The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (40 page)

I aimed and finished off the second creature, by that time Jade had fired his gun again.

“Fuck, Reaver… there is three of them to the east, they’re all around us,” Jade called, his voice raising an octave. “Where the fuck did they come from?”

I looked around and felt my heart rise into my throat. Just in one direction I could see five of them crawling out of the windows, like spiders running out of a crack in the wall. They were way too good at scaling the side of the buildings for my comfort; they seemed to be quicker on the walls than on the ground.

“Reaver?” Perish’s voice suddenly called. He sounded far away at least a good block. We needed to meet up and find that fucking entrance to the lab and quickly.

I tasted the air as I started to take several steps towards Perish’s voice. The air had gotten colder and I could see shadows start to take shape from the towering buildings. It was going to be dark in an hour and I realized they were nocturnal animals. We had to hide and now before this town started swarming with them.

“We’re coming!” Jade yelled. He raised his gun and quickly shot two more creatures off of the building. I threw him a round and finished off my last several bullets and refilled my own.

“I see six a block up, should I take them out?” Jade asked. He was keeping pace with me; his hand gliding up and down his gun as he loaded the rounds with the ease of an expert. The Morosians were good with their firearms it seemed; either that or one of the chimeras had trained him.

“Stay near me and don’t be a fucking hero. Perish and I are immortal, you and Killian are not,” I said. I felt Jade’s motoring heartbeat a pace behind me. “Protect Killian and yourself, that’s your orders, Cicaro.”

Jade suddenly gave a startled yell. I turned around just in time to see one of the lizard men land on the pavement dangerously close to him. It looked at the two of us with its sparkling black eyes and let out a nasally snarl, baring its rows of pointed teeth at us with a hiss.

I pushed Jade out of the way and with the butt of my gun I hit the creature right in its jaw. The lizard man snarled and snapped at him, its now dislocated jaw slacked

I hit it again, making it fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs and gnashing teeth. The next blow I delivered split its skull almost in half.

I spat on it and turned back around before noticing I had knocked Jade onto the ground. The cicaro was holding his forehead, a small trickle of blood making a thin river down the concave of his cheek bone.

I raised him to his feet and thrusted his assault rifle back into his hand.

The cicaro looked around and gasped. “Fuck, they’re everywhere…”

I turned around and felt the bile rise in my stomach.

They
were
everywhere. I looked behind me and could see at least three of them, continuing to crawl out of the windows of the looming, and now dauntingly tall and exposed, buildings. They weren’t so fast that we couldn’t out run them but they had the numbers advantage on us.

No more fucking around, no more shooting them. We had to get the boys and fuck off.

“We need to run and now,” I said. I grabbed onto Jade’s shoulder and pushed the boy towards the road that would lead us to Perish and Killian.

Jade stumbled a bit but started running full speed towards the road. I was right behind him, but I ran backwards, mentally trying to determine how long it would take for each of the snarling, abominations to come too close for comfort.

As I ran, I started to notice a lot of the creatures swarming where Jade and I had been. It was when one of the creatures raised a bloodstained, deformed face that I realized they were eating the dead.

“What the fuck are those things?” Jade’s shrill voice suddenly sounded. I was about to tell him to shut up when he heard Perish answer back.

“Human komodo dragons, and yes I did create them, I’m sorry!” Perish gasped, out of breath. I ran to Killian and gave him a quick once over, but besides a racing heart and a terrified expression he seemed fine. Behind him Deek was driving off the ones behind them, where the lab was supposed to be.

“Where is this fucking lab?” I snapped. I whirled around as I heard the familiar sandpaper sound, and took aim at one peeking its scaled grey head through a broken window. With a shot in its neck, it fell down silently and landed twenty feet away from us with a sickening thud. I grinded my teeth as I saw several others lurking in an alleyway, their eyes glowed in the darkness.

“Follow me, it isn’t far,” Perish said, before he turned and started to run. “They’re not fast, they’re ambush predators, but there are many of them… they… they’re very successful breeders. I didn’t think that Silas would release them here.”

“Is the city full of them?” Killian asked as Jade’s gun went off. “They’re fucking everywhere, watch the wind-”

Suddenly Jade screamed. I whirled over to see one of the creatures jumping off of him. The lizard man snatched Jade’s duster in its teeth and started dragging him away.

I kicked the grey-skinned creature in its face. It fell backwards, its arms and legs flailing like a tipped over croach.

I drew my combat knife and slashed its throat before turning to grab Jade. To my anger another one had taken its place, it yanked and pulled Jade away as the cicaro screamed bloody murder. Both Perish and Killian had their backs turned, firing round after round into the half-dozen creatures sneaking up on us like a tidal wave.

I shot the one on Jade in the head and pulled the cicaro to his feet. “Perish, show us where it is, run!” I pushed Jade as another creature fell from the window, kicking it in its head before throwing the snapping, slit-eyed monster against the wall. They were surprisingly light and their bones seemed brittle.

“There is a manhole cover, a block up. It’s marked with
Skytech
in white paint, under is a ladder,” Perish said, before he fired off several rounds behind me.

A block up? We had to hurry, the night was sweeping the city with a fast pace and I knew from Donnely the darkness would wait for no one. I grabbed Killian’s arm and hit Jade’s back as I turned to make a break for it.

Suddenly I felt something slam into me with such a force it almost brought me to my knees.

I felt an angry snarl spill from my lips as the creature dug its long fingers into my shoulders before sinking needle-sharp teeth into my head. I thrashed around wildly, trying to throw the creature off of me; I could hear Killian frantically screaming something to Perish.

