The Salvation Plague | Book 6 | Monstrum, page 7
part #6 of The Salvation Plague Series
It was too loud, too cold, and too uncomfortable. The smell of oil and a little fuel cut through the freezing air, and she tried to separate the sick feeling in her stomach from the rest of her body.
There was absolutely no way that she’d be able to sleep.
◆◆◆
It seemed like seconds later, someone was patting her leg and her eyes fluttered open. She was more tired than she thought, and the precious minutes of sleep she had just gotten hadn’t seemed to help at all.
Storm gestured out the windows at their backs and she turned to look.
She wished she hadn’t.
As far as the eyes could see, in the distance, there was nothing but blackened, twisted rubble. Trees, the ones that had managed to stay standing and not blasted to hell or burned to death, stood like broken stakes jabbing the sky in threatening, jagged splinters. Smoke drifted lazily to the air at the far end of her vision and she knew the fires there would continue to burn for quite a long time.
It was one thing to know intellectually that major cities had been destroyed by nuclear bombs, and even seeing the mushroom cloud over Louisville, but it was another to see the aftermath months later and realize that there would be no rebuilding.
She felt her throat tightening as she looked down at the ruins of civilization. Her civilization.
It was Denver and it was gone forever. A black mark on the face of the Earth.
She closed her eyes and willed the scene away.
◆◆◆
An insistent tapping on her knee woke her and she jerked her head up, wincing at the strain in her neck. The helmets were heavy, and her muscles had stiffened up as she slept. Her mind tried to return to the devastated city, but she resolutely banished it from her thoughts. It would do no good to dwell on the catastrophe. They had more important things to do right now.
Her stomach dropped and then rose as the strangely cow-like helicopter landed deceptively fast, churning up the scant amount of dust and debris on the tarmac.
She was glad to be back on land. She couldn’t believe this bulky bucket was the world’s fastest helicopter. It didn’t seem possible.
The guy, whom Storm informed her was the crew chief, jumped up before the ramp opened and she listened as the engines were shut down and the rotors began to slow their rapid slashing to a more leisurely slicing. She watched the man as he touched a long pole to somewhere outside the aircraft, then gave Storm a signal.
“What’s he doing?”
“Making sure we aren’t electrocuted as we disembark. The rotors build up a lot of static,” he said nodding up at the top of the chopper.
“I didn’t even know that was a thing,” she said, now worried about a fatal shock along with all the other crap she had to worry about.
The crew chief gave a signal and they unbuckled and formed up. She craned her head around Storm to look around. The view out the back was unobstructed and seemed clear. Clear for a hundred miles, it looked like.
The fence, and the brown, dead grass beyond, did not block the view of the hazy mountains on the horizon. The land was flat—flat and wide open. The sky was crushing and blue on the sunny winter day and she could imagine how humbling it would be in the brilliance of summer.
She wasn’t sure she liked how open things were here. It reminded her of certain parts of Colorado they had passed through on their way to Fort Carson. There was no cover, no concealment…no real place to hide.
Conversely, there was no place for the freaks to hide either, so she supposed that was good.
“Okay, we’re good to go!” Storm said and motioned for the teams to disembark.
She did not die as she set foot onto the tarmac, which was a great relief.
Kate took Bravo team to the side that she had been instructed to secure, and they established a perimeter with overlapping fields of fire a good distance away from the Chinook.
The pilots had landed them smack dab in the middle of a group of hangars, and her team faced the tank farm that supplied the airport’s fuel. The pilots had moved away from the small set of steps to the open port above the front set of twin wheels. The crew chief was checking hoses and other things. Young carried an extinguisher and stood back, waiting for the signal.
Kate scanned the horizon and the corners of the buildings nearby. The hangars were closed and could have been hiding any number of hazards, including a good-sized pod of freaks. She hoped that wasn’t the case. She was just about tired of being jumped by the damned things.
Red and Storm, along with Reed, McCain, and Johnson—the rest of Alpha team—took off toward the nearest fuel truck. The base had been using this as one of their waypoints and refueling points for their operations in the region, but that was no guarantee that it was still secure or that someone hadn’t come along and emptied the fuel tanks.
They couldn’t discount the possibility of the hybrids sabotaging their operations. In fact, it was likely. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease as she looked around the deserted airfield. They had twenty-three people—not counting the flight crew. Two squads. It was a smaller complement of support than she was used to having outside the base.
She wished that the rest of her people could have been assigned to the mission. She missed the reassuring presence of Delta team at her back. They were needed at the base and she knew it was important that they stay there and take over security operations. Since Clausen’s ODAs—the Green Beret teams— were currently MIA and presumed dead, the base was critically low on experienced military personnel.
The two squads that she had gone on the supply run to Cañon City with, back when the giants had cut them off, had stayed behind to help man the HQ building. They were rebuilding an entire chain of command and training up support. It was going to be brutal for a while.
She heard the sound of a large engine starting up reluctantly and breathed out a sigh of relief. The pilots were finished checking gauges and whatever else went into the care and maintenance of the Chinook.
