Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) (19 page)

“Good idea,” Burns said, hopping onto a taxi cab nearby, heading for the side of the library.

The building, four stories tall, was made up of cold white marble. Huge red and black banners hung from the roof, down past the arched windows, almost to the sidewalk. They proclaimed “Photography of the Russian Revolution” and showed a yellow hammer and sickle behind the title of the exhibition. Nicole figured there wouldn’t be many visitors on this day.

She sent another Lycanthrope to Hell, splattering its brains all over the windshield of a Ford Taurus. Aiming carefully, she took down another. Now, there were only three coming from that direction.

One of the huge felines sprang onto the hood of the car, lashing out at her with razor-sharp talons. She nearly laughed when she saw its fluffy white fur, obviously a Persian in its former life. But then the cat opened its mouth, exposing three rows of needle-sharp fangs. It bounded toward her, launching itself through the air directly at her face.

“Batter up,” she shouted, swinging the M-4 and catching the hideous beast with the stock. After a satisfying snapping sound, it went flying into what would have been left field, landing between two white vans parked on the street. It was immediately swarmed by the other cat creatures – a fancy feast, indeed.

Nicole hopped onto the next car, then the next, glancing over her shoulder at the three gigantic Lycanthropes still stalking her. They had grown wary of her after so many of their pack had been killed, and they moved in a serpentine fashion; she missed on her next two shots. It made them duck, though, and she grinned as she got caught up in the battle.

She had been trained for this, had done drills until everything was second nature, and Nicole knew she was one of the best the Army had. She moved by thinking swiftly, instantly weighing options and deciding on a path before she could even vocalize it. This was what she was good at. This was her element. She was in the zone.

“Cover me, Burns,” she yelled, and the General spun around, aiming behind her. He was five cars ahead of her, only about fifteen feet to the sidewalk, then the library.

“Got you,” he shouted back.

He opened fire on the other three Lycanthropes, laughing manically as he cut one in half with a rain of carbine bullets, and shot another in the head.

“Fuckin’ try and zigzag on me,” he shouted as Nicole caught up to him. She immediately spun in a circle, seeing every direction, every threat, every pathway to the safety of the public library.

To her right, the hundreds of rats were coming at them. To the left were the dozens of feline Lycans. And behind them, the last eight-foot-tall creature was ducking its head as Burns took another shot at it. He winged the monster’s ear, and it howled.

It was answered by another howl in front of Nicole. She spun and spotted five more of the huge Lycanthropes coming up the sidewalk on all fours. They were sprinting so fast, she had trouble getting them in her scopes.

“General,” she said.

“Just a second,” he grumbled, and the cigar dropped from his mouth to a spot between the cars. It fell into the lap of a woman, whose stomach had been clawed open, her intestines hanging out in long, obscene ropes. “Damn it! I hadn’t finished that smoke yet.”

He placed an angry red eyeball up to his scope and aimed at the last creature hopping over the cars. He nailed it between the eyes, and it stopped in mid-stride, wavered a bit, then fell onto its back, its tongue lolling out of its gray muzzle.

Nicole shot the first creature in the group of five heading at her along the sidewalk. It stumbled, collapsing in front of the others. The first two tripped over it, rolling into a ball of fur, gnashing teeth, and clawed arms. The final two jumped handily over the cluster of beasts. The first didn’t even stop—it came right at Nicole.

She was waiting. She was ready. It fell to the concrete with a red mark directly between its eyes.

The second was right behind it, and General Burns opened fire on the monster, sending eight bullets in a spray at the thing. It jerked several times as Burns leapt off the hood of a car onto the sidewalk. Nicole joined him a moment later.

“Front doors,” he shouted, and they began running up the New York Public Library’s steps, right between the two giant urns. A Lycanthrope was hidden in the shadow of the urn on the right, and it lunged at them, only to be greeted with two bullets in its head. It collapsed, tumbling downstairs until it smacked against the street light near Fifth Avenue.

Nicole dashed up the steps, taking two at a time. The big carved wooden doors between the rising columns were closed, and she said a quick prayer that they wouldn’t be locked when she tried them. Grabbing the handles, she yanked backwards.

And a huge Lycanthrope sprang out of the opening, knocking her on her back. Her arm reflexively went to the rifle, clasping hold of it so she wouldn’t lose it. The creature pounced upon her, jumping on her waist, one furred leg on each side of her.

“Burns!”

“Yeah, yeah, coming!”

The creature squeezed its legs together, and she felt the muscles constrict around her waist like iron bands. It lowered its head to stare into her eyes, and it opened its mouth. Ropes of thick saliva dripped onto Nicole’s face. She struggled to get her arms free, but the creature was too strong. Its breath smelled fetid, rotten, like death gone sour. When it spread its jaws, Nicole cringed. There were too many teeth for one mouth, all crowded and crooked. Nicole reached into her vest, felt around until she found her knife.

Then, there was a crack of a bullet, and the monster’s head was gone, replaced by a gushing fountain of blood. It ran down Nicole’s fingers, splashed her face, but she managed to toss the heavy dead creature aside. Standing up, she wiped her bloody hands on her pants and glared for a moment at Taylor Burns.

“What?” he asked, pushing past her, into the building. “I took care of it.”

“Waited long enough,” she muttered, following him into the place.

The door slammed shut behind them, and Nicole lugged a huge desk in front of it. Burns broke a leg off of a nearby chair and shoved it through the opening bar of the door.

“That’ll hold them off for a little while,” he said. “Now let’s get through this place and to the park on the other side. Then we’ll be just about a block from the subway entrance.”

