Monsters of the Apocalypse (24 page)

Miho arrived in October's office
just as he'd begun his dinner of lo mein. He struggled with the
chopsticks and the slippery noodles.

"They tell me you went to
the mainland. What were you doing there, Miho?"

"There was a rumor that
Bragg and the survivors are living in the tunnels under Los Angeles, sir."

"And?" October said as
a selection of noodles slipped helplessly through the sticks, away from his
mouth.

"It's true."

"Under our noses?
Under our noses! We can't allow that, Miho!"

"There's over a hundred
miles of tunnels under that city, sir. To clear them out would take a
willing ground force that we don't have. Even if we had enough soldiers,
which I'm not confident we do, they're not going to be happy about the order to
go systematically through the tunnels of L.A. killing humans whose only crime
is not dying when we told them to."

"We have bombs and missiles
then!" October screamed while throwing down the chopsticks in frustration.

"To blow up the underground
you'd have to decimate the city. Los Angeles is one of the only cities
that isn't so radioactive that it's unlivable. It would be a poor choice
to nuke it given our hopes of returning to the mainland in the next
decade."

"But… what… we should just
let them live there?!"

"Well, I have good news on
that point, Mr. President. Our drones have picked up something
recently."

Miho passed over the satellite
images.

"What am I looking at,
Miho?"

"Those are print-outs of
pictures taken by one of our satellites. You are looking at an army of
mutants heading toward Los Angeles."

"An army of mutants? An
army, Miho?"

"It would appear so."

"But… we made that up."

"Well, we seem to have given
them ideas."

"Them we can kill!"

"No. Not yet. We
let them live. They get here and they clean out our tunnels."

"Then we have mutant
tunnels, how's that better?"

"Tunnels full of man-eating
mutants will get you the willing ground force you're looking for.
Especially after the army hears that the mutants have killed Nestor
Bravo."

"They have?"
October froze, his hands placed on the side of the bowl, midway to his mouth.

"No. We are going to,
but we're going to make it look like they did. Remember?"

October placed the bowl down on
the table and leaned back, a satisfied look on his face.

"Yes… yes I see it. I
gave them the idea to create an army. I came up with the idea to frame
them for Nestor's murder. Once Nestor is dead and the feed is no longer
broadcast, the Mutant Army finishes off the last of the human survivors and
then The Island's military heroically wipes this monstrous scourge from the
face of the planet - and we win. I did that. Didn't I?"

"You did that, sir, you
win," Miho said handing the President a fork.

When they
came to the river it was clear that they would not be able to ford it. It
was too high and too cold. The bridge loomed dark on the horizon to the
south, but it still stood. Nestor spat into the water and stared at the
bridge. He sat down on the ground and lit a cigarette while Caleb
nervously ate a piece of beef jerky that he occasionally broke apart and shared
with the wolf. The wolf ate the jerky as she sat on her haunches and
occasionally growled at the bridge, her nostrils working in the wind.
Nestor listened to the water.

"Listen,
girl, that bridge may have all sorts of things up there. It might get
bad. If you walk away now I won't think any less of you," Nestor
said to the wolf as she looked at him, a single eyebrow raised.

"Um…
what about me, Nestor? Can I walk away?"

"No,
Caleb. There are mutants on that bridge, maybe a lot of them. I
need back up. I need you to use the sniper rifle, up there, on that
building's rooftop. You should have a good line of fire from there."

"You
sure?"

The wolf
growled and wagged her tail twice. Nestor nodded and flicked his
cigarette butt into the water and stood up.

"Okay.
Let's go."

They walked
slowly, the river roaring to their right. She sensed the men's
anticipation and pricked up her ears, her eyes never still.

"Don't
bother worrying, girl," Nestor whispered as he watched Caleb move up ahead
holding the sniper rifle at his side. "He's a good shot now.
Anyway, we have no choice but to cross the bridge. There are no trees in
this part of the country to build a raft with. When you got no choice but
to move forward or turn back, there ain't no point wondering or worrying."