She was glad that she didn’t have that responsibility.
“Clear the area,” one of the pilots said, motioning them back.
She took her team and fanned out a bit farther away, at what she hoped was a safe distance. She saw Jared’s team doing the same on the other side. Storm jumped off the rig as Red pulled it around. The guys uncoiled some hoses and took them to the crew.
She wanted to watch the process, but her job was to keep her eyes on the horizon.
She glanced at her watch to mark the time. It was still early in the day, but the light would be going faster than they’d like and she wanted to be set up somewhere safe before dark. They had night vision, but that didn’t even level the playing field and it was always safer to wait for daylight.
“We got Tangos!” someone yelled from Jared’s side of the aircraft. It sounded like Tor.
“Kate, on me! The rest of you hold your positions!” Storm yelled as he dashed around the front of the chopper.
She unfastened the strap on her knife but kept her rifle ready. The noise wouldn’t matter too much here, but she didn’t want to draw in any problems for the pilots on their way back if she could help it. They needed it to be clear to refuel without a support team.
Around the other side of the chopper, Jared was yelling.
“Hold your fire! Gundersons, follow me!” Jared dashed out toward the small clusters of enemies that had lurched around the corners of the big blue hangars.
“Those are the demon zombies!” Anna shouted, and Kate flinched and whipped around at the sudden yell. “I told you! Remember, Fle—” she broke off with a curse as she remembered her friend wasn’t behind her. Sorrow crossed her face before she could hide it, then a wave of anger. Kate was flabbergasted when Anna sprinted—way faster than she ever could—toward the group of slow freaks.
Demon zombies?
Shit. Anna was leaving a gap and she pointed at Young to fill it while the co-pilot took the extinguisher from him. She trotted off after Anna, knowing Jared wouldn’t want her fighting alone.
She pumped her legs hard to catch up and saw the guys begin to engage in combat with the freaks. Anna veered off to the right toward the farthest cluster and Kate changed course to follow. She pushed harder, feeling her breath sawing through her lungs like sandpaper. She still wasn’t used to the altitude or the extreme cardio and resolved to add sprinting to her exercise regimen when she got back…if she didn’t drop dead here on the tarmac.
She was twenty feet away when she realized that the freaks weren’t right.
The deep growling, the insane laughter, and the hissing words spilling from their rotting lips were unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was almost too fantastical, even with the existence of the freaks.
Demon zombies.
One of the monsters, an extremely tall, skeletal corpse with a bloated middle, was swinging its arms wildly as Anna closed in. The manic, thick cackling that bubbled from the demon’s chest was one of the scariest things Kate had ever heard. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and an instinctual shudder wracked her spine.
Anna seemed unconcerned and focused on dodging the whipping, clawing blows. She bobbed around, searching for an opening to use her knife.
“Hey, fucktard!” Kate yelled, becoming pissed off that she was scared of the thing.
She hadn’t expected the fast slash of its eyes to hers, or the laser-focused hatred as it cocked its head toward her with fiendish understanding.
“He lied,” it croaked in a dark, cunning voice. “Your mother is rotting in hell with us!” It began to laugh again and Kate held her breath.
“And soon you will rot too,” it said.
Anna managed to block its arms as it focused on Kate, and she jabbed it in the chest with her knife. Kate heard the blade scrape against bone and it stuck fast.
“Shit!” Anna yelled, and punched the thing in the throat as it wiggled free of her hold, like an oversized, rotting eel.
Kate heard the splatter of fluids as it doubled over but it quickly straightened again, the knife sticking out obscenely from its ribs. Brown trails of rot flowed from its mouth as it reached out to snag Anna.
Kate dive into the monstrosity and took it down to the pavement. It grabbed her hand and bared its black teeth, reeling her in. Its other arm looped over her thigh in a gross embrace that trapped her against its bloated, dead gut.
She heard Anna fighting another one but she couldn’t look up. She was struggling with the impossibly strong grip and failing. The sheer strength of the devil didn’t make sense. Its muscles were decomposed and tendons flaccid. It just shouldn’t be this strong, not with how decayed it was.
She couldn’t spare any more thoughts for those metaphysical details, not when every second brought her a little closer, and the stench of death from its mouth blasted her in the face.
Anna, breathing heavily now, came back and kicked its head, but the demon didn’t let go. Kate shifted, feeling the fragile, cold flesh of its rotting skin rippling under her bottom. She had been living through this crap for a long time, but if its stomach split open and soaked her pants with its putrescent fluids, she would probably lose it. Throwing up was a certainty.
“Kill it!” Anna yelled, finally loosening its grip and pinning its arms above its head.
Its bare feet, skin slipping with decomposition, slapped against the tarmac as she raised the knife and shoved it under its chin. She watched as the knowing eyes clouded over. An evil smile rested permanently on its face with a groaning rumble that she felt in her thighs.
She flipped off the body and rolled away before rising to her feet. Anna backed away from the abomination and joined Kate, who was scanning the other bodies on the ground. She counted three, and one was…splattered. It was the only word for it.
