The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind Read online

  The first Skull reached the vehicle. Huge round plates covered its body, and dozens of spikes sprouted along its vertebrae like blades of grass. Its fists ended in stubby, hammer-like claws. The monster pummeled the window as Frank studied the controls. Two curved joysticks stuck up on either side of him. An additional lever rose on the right side.

  Okay, okay, he said, willing his racing mind to calm. If I can fly, I can damn well drive a bulldozer. How hard can it be?

  He moved the joystick on his right forward, and the front blade lowered. Twisting the joystick side to side pivoted the blade. But that would not get rid of the monster now banging its head against the side door. He manipulated the left joystick. Nothing happened until he twisted it, and the bulldozer rotated.

  Okay, that’s a start...

  The Skull attacking the bulldozer’s door was joined by a second, then a third. More scraped at the cabin. Then Frank grabbed the third stick and pulled it back. A deep rumble growled from the engine, and the bulldozer lurched forward.

  More Skulls descended on him. They climbed over the top of the cabin, peering in with their bloodshot eyes and trying to bite the windows, dragging saliva across the glass. Fractures spiderwebbed on the driver’s-side door. The bulldozer gradually accelerated, but there was no shaking off the monsters already battering the construction vehicle.

  Frank drove toward the gravel road leading from the construction site. He avoided the muddy banks, all too aware that getting stuck would end in his untimely demise. The sound of shattering glass pierced the cabin. Frank ducked as the Skull with stubby claws reached through the broken window and tried to grab him. Holding up the sledgehammer, he blocked the groping fist. The Skull grabbed the handle and whipped the tool away. The monster lost its balance, flopping into the mud as the bulldozer continued forward. Another Skull took its place. This one, far skinnier, had no problem fitting through the broken window. Frank tore out his pistol and fired into the monster’s face. Its eye exploded in a mess of gore, and he kicked it in the chest, knocking the creature backward.

  Only six bullets left—and just as many creatures clinging to the bulldozer.

  Another punched through the window on his right. Frank dodged its arcing claws and hit the steering joystick. One of the treads splashed into the muddy bank beside the gravel road, burying itself almost immediately in the muck, and the bulldozer began to slow down. Frank pistol-whipped the attacking Skull over and over until its horn-rimmed brow shattered and blood seeped between the cracks. He planted a boot in its face to give himself room to aim and fired. The deafening blast slammed into his eardrums.

  His ears rang as he shoved the fresh corpse out. Another two Skulls joined the group fighting to get in. Frank used the pistol to bash the monsters who dared to thrust their heads into the broken windows. Four more gunshots brought down two others.

  One bullet left.

  As the last two Skulls fought each other, shoving and biting to get at him, he wondered if he should save that bullet for himself. Maybe it was better to face the quick bite of lead rather than letting himself be devoured by the Skulls.

  But he’d made a promise long ago that he intended to keep. Dom and the Hunters were relying on him. He couldn’t fail. He clocked one of the Skulls with his gun as he struggled to keep the bulldozer straight on the gravel road. More monsters poured into the path of the bulldozer, and Frank drove straight at them. He used the vehicle’s blade to push them off the road and crushed others underneath. Their bodies broke under the heavy treads, popping like smashed insects.

  A gurgling sound rose above the growls and shrieks of the Skulls being squashed by the bulldozer. It was a noise Frank knew well from his time in the backcountry. Between the Skulls running at the vehicle, Frank saw a skinny one walking with an injured gait straight at the vehicle. Gobs of dark liquid sizzled from its drooping jaw, dripping across its chest and dissolving the armor plates bulwarking its ribs.

  Drooler.

  The creature bent its head backward and let fly a stream of acid.

  -6-

  Nausea boiled through Meredith as she watched the Skulls swarming Dom and Miguel. She, Andris, Terrence, and Jenna still carried the Zodiac between them, sprinting to catch up. Glenn stood his ground, picking off more Skulls as Renee charged ahead.

  Through the comm link, Meredith heard the rushed breathing of the others. She could almost feel their tension. Without a word, they each knew exactly what they were supposed to do now: help Dom and Miguel.

