Origins (The Wasteland Chronicles, #2) (14 page)

And all of them were piled with corpses.

“We need to turn back,” I said.

The door above slammed shut and locked from the outside. The slamming echo thundered throughout the cells.

“So I was right,” I said.

The bodies stirred, convulsed, and began writhing like worms in their piles. The ones that broke free shambled up and charged for the bars, their white eyes glowing and soulless.

“Hold your fire!” Samuel said. “As long as they’re in there they can’t hurt us.”

His voice was barely audible above the din of groans. The Howlers slammed into the bars and doors like wild animals desperate to be free.

One of the cell doors crashed open. Several Howlers lumbered out, moving as fast as their unsteady legs could carry them toward us. Another door crashed open, flooding more Howlers into the corridor.

“Samuel, we have to do something,” Makara said.

They howled in unison, moving as one toward us. They were closer – just feet away.

“Samuel!”

“Fire.”

He ducked, and we unleashed our bullets into the infected people. They roared in pain as the bullets entered their chests, their necks, their heads. They dropped, one by one, but more were coming out of the cells.

The first to fall were already bloating.

“Back!” Samuel said.

We moved as far from the bodies as we could. The first of them exploded by the time we reached the stairs. We were well out of range of the splash zone, but we were running out of space to retreat into.

“Fire!” Samuel yelled. “They can’t get close to us! They have to fall where they stand!”

We fired. I reloaded my Beretta, and shot again and again. About two dozen bodies lay piled on the floor. Some were beginning to inflate.

“Back again!”

We retreated up the steps, about halfway. The bodies exploded, sending streams of goo sailing for the bottom of the stairs. The smell was like raw sewage, and it was all I could do not to gag.

“I think that’s all of them,” Makara said.

That was when the heavy sound of breathing filled the chamber. It was coming from something big.

“The hell is that?” I asked.

A giant, freakishly large Howler appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He was at least eight feet tall and twice as wide as a normal man. His thick muscles bulged under thin pink skin. His head was hairless, and his eyes burned like white fire.

Samuel charged forward with a yell. He pointed his gun at the giant’s face, unleashing the rest of his bullets into him. Even after several bullets, the thing didn’t slow. Finally it reached Samuel, grabbing him by the neck. It roared in his face, revealing rows of yellow, razor-sharp teeth.

Samuel aimed right into the giant Howler’s mouth, and fired.

The creature groaned, and loosened its grip. It tumbled to the floor, landing at Samuel’s feet with a crash.

I looked behind. There was nowhere left to run.

I watched in horror as the thing inflated, the liquid surging beneath the skin, building pressure.

The coming explosion would turn us all into these horrible monsters.

“R
un!” Makara yelled.

Everyone ran forward, past the giant, past all the bodies that had just exploded. The entire floor was soaked with purple slime. I slipped across the floor, only saved from falling by Anna’s catching hold of me.

The giant Howler behind us exploded. I kept running, the tail end of the slime splattering where my feet had been just a second before.

I slid to a stop in front of the others.

“Did anyone get hit?” Samuel asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

“Let’s go,” Samuel said.”

“Go where?” Lisa asked.

“Forward. The only way there is to go.”

We followed Samuel into the darkness. Why would they have betrayed us like that?

“They had to have been the same Imperials the Wanderer spoke of,” Lisa said. “I bet they are after the same thing we are: the Black Files. Or, at the least, they are after something in Bunker One and don’t want us to have it.”

“So they used us long enough to get the door open?” Makara asked.

“Yes,” Lisa said. “It’s still hundreds of miles to Bunker One. If we hurry, we can catch up.”

“If
we can make it back to the surface,” I said.

“We will,” Samuel said. “I want to teach them a lesson they won’t forget.”

“A bullet in the head will make them forget pretty damn quick,” Makara said.

The corridor ended in another stairwell, spiraling upward. It led to a hatch. Samuel unlatched the door, and pushed it out. We found ourselves in a circular, vertical tunnel. A giant ladder crawled up the side into the darkness above.

“Nowhere to go but up,” Makara said.

“What is it with these Bunkers and really, really tall ladders?” I asked.