I could smell its rotting breath as its teeth gnashed against my skull. I tried to slam it up against one of the buildings but before I found my bearings a gunshot rang. One that was so close to my ears I was surprised I could still hear at all.

The creature went limp and fell off of me. I immediately turned to Killian but he wasn’t there.

“Jade has him, run, fucking run, dumbass!” Perish yelled.

I stopped and stared at him for a moment.

Perish looked at me annoyed, an expression he had never held for me before. He reached over and pulled out one of my clips and slammed it into his gun, before he held it up to his face and started shooting.

“Their bones are hollow. Leave it to me to make a point to make them light for sideways travel, I never thought it would come back and bite me in the ass.” Perish shook his head and gave a shrug before he started letting out more clips.

Even in the chaos a chill went up my spine. The manic, busy movements, the hyper, rapid voice was gone.

He sounded… sane.

My attention turned when I heard a scrape of a manhole cover. I saw Jade jump in but Killian lingered.

“Hurry!” Killian called. The deacdog was still driving off the lizards with a chest rattling growl and his hackles raised making him appear even bigger than he was.

I could hear the nasally snarls and snaps of the creatures behind me. I tried to look up but was surprised to see that I couldn’t, blood was now flowing freely down my face and into my eyes.

Okay, they’re safe.
I turned my attention away from them and started sniping the lizards as soon as they spilled from the alleyways and shops of the buildings around us; Perish beside me hitting the reptiles with flawless accuracy.

“Perish…” This was a long shot but I had nothing to loose. “Are you a chimera?”

The scientist gave me a puzzled look, his gun still on his shoulders. His eyes jutted back to the scope before he fired a round off, an echoing crack ricocheting off of the tall buildings.

“Of course I am.”

“Were you born in a lab? Like the rest of us?”

I saw his eyebrow twitch; he shot the gun and a moment later he swore. I looked over and saw a pack of at least half a dozen, running as quickly as their deformed limbs could. More were crawling over the crumbling buildings, creeping down to the surface at angles that seemed to defy gravity.

“This isn’t really the damn place, Merrik.” Perish swore and ran ahead. I could hear Killian screaming at us to hurry; I had to get information from him though.

“Jade close the cover, we’ll be right there,” I called behind my shoulder and ran after Perish. Obediently and to Killian’s continuous shrieks the cicaro listened. I heard the manhole cover scrape before it landed with a clunk.

Perish had his large knife in one hand with the assault rifle tucked under his other arm. With a whoop that surprised even me he started picking off every one of them.

But he was still Perish… I grabbed my own knife and charged at a lizard-human. Right as the little fucker was sneaking up on the scientist I kicked it down with my boot and drove the knife into its head.

Wiping my own blood away I kicked a second one away, just as a large-headed one took a chomp out of Perish’s thigh.

The scientist didn’t even scream; he growled at it with clenched teeth and raised his hand to hit it with the butt of his knife. The creature’s mouth snapped open and it fell backwards with a flail of limbs.

“Perish, think, what’s your earliest memory?” I said as I slammed my boot down on the creature’s head. My eyes scanned every direction and I noticed the first tinges of my night vision, it illuminated the insides of the buildings.

My heart jumped into my throat, the building windows were alive like wounds chocked with maggots. I could see the pale creatures writhing and pacing the windows, waiting for the darkness to fall so they could trickle out like water.

I hit Perish in the arm and both of us started to fall back. Our guns lowered but our knives ready. No time to waste shooting them now; we really had to get the fuck out of there.

“I… I… don’t know, Reaver.” Perish’s voice was laboured, his face was taxed and I knew he was trying hard. I looked ahead, ignoring the churning mixture of anxiety and inquisitiveness in my stomach. I wanted to remain up here to drill Perish but I was also walking a tightrope. The only reason I was still out here was because we were both immortal. The mortal boys were safe inside, which was all that mattered.

I wiped the blood away from my eyes and bent down to lift the manhole cover and decided to try one last time.

“Think… Perish… earliest memory? Anything… what do you remember?”

Perish sighed, his light-coloured eyes squinting under his furrowed brow. He raised his left arm and dropped it as we pulled the manhole cover back.

“Fuck, Reaver. My own O.L.S holds a pretty important chunk of my brain. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted. That little fucker is long gone.”

O.L.S? The device Elish had mentioned to me; the one that also held Sky’s brain piece.

I stared at him, my fingers frozen around the cover. “Silas cut out your brain? Why? What didn’t he want you to know?”

“Sky, he didn’t want me to remember Sky.”

A flash of grey swept past my vision, and a split second later Perish was gone. Without thinking I grabbed my combat knife and lunged as the creature thrashed around, Perish’s head snapping with it.

I heard his neck break.

Chapter 14

Killian

I stuck close to Jade and found myself grabbing onto his arm. Not because I was expecting him to start running down the sewer we had just found ourselves in, but because I couldn’t see a thing. I was the only non-chimera here and because of that curse my entire world at this moment was pitch black.

The sounds of gunfire were deafening outside, and with the occasional scream of the lizards it all blended together into an all consuming assault on my senses. I wanted it to end, I wanted Reaver and Perish safe below in the sewers, but was it safe?

I felt the pet’s warm skin tighten between my death grip. “What’s inside of here? I can’t see a thing.”

Jade’s breathing was quick but not bordering on hyperventilating like my own. I felt his hand on mine, and a low whisper. “The walls here are damp brick, and further on I can see it turns into two different directions. It’s quiet down here; I don’t think there is anything down here but us.”