The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (36 page)

Another Skull managed to climb onto the hood. It lunged for Renee. Miguel fired at it, but his shots went wide, and Dom couldn’t react soon enough. As the Skull swiped at her, Renee flew backward into the aisle. Miguel pulled the Skull off her with his prosthetic and plugged several rounds into its face. Its body went slack, and it slumped onto the floor.

Dom helped Renee up. “You okay?”

She nodded, but even Dom could see the tears in her fatigues and the blood soaking her shirt. His stomach twisted at the sight, but Renee seemed to ignore her own fate, retaking her place beside the others at the front of the bus. They did their best to clear a swath from the masses before them. It didn’t take Dom long to realize they were fighting a losing battle. He clipped in another magazine. The constant rattle of gunfire almost seemed hypnotic, pushed to the background of his senses as adrenaline overtook him.

The basic instinct of fight or flight had kicked in. With nowhere to run, all they could do was fight. The crash of a broken window in the rear of the bus drew Dom’s attention for a moment. Shauna shrieked, but Dom turned back to the front, sending salvo after salvo into the onslaught of mutated humans as Eric protected his girlfriend from an invading Skull.

The end of the Skulls was in sight. A brief glimmer of hope fluttered through Dom.

Then the bus slammed into something solid. Dom flew forward, and the lip of the bus’s dashboard caught him under his ribs. He recovered enough to see the burned-out husk of a car they’d hit. It had been obscured by the tidal wave of Skulls surging over it.

The rear of the bus was propelled forward even as the front of it caught on the cars blocking their path. As if in slow motion, the rear of the bus continued forward until the vehicle was sideways in the street. Meredith twisted the wheel hard, trying to correct the bus’s path, but their inertia was too strong. It carried the bus forward. Meredith tried to hold the wheel tight, but physics fought against her.

The bus toppled sideways and slid along the street, crushing the cars trapped beneath it. Skulls stuck between the cars and the bus burst like blood-filled balloons.

Dom and the rest of the crew tumbled, no longer in control of their own bodies. Screams and cries filled Dom’s ears. The gunfire had ceased, but the Skulls’ throaty roars had not. Metal scraped and screeched against asphalt. A cloud of dust filled the air as the vehicle groaned to a halt, overturned.

Dom’s ears rang, and he fought against the disorientation threatening to halt him. He picked up Meredith’s unconscious form. Her chest still rose and fell with each belabored breath. Miguel, his face contorted in pain, climbed over the seats and shoved the emergency exit in the roof open. Maggie followed close at his heels as he jumped through it and reached back through to help Joe, then Shauna, and then Eric exit. One of Eric’s arms hung at his side, bleeding and bent at an unnatural angle. But there was no time for first aid.

Renee helped Dom hoist Meredith over the seats. They passed her unconscious form out to Shauna. Hector followed them out as the dust cloud around the bus settled.

Dom lifted Meredith’s body over his back in a fireman’s carry. He and the Hunters sprinted down the street. Sheer agony coursed up his leg from his injured ankle, but he pushed forward. When he stumbled, Renee caught him, her own wounds bleeding profusely.

The bus lay on its side behind them. It was no more than a hulking mess of shorn metal blocking the street. Skulls poured over the top of it, spending no time mourning for their lost brethren.

Dom surveyed his wounded compatriots. The fastest among them seemed to be Maggie, and the dog was still hobbling with her injured paw. They would never outrun the beasts chasing them. They didn’t stand a chance on the ground. He fumbled with his tac vest and pulled off an incendiary grenade. He lobbed it behind them. The fiery blast was lost in the mob of Skulls. Flames caught on several of the creatures, yet they still charged forward. Pain was no obstacle to them.

There was only one chance, one escape.

“We need to go up!” Dom yelled. He pointed toward a four–story building.

Unquestioning, Miguel veered off to his right and burst through the glass door. The impact sent him rolling on the floor. He recovered and charged to the rear of the antique store. The others followed, knocking over old lamps and vases, desks and bookshelves.

“This way!” Miguel called, leading them up a set of stairs.

The Skulls flooded the bottom floor, hot on their trail.

Dom twisted his body with Meredith still over his shoulders. He fired off a spray of gunfire, sending the first row of Skulls tumbling into a mess of destroyed antiques.