No one answered me as Samuel took the lead. Over the next five minutes, we climbed, hundreds upon hundreds of rungs. I tried not to look down. Looking down was like staring into an abyss. It was so dark that I could not tell how high we had climbed.

At last, the group came to a stop. Samuel struggled with the latchwheel at the top – I heard it squeak as he turned it. With a grunt, he forced the hatch open with his powerful shoulders.

Above, the cold wind howled.

We were going back outside.

***

I
was the last one to crawl out of Bunker 40. As I stepped into the cold elements and slammed the hatch shut behind me, the squish of the xenofungus below my boots was not exactly a welcome change.

It was evening, and the skyscraper to the south was blazoned orange by the sunset. Unearthly screams and howls emanated from the distance. The monsters surrounded the building, thinking we were there. I didn’t want to stick around to find out how long it would take for them to figure out we weren’t.

We had nothing but the clothes on our backs, our weapons, and copious amounts of ammunition we no longer necessarily needed. Our Recon and supplies were back at the building, surrounded by monsters that we could never hope to break through.

Our choices were fighting our way through, or going on.

“What are we going to do?”

My voice sounded more hopeless than I’d intended. As the others talked about what to do next, Anna stood next to me and grabbed my hand. One by one, her fingers intertwined with mine, and the feeling of her warm hand there made me feel weak. The action surprised me for its boldness. I turned to look at her, but she merely gazed intently at the building, tinted orange from the dull sunlight fading behind the clouds.

“We’ll find a way,” she said. “Just don’t give up.”

What was left of the sun descended behind the western mountains, plunging the valley into darkness.

Anna let go of my hand as the others turned around.

“What did you guys decide?” Anna asked.

Samuel said nothing, and merely shined his light down on the xenofungus. The layer here was thin, and beneath it was tarmac.

“A runway?” Makara asked.

“Yes,” Samuel said. “If there’s a runway here, there should be hangars somewhere nearby. We’ll freeze if we have to stay out here for the night.”

“I don’t see anything resembling a hangar out here,” Lisa said.

“We’ll just have to follow the runway and look,” Samuel said.

“What about the Recon?” I asked.

“One thing at a time,” Samuel said. “I just need to make sure we don’t die from exposure or the crawlers.”

Something caught my eye. A vertical sliver of light appeared in the direction of a nearby hill.

“I think we found our hangar,” I said.

The sliver grew wider and wider, revealing more light.

“It’s built into that hill,” Samuel said. “I think we found our friends.”

“Are they flying a plane?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” Makara said. “It’s payback time.”

Everyone ran ahead, and it was all I could do to keep up. As we got closer to the light, I could make out the shape of a low, sleek jet. As it rolled out of the hill and into the valley, the roar of its engine filled the valley with pulses of sound. That sound would draw every one of those creatures in this direction.

The plane took on a sudden burst of speed. It rocketed toward us, quickly closing the distance.

“Out of the way!” Samuel yelled.

Everyone dived out of the plane’s way as it screamed past us. I turned to watch its six thrusters, arranged in the shape of a circle, burn a fiery blue as the plane arched up from the ground and streaked through the sky. The plane’s sound waves thundered against the ground as it disappeared into the night.

When the noise died, it was replaced with another one – the monsters, screeching and wailing. They were coming this way.

“Let’s move!” Samuel yelled.

Samuel sprinted for the open doors of the hangar. Behind, the creatures’ unearthly screams came closer.

We entered the hangar doors. We had to find a way to close them before it was too late.

“Search for a switch,” Samuel said. “Anything!”

My eyes scanned the walls. These doors had to close, or we would be overwhelmed. I saw a silver box affixed to the wall. I opened the box and saw the words “Hangar Doors” above one of the many red buttons. I pressed it.

The doors screeched, forcing themselves shut ever so slowly.

I ran back to the front, where the rest of the group stood. Lisa had taken a position on top of some nearby crates, and was readying the scope of her rifle. Anna stood with her katana in front of her, as calm as if she were doing one of her meditations. Makara held her pistol with both hands, facing outward. Samuel and I took our positions beside her, pointing our guns into the darkness.