She growled
as they entered the building.

Nestor
leaned on the roof's edge as Caleb got into position and adjusted his scope.

"You
see anything?"

"Yeah.
It's not good. Mutants, lots of them, but they seem pretty laid
back. I could shoot some of them right now if you want, Nestor."

"Then
they'll get ready, I'm sort of counting on drawing them out and then using
surprise. You hold off until I've started shooting."

Caleb stood
up and looked into the distance at either horizon.

"You
wanna try up or down the river somewhere else, Nestor?"

"No, if
there was somewhere else they wouldn't be waiting here."

"Well,
we could back track and…"

"There's
a bunch of mutants behind us."

"You
didn't mention that earlier."

"Didn't
see any reason to upset you."

"Aw,
Nestor, that's so sweet. Thanks for caring. Okay, any last
advice?"

"Yeah,
don't shoot me. Try and shoot them. Don't shoot me."

Caleb
smiled, lay down on his stomach and took aim.
Nestor and the wolf headed toward the door that
led to the stairwell. Her growl was loud and deep enough that it vibrated
through Nestor's chest.

"What
was that last part, Nestor? Did you say
to
shoot you or
not to
shoot you?"

Nestor
laughed and let the door close behind him.

Dead cars
lined the bridge. They walked the white lines in between them staying
low. They both could smell the dead rotting bodies inside the cars, but
didn't bother to look at them. They both moved forward.
Ready. She stopped and growled, the hair on her neck rising. Nestor
dropped to his knee, listening. He kept one of his Colt 1911's pointed
dead ahead. The other he kept in a holster on his belt. He held
extra clips in all of his pockets. He glanced out the side of his eye to
follow where she was looking, but he failed to see anything.

He held
still and listened to the river, he counted her panting breaths till he reached
a hundred. Neither of them moved. They knew how to be
patient. They knew how to hunt.

Nestor
stayed low and moved forward. He moved to the left side of a burnt out
car and pointed to the right, she followed his direction silently. They
moved forward, quickly and low, until she stopped short and they both froze.

He rose up
slightly more and saw that the mutants were moving forward on her side, the far
right of the bridge. They must have smelled them. He guessed the
only reason they weren't charging was because the wolf smell, mixed with his,
had them confused.

He crawled
around the front of the car and moved forward. He rose up as he
approached the mutants, their attention on the river, on his diagonal. He
opened fire. Three shots hit three of them, all fatal. He broke to
his left, drawing their attention as the first of Caleb's shots hit one of them
in the eye. They moved in Nestor's direction with panic as he reloaded,
aimed and fired, killing two with two shots. That’s when they heard her
roar. Before they could turn, she pounced on the one on the far right,
ripping out his throat, freezing them in confusion and terror. Nestor
jumped onto the hood of the car in front of him for a clear shot, she was a
blur and he couldn't risk missing them and hitting her. He squeezed slow
and steady. From a distance Caleb did the same. One after another
the mutants fell to tooth, claw and bullet.

In the calm
that followed, Nestor rotated with watchful eyes while she finished them off on
the ground. He released his empty clip and then glanced back and waved at
the distant Caleb, who quickly packed up the rifle and headed down from the
rooftop. As Caleb disappeared from view, Nestor turned back and saw the
second wave of mutants charge forward. He'd never seen so many mutants in
one place.

"Shit."

"So you're telling me that
hitting an arctic wolf in the face doesn't cause him to kill you in your
sleep? That seems like you should end up with your throat being opened by
large teeth, but instead, Nestor makes a wolf friend," October
sighed. "So unfair, he's so lucky. Where is the platoon?"

"West of Nestor.
Waiting," Miho said checking her screen.

"Waiting for what? Why
don't they charge in and do it already?"

"It's a trap, sir. We
have to wait for him to walk into it. Numbers are our advantage, but only
in an ambush out in the open. In a city or suburban environment Nestor
could get the high ground and pick our men off. He is Nestor Bravo after
all. We project him to enter the trap in a day or two at most."