  Dom and Miguel were backed up to the fallen crane, finding shelter amid the latticework. Through her night-vision goggles, Meredith spotted bright-green shapes rushing from the warehouses and decrepit buildings. Most of the Skulls appeared to be coming from upwards of a half mile away, giving them precious minutes to do something, anything to escape the ravenous bastards.

  Her mind raced as she ran. They might have enough time to make it to the warehouse where they’d initially been headed. But that required sprinting across a vast open space until they reached the oil tanks. The Skulls would take notice and corner them before they reached cover.

  As the group approached Dom and Miguel, she could see the concerned looks on the others’ faces.

  A group of almost two dozen Skulls careened over the fallen crane, headed for Dom and Miguel. Meredith let go of the Zodiac and shouldered her rifle in one fluid motion. She sighted up the first Skull and squeezed the trigger, letting a three-round burst fly. The armor-piercing rounds tore through the creature’s bulwarked ribs, and it sprawled forward, tumbling on the asphalt. The other Skulls trampled their wounded comrade.

  Terrence, Jenna, and Andris took up positions, kneeling around the craft and firing at the Skulls. The muffled pop of the suppressed fire and the smell of cordite hung heavy in the air, mixing with the odor of spilled blood as Skull corpses piled up.

  “We got to keep moving!” Dom shouted, breaking the group’s radio silence. “Get the Zodiac over the crane! Cover’s blown! Open fire!”

  Meredith flipped the selector on her rifle to full auto and riddled the oncoming horde with gunfire. Several Skulls fell, but others leapt over their bodies. In less than a minute, the largest packs of Skulls would be on them. The Hunters continued firing desperately as Glenn and Andris struggled with the Zodiac, leveraging it over the fallen crane.

  “We can’t hold ’em off much longer!” Jenna said over the bark of gunfire.

  “We don’t have a choice!” Dom yelled.

  Meredith saw the pained look on his face. She wished they still had Frank on call. The Huntress had a new Huey sitting on board thanks to the Coast Guard, and flying away in a helicopter would be nice right about now. If only they had a pilot, they could soar right over all the rotten skeletal abominations lurking around Soyo.

  But wishes wouldn’t stop the Skulls now.

  More fell under the wall of lead spewing from the Hunters’ rifles, but even more replaced the dead, swelling the ranks of the monsters.

  “Captain, how hard can we go?” Meredith yelled. “Grenades?”

  Dom glanced at the Skulls, then at her. She could tell what he was thinking. Bringing explosives into this battle would ensure every damn Skull in Africa knew where to find them.

  Then again, if they didn’t live through the next five minutes, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  “Do it!” Dom said.

  Meredith loaded a grenade case into her FN40 barrel-mounted grenade launcher. She sighted the closest group of Skulls. The monsters ran clustered together, unaware of their imminent deaths. The grenade flew out of the launcher with a whoomph. It sailed over the fallen crane and slammed into the pavement right in the middle of the Skull pack. A plume of blinding fire flared in Meredith’s NVGs. Skull limbs and chunks of unrecognizable flesh exploded in a display of bloody fireworks. Other grenades whistled through the air, tearing wide swathes from the approaching horde.

  “Good enough!” Dom said. “Move, move, move!”

  Glenn and Andris
were already dragging the Zodiac on the other side of the crane. The others climbed the giant steel structure and followed. Meredith and Renee went over last, covering the group.

  Meredith’s rifle rocked against her shoulder as she peppered another group of Skulls. Five, maybe six perished in the blaze of gunfire, but many more avoided the onslaught of lead.

  “Meredith, Renee!” Dom yelled, beckoning them as they ran between the corpses of freshly killed Skulls toward the oil tanks.

  “We’re coming!” Meredith said. She and Renee sprinted toward the others, but two Skulls were hot on their tail.

  Meredith swiveled and fired. Renee joined in, but the Skulls were too fast and lean. Bullets glanced off their horns and knocked chunks of bones from their arms, but neither Renee nor Meredith landed a fatal blow. The Skulls ran like Olympic sprinters, and Meredith knew there would be no escaping them without a kill shot.