Nicole turned to the huge entrance hall. The walls were carved from white marble, a vision of arches and columns with words etched near the top of the various halls ahead of them. Gothic iron candelabras lined the walls, rising as tall as her head. Stairs on both the right and left hand sides led to the second floor. Everything was slightly dark, as there was no electricity and only a few small windows.

“Bryant Park is that way,” Burns said, motioning ahead with his M-4. “Let’s move.”

Nicole nodded at him and shouldered her rifle, looking through the scope at the room. She didn’t see any red blobs on her heat scope, so she exhaled and started after the general.

She regretted not bringing even more ammunition.

2:28 p.m.

John Creed was nearly certain Michael Keene was lost. The man had turned so many corners, stepped through so many holes, and he seemed to be descending deeper and deeper into the tunnels. Admittedly, John was no expert on the underground system of New York, but they seemed to be going in ever widening concentric circles. At least, that’s what the compass in his head told him.

He finally bit the bullet and said, “You sure this is the right way? I swear I saw that graffiti over there before.” He referred to the spray-painted “Harry Lime Lives” on the brick arch over the passageway.

“I think so,” Michael said, not decelerating from his swift pace.

“You
think
so? Dude, you’re not getting us lost, are you?”

“Probably not.”

“Probably?”

“Look,” Michael said, spinning around and facing the newspaper writer. “If you think you can do any better, you’re welcome to take charge.”

Deep in the tunnel behind them, something growled, the noise amplified by the echo. It seemed pretty far back, but John had decided that sound played tricks down here, and it would behoove them to put more distance between themselves and anything that growled like that. It struck him as a safe bet that whatever made that noise was big, ugly, and wanted to eat his face.

Michael sighed, leaned against one of the walls, instantly dampening his shirt. He said, “To be honest, I’m not sure about where we’re going. It feels right, but... well, my mind’s not where it should be right now. Those things could be anywhere.”

“Well, it appears as if there’s a rather big one behind us.”

“If we keep going in this direction, it’ll lead us to the surface. I’m ninety percent sure of it.”

“Well,” John said. “I guess that’s better than if I were leading us.”

“We keep going then?”

“Why not?” John answered. “What’s ahead of us can’t be worse than what’s behind, right?”

As they started moving again, John crossed his fingers. Whatever lay ahead of them was a complete mystery.

But what lay behind them gave a huge roar that shook the dust from the cracks in the mortar of the walls. Shivering, John hurried to catch up with Michael.

2:35 p.m.

Nicole stepped over a pile of crushed glass from the busted windows of the souvenir shop and glanced into the exhibition hall ahead of her in the library. Books, pamphlets, and body parts were strewn across the hallway. She noticed a pair of spectacles, crushed and sad looking on the floor near the shop. A single tear of blood had fallen across the right lens.

As she moved, her shoes made little mouse sounds on the gleaming marble. She noticed Burns’ shoes were utterly silent.

The sunlight drifted into the hall from high, arched windows, but there were still shadowy areas in the corners where one of the creatures could be lurking. The chandeliers hung ineffectually from the ceiling, their power dimmed by the lack of electricity. She kept her M-4 to her shoulder, one eye through the heat-sensitive scope, one on the quiet room around her.

Nicole wasn’t much of a reader other than some W.E.B. Griffin novels, but she was still awed by the majesty of the hallways. This place was certainly the work of someone who loved and treasured books. Somewhere on another level, a volume dropped to the marble floor, and the slap of its cover resonated through the uninhabited place.

Burns motioned for her to recon to the right, past the souvenir shop, but to keep her eyes open. She nodded, moving to the wall. He went left, swung the rifle around the corner before looking down the hallway. Nicole hurled herself to the column across the hall, looked both ways, and kicked open the door to the coat check room. Using the barrel of her rifle, she verified that there was nothing in the closet except a few coats, and then she gave Burns a severe nod. He shuffled back to her, keeping his eyes on the end of the hallway.

“We need to get to the other entrance,” he whispered. “The one facing the park. That’ll get us in the right direction for the Times Square station.”

“That would be down this hall,” Nicole said, motioning into the shadowy area to her right. “I think it’s down a level, though.”

“Stairs?”

Nicole raised her eyes to a plaque with the universal sign for a stairway with a stick figure walking on it.

“My guess is this way,” she said.

They headed in the indicated direction, past the impressive marble columns. Nicole noticed writing carved into the white marble, but she didn’t take the time to read it.

They progressed slowly, Nicole watching the front and Burns guarding the rear. Passing the coat room, Nicole heard another book slam to the floor upstairs. The noise rang through the quiet marble hallways. For the first time, she noticed how silent it was inside the building, as if some cosmic old lady librarian had shushed everyone. Only a long smear of blood at the corner near the stairs slapped her back into reality. There was a reason it was so quiet in the huge stone building. The blood spatters leading down the white steps testified to the violence of the outbreak. Someone had been dragged into the lower level.

Starting down the stairs, Nicole heard another loud thump from below them this time. She stopped, held up a hand. Burns stood next to her. She could feel his breath on her neck.

Something below them started clicking, joined by even more clicking noises down the hallway to Fifth Avenue. It sounded like the crabs in that old science fiction monster movie. She cocked her head.

“What the hell is that?” she asked.

At the sound of her voice, the clicking stopped for about ten seconds, then resumed, louder, with a purpose. The noise increased in intensity as something approached, but it seemed to be coming from both above and below them.

“I don’t wanna find out,” Burns said, and he motioned for them to descend the stairs to get to the 42nd Street level.

They were at the landing when Nicole saw what was making the strange clicking sounds. She stopped, and Burns bumped into her back. Her breath seized in her throat, and she could actually feel her skin crawling across her bones.