October nodded, biting into
another hot dog. The mustard spilled onto his shirt, but he didn't
notice. His focus was still on the screen, his thoughts still fixated on
the narrow precipice of his own terrifying power.

"Everything is going to
plan, sir. The Mutant Army is close now. They march endlessly, all
day and all night. Survivors are fleeing before them, which means they
aren't just going to clean out our tunnels, but perhaps the entire country as
well. Stay patient, Mr. President."

Nestor
dropped the second gun when the clip ran out and threw his knife. He ran
forward and pulled his knife from the throat of the dead mutant and spun around
to see the wolf leap into the air and rip the throat out of another
mutant. Behind the wolf, a mutant lunged as Nestor threw the knife into
its eye. It stood stunned momentarily and then collapsed, dead before it
hit the ground. Nestor took two steps towards the corpse to retrieve his
knife and then saw the wolf turn, teeth barred to Nestor's left. Nestor
spun and faced nine advancing mutants. Huge and fearsome, the mutants ran
forward at Nestor and the wolf at a speed that would beat Nestor to his
knife. He balled his fists and growled beside the wolf, his feet
struggling for purchase in the pool of blood he was standing in.

"Down!"

Nestor
dropped to his stomach at the sound of Caleb's call and watched as the mutants
fell from right to left with a series of back to back gunshots. For a
moment the bridge was silent. No one moved. Nestor glanced to his
right where the wolf sat happily panting, her white fur covered in the dark red
of fresh mutant blood. Nestor stood and turned to see a smiling Caleb
walking forward, sniper rifle held loosely at his side.

"The
eagles, the eagles are coming," Caleb said with a laugh.

"I
don't get it," Nestor shrugged.

"Really?"

They
collected Nestor's guns and knife and moved on. They didn't rest until
they reached the other side of the bridge.

Nestor made
a fire that night and they ate canned tuna. She didn't eat. She'd
already had her fill of flesh on the bridge. They stayed up late in the
night, she howled at the moon that shined overhead and Nestor and Caleb laughed
along with her.

In the
morning Caleb made coffee while Nestor picked at the dried blood on his hands.

"You're
bleeding, Nestor, let me look at that… Jesus."

"It's
nothing."

"It's
something, Nestor. Shit. Did you bleed all night? This is
bad. We should stop and rest for a day."

"It's a
cut."

"No,
it's a deep gash made by God knows what, a mutant fang or claw, a rusted car
door... It could be infected and lord knows a man in your condition is in
no place to…"

"My
condition?" Nestor snarled.

"Yeah.
Your condition."

Nestor
glared at Caleb until Caleb turned his face away.

"If we
rest even for a day they'll find us, Caleb! I'm broadcasting, remember?
The delay is what, a few hours? Wherever we go, I'll see it and then they'll
see it and find us!"

Caleb smiled
and looked at the wolf. Nestor followed his glance and just as he turned
his head he saw that it had been a feint, Caleb's fist hit him right in the
temple. Nestor spun around his knife inches from Caleb's throat.

"Shit,
that hurt my hand!" Caleb moaned, his eyes passing back and forth between
the growling wolf and Caleb's knife.

"Why
the hell did you hit me?"

"I was going
to knock you out and move you in the night, so that no one would see where we
were going."

Caleb looked
down at the wolf that was now protectively standing next to Nestor.

"How
about a blindfold, moron?"

"Oh.
Yeah. Right,"
Caleb smiled. "Easy girl. Nestor, could you say something
here, so that she doesn't eat me? Please?"

"I’m
thinking. Hold on," Nestor growled, feeling his face where Caleb had
punched him.

"Think
faster please."

Caleb,
leading the blindfolded Nestor, followed by the padding feet of the giant wolf,
brought them to a basement under a house in the suburban sprawl. Caleb
did his best to clean and stitch Nestor's wound, but the next day a fever
came. Nestor couldn't rise or move. He moaned on the ground,
responding with grunts and incoherent words to vision