glanced to either side, her eyes never resting long on any one spot as she looked for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that didn’t belong. Anything that… There. A shadow among shadows.

She squinted against the setting sunlight, bright enough even through the tint to mask her vision somewhat. She brought her binocs up and shielded them from reflections. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw clearly what she’d only half-glimpsed in the light.

One of the monsters her parents had warned her of, one of the Drie-somethings. No wonder the birds, insects, and whatever else was out there had gone quiet. This was death walking, evil incarnate. She realized she hadn’t reported in yet and touched her throat mic to turn it on. She subvocalized to avoid being heard.

“Contact. Driebach, thirty yards and closing.”

“Come on, Blake. Don’t bullshit us. You know better.”

“Fine, LT, you can come collect my body when this one kills me.” She raised her rifle and sighted in on the monster as it crept closer to the civilians. She might need two shots if the first was diverted at all by the breaking side window as the bullet blew it out.

“I have a shot,” she said.

“Do not take that shot! Wait for backup. Giuliani, Sampson, get over there. Fontana, you’re with me. We need to corral the civs.”

There was no way she’d let this one bite one of the civs, not when she had the chance to take it out. Fuck Marquez and his bullshit. Eden knew that waiting for backup on one of these things was standard procedure, but she also knew that he’d jump in her shit whether she pulled the trigger or not. The corporal knew what she was looking at, and thirty yards was plenty close enough. She had this thing dead to rights, so to speak. Eden could see the red dot from her scope on the side of its head, glowing against its black hood. It was now or never.

If she hadn’t braced against the driver’s side door, the recoil from the rifle would’ve killed her shoulder in her reverse-prone position. Firing between her feet wasn’t something she’d learned in Hunter training. As she’d guessed, the first shot was deflected by the glass, though it did rip away the monster’s hood. The second shot followed the first in a matter of a second. It tore off the creature’s jaw in a gruesome shower of gore as it jerked backward from the impact of the first shot.

“Fuck!” she said by reflex and then went pale as the monster turned toward her.
Oh shit.

She had another round in the chamber and was pulling the trigger even as the zombie started running toward her. Its speed was even greater than the one she’d fought previously. Her third shot missed wide. The fourth, at no more than twenty yards, maybe fifteen, hit the Driebach in the thigh. It spun the monster around and threw it off balance to the ground.

It was up in seconds, running again, but Eden couldn’t see it. The recoil from her last shot had been too much for the decades-old hinges of the driver’s side door. She was dumped on her back on the ground as the door came off the SUV. She got a nasty knock to the head from a rock for her trouble, but she knew she couldn’t let it slow her down or she was dead.

Being immune didn’t mean she was immortal.

She’d managed to hold onto the rifle as she fell, thanks to her training, but it was that training that might kill her. She let go of the larger gun and scrabbled for her sidearm. The Springfield XD .40-caliber pistol fit well into her hand. Its stopping power was enough to take out even the insanity that was on its way to kill and eat her.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Eden muttered. “Should’ve waited for fucking backup. Dammit!”

She brought herself up into a crouch, put her back against the driver’s side front tire, and listened. There was a thump on the other side of the car and an eerie, haunting cross between a scream and a moan. She glanced left, then moved right and swung around the front corner of the truck, prepared to unload her whole clip into the monster’s face. It was just then that she felt fingers in her hair, grasping tight and pulling her upward. The motion wrenched her head back and exposed her long throat. It also gave her a clear view of the horror that had climbed onto the SUV’s hood.

The female Driebach looked down at her and smiled its ghastly smile. “So you’re Blake, then? I’ve been wanting to meet you. We’ve had much discussion about you and your Hunters. Mainly about how you’d taste.” The monster licked its lips and smiled again.

In that moment, Eden Blake was sure she was going to die.

The crack of a rifle shot from one of her teammates proved her wrong as it blew the smile right off the monster’s face and splattered bone and brain matter all over her and the vehicle. She dropped to the ground hard, and another rock introduced itself to a somewhat more delicate part of her anatomy. She cursed again.

“Blake, you okay?” Sampson asked over her earpiece, which, by some minor miracle, was still in her ear.

She nodded, then realized they needed some sort of voice recognition as well. “Banged up but alive.”

“Good. I’d hate to—” There was another scream, this one distinctly human. A shot fired wild over her head. She ducked, then looked over to the position Sampson must have taken to make the shot that saved her.

There was an incline, and out of the SUV, she couldn’t see him. She was out of position. She ran back around the front of the truck and bent to grab her rifle on the move. The hill wasn’t that steep, but it was just enough to keep Sampson out of the line of sight. There was another scream and a gunshot.

She ran faster.

Giuliani arrived at the gory scene on the edge of the hill at the same time she did. Neither were prepared for what they found.