A large, lumbering creature that might have once been a bear charged between the closing doors, going right for Makara. We unloaded into it, and it gave out a baleful roar as it snapped its jaws. With a long, fleshy arm, it began a swipe of its scythe-like claws at Makara. But a loud crack sounded in the hangar and the beast fell dead. Lisa had shot it in the head.

The doors were almost shut, but before they closed two more crawlers slipped in. They slithered along the ground with their bowed legs. Long, curved teeth lined the insides of their powerful jaws, and their all-white eyes burned fiercely.

They circled around us, waiting to strike. We fired at them, but it was as if they could anticipate our movements. At every shot, they danced out of the way.

Lisa, from above, aimed at one of them, and bided her time for the perfect shot.

One of them broke, going straight for me. Anna stepped in front of me, using her blade as a shield. The creature screamed as its neck was ripped open by the blade, and purple liquid oozed from the gash as the crawler crashed into the floor next to me.

The other one hissed, and fell upon Samuel like lightning. He was tackled to the floor, but before the creature could sink its teeth into his neck, Makara and I pulled it off. The thing was slippery, and the slime on its skin burned on contact. The crawler slipped through my hands, targeting me. Makara tried to hold it off. I could feel its drool dripping on my neck.

Bam
.

The creature collapsed on top of my chest, knocking the wind out of my lungs. Anna had shot it with her sidearm.

The others pulled the monster off me. It took a moment before I could breathe again.

“Alex, are you alright?” Makara asked.

“Here,” Samuel said, handing me a canteen. “Wash off with this. It probably doesn’t have the human strain in it but it pays to be careful.”

“Thanks,” I said, my voice raspy.

I washed off my hands and neck, and stared at the three bodies on the floor. I didn’t know why it was only the human ones that exploded. I was thankful we didn’t have to worry about it.

Everyone stood for a moment, catching their breath. Outside, we could hear the horde screaming and howling.

“We need to secure the perimeter and come up with a plan,” Samuel said.

We walked around the large hangar, checking for any doors, holes, or cracks where anything could slip through. There seemed to be no entry except for where we had come in. Soon I found myself focusing on the cargo plane that was still parked in the far corner of the hangar.

If they could fly a plane, who was to say we couldn’t?

“I want to check that plane out,” I said.

“Good idea,” Samuel said. “There could be food, water, or other supplies. Why don’t you and Anna do that?”

Anna nodded toward the plane. “Come on.”

A boarding staircase led up to the door. I was afraid it might be locked, but the door opened right up when I tried the latch, revealing the plane’s interior. Anna stepped inside, pointing her flashlight left and right. In the back of the plane were crates of MREs. Looking at the dates, I saw they were long expired.

We walked into the cockpit. I noticed two large pilot chairs, and behind each of them additional chairs. There were hundreds of buttons, a control stick in front of the pilot’s chair, and a large LCD screen set in the control panel, midway between the pilot’s and the copilot’s chairs.

“Cool.”

I stood there a moment, and the LCD screen flashed on automatically. It startled me; it must have sensed our motion. The screen displayed a map of the United States, and several red circles, each marked with a number – 21, 33, 105. I didn’t see the point of any of it. I saw 108, right there in the San Bernardino Mountains. 114 was not too far northwest of it. I realized that these were Bunker locations.

I searched for 40. I found it in northeastern Arizona, near the border of New Mexico.

“Do you think this plane works?” Anna asked.

“It did for them,” I said. “But maybe Harland is a trained pilot. None of us could ever fly this thing.”

It was too bad. Taking this plane would cut an enormous amount of time on our journey. We might even make it to Bunker One
tonight,
if only we had someone who knew how to fly.

I turned my attention back to the screen. Most of the numbering was gray. Bunkers 23, 40, 76, 88, 108, 114 had red lettering. I guessed that the gray meant that the bunker was no longer operational. At the time 40 had fallen, which must have not been too long ago, there were still six bunkers left. The only ones unaccounted for were 76 and 88. They were both located on the West Coast – one near San Francisco, and the other near Portland. Not far enough for the Blights to have reached them. I wondered if they were still operating.