  The first Skull leapt, its arms outstretched. Meredith fired a final volley, and shots plunged into the Skull’s right arm, side, and leg. The thing’s momentum carried it forward. Meredith ducked and slammed the stock of her rifle into the creature’s chin as it soared over her. Metal cracked against bone, and the monster let out a pained grunt as it rolled to the ground.

  In her periphery, Meredith vaguely saw Renee battling with the second Skull. Locked in hand-to-hand combat as they were, the rest of the group wouldn’t dare fire for fear of hurting Meredith or Renee. She heard the heavy footsteps of a Hunter or two rushing back to join the fray, but the Skull attacking her was already on its feet. It raked the air with its claws. She parried its blows with her rifle. The creature roared. The spikes along its wide, fin-like shoulder blades seemed to fan out like some reptilian show of aggression. Meredith panted, trying to catch her breath as the thing forced her back.

  Come on, she thought, hold it together. This isn’t your first rodeo.

  Then she saw it—an opening, and likely the only one she would get. The Skull drew back both its claws, ready to hammer down on her. But she was quicker.

  She jammed the rifle’s barrel into the Skull’s mouth, firing at the same time. Bullets plunged through the monster’s brain. They burst out the back of its head, and its limbs twitched once before going limp. Meredith kicked it away and then ran at the Skull towering over Renee.

  Over the comm link, she heard some order issued by Dom, but adrenaline and instinct had reduced her world to a single pinpoint, her focus only on saving Renee. The assaulting Skull had one claw embedded in Renee’s body armor near her collar. The other claw came back as it readied for a debilitating blow. Renee flailed, trying to lash out at the monster, but her hands were empty. Her rifle lay useless nearby, its strap slashed.

  The Skull’s claw swung down.

  Meredith jumped.

  Her shoulder crashed against the Skull’s side, and the monster fell backward, its left claw still stuck in Renee’s fatigues. But the right claw missed, slicing through empty air instead. The monster swiveled. Its cracked lips drew back in a fearsome snarl.

  But not for long. Meredith bashed her rifle into its fangs, hitting it again and again until the teeth fell from its mouth in bloodied shards. The repeated blows dazed the creature, preventing it from so much as growling. Another heavy bash knocked it out for good, and its skull cracked against the asphalt. Meredith fired straight into the monster’s face, not leaving anything to chance, then twisted to Renee. She slung her rifle over her back as Andris and Glenn joined her side.

  “You okay?” Meredith yelled, grabbing Renee’s tac vest and removing the dead Skull’s claw from it.

  “Never better!” Rivulets of blood streamed across Renee’s face. “Thanks.”

  “You can keep your thanks for when you save my ass later,” Meredith said. “For now, let’s move!”

  ***

  The monsters were closing in from all sides, but Dom still had one ace up his sleeve.

  He hailed Thomas aboard the Huntress as he raced toward the Zodiac and the rest of the group. He hopped over a small crater in the asphalt then bounded past the skeletal remains of a man wearing shredded green jungle fatigues.

  “You want to send some smoke our way?” Dom asked.

  “The grenade launcher clip has been changed,” Thomas’s gruff voice reported back.

  Dom shouldered his rifle and delivered a burst of fire into an approaching squad of Skulls. The leader of the group went down hard in an explosion of broken bone and blood. Its corpse tripped the other three, and Dom took advantage of their mishap by riddling their flanks with bullets.

  “Fire when ready, Thomas!”

  For a moment, nothing changed. Suppressed gunfire pumped from the Hunters’ weapons, Skulls howled, bony plates rattled, claws clicked on asphalt, and the rotten-meat odor of the creatures wafted on the hot air.

  Then a low whistle sounded overhead. Something crashed into the crane. Another whistle, and another crash, this time in the crater. More heavy thuds echoed across the tarmac. The projectiles began to hiss, and tendrils of dark smoke floated up. Gray fog soon blanketed the scene. Dom mouthed a silent thank-you to the engineers back on the Huntress who’d ensured the ship’s remaining grenade launcher had been restored to full functionality.

  “Don’t stop!” Dom ordered. “Go, go, go!”