Renee pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and tossed it into the remnants of the Skulls. The resulting fire devoured the varnished wood and flowery fabric of mid-century couches and kitchen sets. Flames engulfed the first floor. Still the beasts charged through the conflagration like demons from hell.

Pounding up the stairs, Dom brought up the rear of the crew. The footfalls of the Skulls chased up after them. At the third floor, Miguel waited at the landing. He shoved a bookcase filled with old tomes down the stairs. It was heavy and bulky enough to clog most of the stairwell, yet it didn’t even slow the Skulls down.

“Worth a try,” Miguel said. He sent a volley of bullets into the creatures before continuing on after Dom.

They finally reached the door to the roof of the building. Hector and Renee had already taken positions facing the doorway, their weapons shouldered and ready to destroy the Skulls in pursuit.

Dom set Meredith on the far side of the flat rooftop. He clicked on his comm link, activating the private link to Frank and Adam. “This is Dom. Frank, Adam, do you read? We need an immediate evac.”

Static.

Hector and Renee’s weapons burst to life. Miguel joined them. Shauna tended to Eric, helping him to sit next to Meredith. She chambered a round into her borrowed handgun. The young woman appeared ready to defend her injured boyfriend to the death.

If Dom had it his way, that wouldn’t have to happen.

“Frank, Adam, do you copy? Answer, damn it!” He fought to contain the panic welling up within him.

More static.
He thought he heard voices beyond the wall of white noise, but he couldn’t be sure.

Renee lobbed another grenade into the stairwell. Billowing fire and plumes of smoke poured forth, as did the Skulls, hardly perturbed by the relentless hail of bullets and explosives. The beasts were hell-bent on bringing down their fresh prey.

“Help!” Joe cried, firing his pistol at a Skull charging across the roof. The creature hadn’t come from the stairwell.

Dom fired several rounds into the Skull’s body. Bone fragments and flesh splattered as the rounds tore through the creature’s head. For a second, Dom was confused, uncertain where the beast had come from. Then he saw others climbing over the edge of the building. Their bone-plated bodies twisted and scraped against the brick walls, their bloodshot eyes seeking out prey.

While Renee and Hector continued their struggle against the onslaught from the stairwell, Miguel joined Dom in picking off the creatures hoisting themselves over the knee-high lip of brick surrounding them.

Joe’s machine pistol clicked, empty. He jammed in another magazine. One of the Skulls took advantage of his temporary helplessness. Dom adjusted his aim and fired at the charging Skull.

He missed.

The Skull leapt and stabbed at Joe with a clawed hand. The skeletal fingers pierced Joe’s chest, exiting out his back. The creature dug its teeth into Joe’s neck and tore away a chunk of flesh.

“Motherfucker!” Dom cried, charging the Skull. He fired at it, bullets clattering against the bony cage around the beast’s chest. A round smashed through the creature’s sinus cavity, ending its existence.

Joe grasped at his chest, his lips quivering. Dom ran to his side and caught the man before he fell.

“Tell—” he coughed, blood bubbling up from his throat. He opened his mouth again to speak, but his tongue pressed against the top of his mouth, crimson liquid seeping from the corners of his lips. His eyes rolled back. He fell limp in Dom’s arms, unable to finish the unspoken thought, the words Dom never wanted to have to hear.

“I know,” Dom said. “I will.”

Another Skull swung its legs onto the roof and pounced at Eric. Shauna threw herself between the beast and her boyfriend. She pistol-whipped the creature and threw her heel into its chest, sending it plummeting off the roof.

Still more creatures hoisted themselves onto the roof. The temporary effects of the adrenaline were fading. The pure desperation to survive and see his daughters once more was the only fuel Dom had left. He patted his tac vest. No more magazines. He fired his rifle until it was empty then pulled out his pistol.

Eric used his one good hand, firing haphazardly at the Skulls. He was hardly able to control the recoil from the handgun, yet he still fought against the pain from his injury. Maggie barked as Miguel butted a Skull with the stock of his rifle. He caught Dom’s eyes.

Dom understood at once. Miguel, too, was empty. Empty of ammunition, empty of energy reserves, empty of hope.

The meager group continued to fire until the blasts from their weapons became more sporadic. They circled together, Dom dragging Meredith’s body closer to the center of the roof.

They lashed out with the stocks of their weapons, with blades, with everything they had.

But it wasn’t enough.