Anna had taken down three of the things while she struggled with the one.
She blamed her shock. Anna had seen these before, and she hadn’t.
“So,” Kate said, wiping her hands on her pants and eyeing the pile of skin under the corpse’s grated heels. “Demon zombies.” She nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Yeah. I found one when I was alone—after I got separated from everyone else by a herd. It was probably the worse thing I’ve ever had to do, and considering what I’ve lived through…” She shrugged and Kate nodded, realizing that Anna hid a lot more than she knew.
Still waters ran deep, and Anna was of the stillest variety.
“What the hell was that?!” Jared yelled, jogging over. Storm was on his heels and he was checking to make sure they were all safe, for the moment.
“Those were ‘the wretched’, as Kim calls them. Empty corpses and wandering souls. Demons, if you will,” Steward said, sprinting toward them and overtaking Jared and Storm without any effort. “They have found many comfortable dwellings now, thanks to the plague.”
“You telling me that bible story about the pigs was real?” Red asked, spitting.
Stew shrugged.
The Gundersons, swords and axes dripping with yellow pus, chunks of flesh, and brown fluids, joined them. “Do we burn these demons?” Jurgen asked, taking a place near Anna and patting her head like a puppy.
Kate recalled that Anna was imprisoned under the mountain with one of the brothers and assumed it was that one.
"They won’t regenerate,” Stew assured them. “They don’t have the replication code. They are nothing.”
Storm sent her an inquiring look and she nodded that she was fine.
“Freaky as hell nothings,” Jared corrected, looking on in disgust.
“Get back to the pilots. Anna and I will do a sweep of the area,” Storm said, and Kate felt a twinge of jealousy.
Why her?
Anna nodded at Jared and left with Storm while Kate buried the urge to get pissed off. She wasn’t worried about Storm and Anna being together, she was jealous that Anna was taking her place at Storm’s side.
She let out a breath and tried to cool it. He had his reasons and she trusted him. For the moment, she needed to get back to the chopper and check the status of the refueling. The less time they spent on the ground, the better. They couldn’t afford to lose any more pilots or any more aircraft.
“Well, Red? What do you think?” she asked as they jogged back to the pilots waiting in the distance.
“I think that was pretty damned disgusting, and you’ve got a glob of something rotten on your cheek.”
She felt her stomach lurch and she scrubbed her cheek with her sleeve, then looked and saw nothing there.
She glowered. “Princess, now is not the time to piss me off.”
“On the contrary, now is the perfect time to piss you off, Bubba. You’re hell on wheels, and I don’t want you turning on Anna because you feel territorial. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you didn’t go pissing all over Storm’s leg like a dog,” he said with an amused chuckle.
She rammed her elbow into his gut, but his abs were made of steel and he tightened them at the last second. He laughed harder. “You’re cute when you’re jealous. Your ears are turning red…oh look, so is your face.”
“Red…” she warned.
“Go over to Jared’s squad and make sure they’re all good to go. You girls should take a potty break before we go unless…you want to try pissing in a bottle?” he asked.
She grimaced. “No thanks, and that’s disgusting by the way.”
“You’re just jealous that you have to pull your pants down to piss.”
She rolled her eyes and jogged around the back of the chopper with the Gundersons on her heels. Red stopped to talk to the pilots.
Chapter Seven
Yellowstone
Jared
Jared was fuming, silently.
He knew it was slightly irrational, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t like Storm telling Anna what to do, ordering her around like he had the right. His fingers tightened on the handle of his knife as he watched his side of the chopper.
The pilots had to be about finished, and soon they’d be on their way again. They were going to be getting into some serious shit sometime soon, he had no doubt, and they had two leaders butting heads.
He couldn’t back down and let Storm lead his people. He couldn’t let the other man take responsibility for their lives and he couldn’t not call the shots. It was different if it was Sten or Bradley. They were his family. He knew them and trusted them.
He didn’t really know or trust Storm. Storm and his people were outsiders.
He caught himself smiling. He sounded like Sten.
“Heads up!” Anna called from his right, and he jerked around. An object flew toward his face and he caught it instinctively, the rattling of the bag loud in the otherwise quiet surroundings.
He looked down at the bag in shock. “Barbeque-flavored pork rinds! Where the hell did you get barbeque-flavored pork rinds?!”
This was better than Christmas, in his book.
“Apparently one of the pilots back before ran a pork rind smuggling operation. Had a couple of duffels full of them.”
He beamed at her. “Tell me you grabbed them,” he begged.
“I grabbed them, of course. How could I let my sweetums suffer from a lack of pork rinds?” she tossed him a kiss through the air, and he caught it.
“Have I told you that I love you today?” he asked.
The wind blew her hair in her face and she shook it out before replying. “Twice, but I’ll take a third.”
“I love you today,” he said, kissing her nose.
“I love you today, too. So, those demon zombies either travel together, or they all ended up here by pure chance. They came from a little office near one of those buildings. We followed the rot trail.”
“You mean, the same place my pork rinds came from?” He eyed the bag dubiously.