  Miguel and Dom covered the others as they hoisted the Zodiac, and the group dashed toward the oil tanks. The dense smokescreen would obscure even their vision, and Dom ordered them to turn on infrared filters. He flicked a switch on his own goggles, and the world lit up in hues of orange, red, blue, and green.

  A red shape hurtled at him, unseen with his normal night vision. The blow knocked him on his back as a Skull with a linebacker’s build pounced at him. He scrambled backward then rolled as the Skull’s bladelike claws struck the ground where he’d been moments before.

  More movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Miguel was running to assist him, but Dom spotted something else sporting long talons and shoulder blades that spread from its back like the wings of a deadly bird of prey.

  “Miguel! Watch out!” Dom yelled.

  The Hunter turned in time to engage the monster, but Dom didn’t have time to watch the outcome of the battle. The linebacker Skull was still hunting him. Its head twitched as it stuck its nose in the air. Dom froze. The thing couldn’t see him through the smoke, so it relied on sound and scent. He slowly brought his rifle up and aimed at the creature. His pulse thumped in his eardrums. He hoped the Skull couldn’t hear his heavy heartbeat as he squeezed the trigger. Rounds lanced into the monster, and it clutched its belly for a moment before lurching forward, lashing out blindly. Dom pulled the trigger again, and more bullets punched into the Skull. It fell, and Dom rushed to assist Miguel.

  But the others hauling the Zodiac had already ended Miguel’s struggle with the other Skull. The monster lay dead atop its broken wings. The group limped onward, navigating through the smokescreen with the Zodiac between them. Huge cylindrical shapes rose around them—the oil tanks. A few Skulls emerged from the haze but were quickly cut down by waves of gunfire.

  “Give us more cover,” Dom said over the comm link.

  “You got it, Captain,” Thomas replied.

  Soon more hissing canisters thumped around them. The cacophony of howling Skulls sounded farther and farther away with each hard-won step. They made it past the oil tanks and sprinted toward the wide-open door of one of the warehouses. Inside were several dry-docked sailing craft, tools strewn across the concrete floor, and various barrels and oil drums standing in precipitous stacks. The acrid scent of spilled oil and gas drifted in the humid air, and congealing diesel clung to the bottom of Dom’s boots. He twisted and fired at a mechanism holding the warehouse door open. The door rolled on its tracks and slammed to the concrete, closing them off from the hordes outside.

  But the hair on the back of his neck still prickled. He sensed something staring at him, stalking him. Between the piles of miscellaneous
repair equipment and steel crates, Dom spied a single red shape standing before them.

  A huge shape.

  “Goliath!” he yelled.

  -7-

  The Drooler’s spray splashed over the front of the bulldozer, and Frank ducked instinctively. Acid oozed down the glass, sticking to the uneven surface of cracks. Frank peered through the mess and grabbed the controls on either side of him. Pulling the throttle back, he accelerated and steered straight at the skinny Drooler. The thing lurched forward, a horror of melted skin and singed bone plates, dragging one foot with a limping gait.

  “Buddy, you ain’t winning this battle,” Frank said.

  He smiled despite the Skulls still clinging to the bulldozer’s side. As the bulldozer approached the Drooler, he lowered the blade and crushed the creature into the mud. The heavy treads rolled over its corpse. The monster popped like a water balloon, and acid splashed the nearby Skulls. The creatures reeled and swatted at the corrosive liquid dissolving their bony armor and eating through their flesh.

  One stubborn Skull clung to the right side of the dozer, scraping its claws along the glass, desperate to get in.

  “Damn, you Latter Day Saints people are way too pushy,” Frank said as he swung the door open, knocking the Skull off-balance. The creature slopped into the muddy bank by the road. It lifted its claws, trying to drag itself out, but it would never catch him now.

  A host of Skulls trailed the bulldozer. Some hobbled pathetically on limbs broken after being run over, but there were plenty more that had escaped the dozer’s tracks. Frank judged he had only a few minutes before they’d reach him.

  Frank patted the pistol stuck in his waistband. He still had one bullet. One final bullet against a hundred Skulls, maybe more.