Dom had let them all down. His only comfort was that he hadn’t let Kara come with them. The Skulls slashed at them, raking the group with crooked talons. The warm spray of blood splashed on Dom’s face. He couldn’t tell whether it was his or a Hunter’s or a Skull’s. But it didn’t matter. He’d take down as many of these demented bastards as he could before he let them devour him. He’d go down fighting, go down killing one last Skull. One less monster for his daughters to worry about.

Another Skull lashed out. Dom caught its wrist, but the beast bore down on him, throwing the weight of its bony plates at the Hunter. The Skull pushed Dom down until he was on his knees. The creature’s fanged teeth snapped, and saliva flew from its cracked lips. The Skull drew back an emaciated arm riddled with bony growths, its knifelike talons glistening. Dom dodged under the creature’s swipe and plunged his knife into the flesh beneath the creature’s chin. He twisted the blade until he saw the anger and hatred and hunger leave the beast’s bone-rimmed, reddened eyes. The Skull dropped, but another took its place. Another adversary in an endless line of twisted abominations with only one instinct: kill.

Then the distant thump of helicopter blades sounded above the jarring din of Skulls.

Frank,
Dom thought. But the pilot was too late and too ill equipped. The damn AW109 was never fitted with a weapons system. What could he possibly do?

As if in answer, dust kicked up around them. The chatter of machine guns filled the air, sounding more like saw blades than gunfire. High-caliber rounds tore into the Skulls, rendering them nothing more than bags of ground meat. Skulls continued to climb over their dead brethren, unafraid of the hail of bullets cracking through their natural body armor. Splinters of the skeletal overgrowths and splashes of dark blood burst all over the roof as the piles of Skulls grew.

Dom looked to the sky. Three black choppers encircled the building, their sliding doors open. They strafed near, and Dom could see the men in their ACUs manning their M240s.

Black Hawks. Fucking Black Hawks.

Door gunners raked their weapons back and forth, kicking up concrete and shattering the waves of Skulls swarming over the building. The fire and smoke stung Dom’s eyes as he hugged Meredith’s unconscious body close.

Bending toward Meredith, he whispered into her ear, wondering if she could even hear him. “We’re going to make it, Meredith. The cavalry is here.”

Another Skull squeezed itself from under the throngs of dead beasts littering the roof. It pulled itself toward Dom with its claws, its belly scraping against the ground. What remained of its legs was little more than pulped sinew and flesh. Yet the fire in its eyes hadn’t been extinguished; it came at Dom with single-minded purpose.

Maggie barked, her ears pressed tight against her head and the fur along the back of her neck and shoulders standing on end. She snarled at the approaching Skull.

“Stay, Maggie.” Dom strode forward, his knife glistening in the blood of the Skulls he’d already brought down. The creature before him stretched out its arm, all muscle and bone. It tried to stand as if it didn’t know its legs were gone. With a flick of his blade, Dom ended the creature’s misery and kicked it backward.

Whirlwinds of air gusted around the Hunters as the Black Hawks closed in. Their blades kicked up the scent of fresh death, blood, and gunpowder. The choppers hovered precariously near the edge of the roof. Soldiers along the open cabin motioned at Dom and the Hunters to move. Hector managed to extricate Joe’s battered body from a pile of Skulls and lift it into a chopper. Dom hoisted Meredith. Beside him, Miguel picked up the dog as they followed the others rushing toward the helicopters.

A soldier offered a hand out to help Dom and Meredith. A dark visor obscured his eyes. He took Meredith into the hovering Black Hawk, and Dom climbed in after her. A medic had already begun tending to Renee’s wounds.

“Give her antibiotics. Everything you’ve got!” Dom said, desperate to be heard over the thrum of the chopper’s engines. He only hoped he could get Renee back to Detrick on time, back to real medical help where they could administer the cure Lauren thought she’d found. He couldn’t stand to lose anybody else.

The chopper lifted away as orange tongues of fire licked out of the windows of the antique store. Skulls still scaled the building, but the door gunners quit firing on the masses of roiling creatures. There were far too many swarming the streets of the once-picturesque downtown.

Dom faintly recalled a dinner with Bethany at Tersiguel’s, a fancy French restaurant overlooking the river running through the city. The restaurant was gone now, overrun by monsters, but he prayed that Bethany could still be saved. He hated the thought of leaving her locked up in her own basement, but he told himself that he had done it for her own good. He’d go back for her when he could, either with the cure or a bullet to end her suffering.