Captives

SIXTEEN

An ethereal shriek pierced the night. X waited for a gunshot to follow, but he hadn’t heard any for a while. Even though the Barracudas were miles away from the main Cazador army, they should be hearing something. The battle couldn’t be over already unless… Could the Sirens really have killed close to a hundred men?

A sporadic burst of gunfire finally came. The chatter hardly pierced the din of wails that sounded like a malfunctioning alarm on one of the airships. He had trouble believing that the mutant beasts could stand against such a large, well-armed tactical force. But they were cunning and strong creatures, evolved to survive in the wastes, and to fight.

The Barracudas, in fully armored suits and carrying heavy weapons, weren’t faring so well, either. Ricardo and Luke were dead, and Wendig had a broken arm. Whale, Fuego, and Rhino didn’t seem deterred, however. They took a steep trail up into the jungle that bordered the coastal city.

The team crested the hill and set off under the dense canopy. The electronic whines of the monsters faded away, replaced by the chirping of insects and the creaking of branches in the wind.

A light rain pattered the ground, turning the poisoned earth to a fine slurry. X kept his rifle up and ready, his finger on the trigger guard.

Ten minutes into the trek, they came across more ruined buildings. Several rooftops protruded from the purple canopy of trees four and five stories high. One had grown right up through a building, its red branches bursting through the now collapsed ceiling like an explosion frozen in time.

Farther north, several acres of jungle were burned, perhaps from a lightning strike that started a fire. The storms had mostly passed, but sporadic flashes forked through the clouds every few minutes.

Rhino crouched down to look at tracks in the mud. Then he stood and continued up an overgrown trail that had once been a road. Very little of the fragmented asphalt remained, and the jungle closed in as the path narrowed ahead. Branches covered in thorns reached out like sharp fingers.

X had avoided places like this back in the wastes of the former United States, where more than once he had narrowly avoided becoming plant food. Rhino kept his distance from the branches by moving to the center of the road. The Barracudas seemed as wary of the trees as he was.

But the trees weren’t the only threat. A vine undulated like a snake across the ground. Rhino sliced it in half with his double-headed spear, and the vine retracted, oozing violet sap onto the fractured asphalt as it recoiled back into the jungle.

Fuego walked behind Rhino with his flamethrower, ready to blast through anything too thick for the lieutenant’s blades.

Around the next corner, a lattice of thorny vines crisscrossed the path. Rhino waved Fuego back and used his serrated spear blades to carve a doorway in the spiny mat.

Fuego walked closely behind, followed by X and then Wendig. Whale held rear guard with the Minigun, watching and listening.

X wasn’t sure that even it would stop what they were hunting. The tracks in the mud were three times the size of Rhino’s. He eyed the path the creature had taken to get around the vines. Branches thicker than his arm were snapped off at seven feet above the ground.

The submachine gun that X carried suddenly felt no more substantial than a slingshot, and the spear may as well be a mop handle.

He missed Ty, and thinking of him brought back a swarm of memories of the other friends he had lost over the years. But there wasn’t time to think about those people now. He had to get the hell off this island and back to the living. Magnolia, Rodger, and Miles still needed his help.

A distant cracking sound snapped him alert, and he slowly scanned the green landscape of his night vision for the source. To the left of the road, several ruined houses, mostly just foundations and the bones of walls, stood between the trees.

Another cracking sound came from behind X, and a scorpion almost the size of Miles came skittering out of a pile of concrete. Whale split the creature in half with his axe, and the pincers clicked feebly as a pool of green blood spread outward.

Rhino ordered the team ahead, pointing with his spear. The tracks continued beside the road but jeered off on the right to avoid a section blocked by a fence of waist-high plants.

Spiked branches with suction-cup tentacles hung limp, looking almost harmless, but X knew better. Five years earlier, he had watched a pack of Sirens get tangled in them.

The barbs carried a venom that paralyzed their prey; then the tentacles sucked the victim dry. Days later, he had come across the dead Sirens. Their milky-white skin had shriveled over the bones, the flesh sucked out.

“Hold up,” X said. “We need to find a way around those.”

Rhino stopped and scanned the structures left of the road. Then he checked the tracks that diverged to the right.

Fuego raised his flamethrower and looked to Rhino.

“Wait,” X said, holding up his hand. “You want to tell every beast where we are?”

Ignoring X, Rhino gave Fuego a nod and stepped back. A jet of flames shot out of the barrel, engulfing the spiny black thicket. The tentacles came alive, squirming in the intense heat, before beginning to wither and turn to ash.

The men followed Rhino through the now-cleared path off the left side of the road, into a lightly vegetated area outside a two-story building. The concrete walls, probably built to withstand a hurricane, had withstood the test of time, and it still had part of a roof.

Framing the house on both sides were the remains of less resistant structures, now little more than foundations and basements full of dark water. X saw a V-shaped ripple cross the pool on his right and moved closer to the team.

He bumped off his night-vision goggles, relying on the glow of the burning thorn bushes behind him as he followed the others through the concrete building’s open front doorway.

Columns held up a sagging roof over the entrance. Inside, a rusted metal stairwell led to a second floor. The team cautiously made its way up the stairs and across the creaky floorboards.

Rhino motioned X into one of the bedrooms. The only furnishings that had survived were the frames of metal chairs, and the rusted springs of a mattress. A tapestry of moss and mold covered the black walls.

Wendig’s raspy breathing told X the man was in a lot of pain. He doubted they could count on him to help when they did find their target.

A roar snapped X from his thoughts.

He moved over to an empty window frame and watched the flames. Smoke rose from the smoldering plants, which continued to squirm and writhe like the giant octopus he had killed on the Sea Wolf.

Rhino moved beside X. “Hold your fire until it gets close,” he said. “Aim for the eyes.”

“Eyes?” X muttered, picturing a beast with eyes the size of a human. He watched the flames, realization setting in. The lieutenant wanted the beast to see the fire.

This was a trap. So why did X feel like bait?

Through the cracked wall between the two rooms, he could see Fuego and Whale, their weapons pointed out the windows.

X brought up his submachine gun and looked back to the flames. They were spreading into the forest across the road now, licking their way up a tree trunk to the limbs.

His eyes roved back and forth, searching the canopy and the terrain for any movement. Tree branches cracked, and X centered the barrel on a palm that jerked and then swayed from side to side. Its lavender fronds shook violently before the entire thing crashed to the ground. There came another cracking sound, like a bone being snapped.

“Get ready,” Rhino said to X. He said something in Spanish to Wendig, who moved into the other room to tell Whale and Fuego.

Rhino’s almond eye slots turned to X.

“You’re about to meet the devil,” he said. “If you can take its head, you might impress el Pulpo. He’s one of only a few men ever to kill one of these beasts.”

Though X couldn’t see his features, he picked up on the excitement in the Cazador lieutenant’s voice. It made him wonder, did these people actually enjoy fighting monsters?

Wendig came back into the room, taking the window next to X’s. Using the ledge as a bench rest, he got down on one knee and shouldered the rifle with his good arm.

The fire continued to spread into the jungle, hiding the trees and undergrowth behind a dense wall of flame. X moved his gun barrel from left to right, then back again. All at once, the foliage across the road came alive as hundreds of rodent-size insects skittered out of their lairs. The creatures were fleeing something besides the fire.

X flinched as the upper half of a flaming tree came flying across the road and through the open window in the other room. He turned just as the projectile smashed into Whale, in a shower of sparks. The biggest man X had ever seen flew backward like a straw doll.

Rhino shouted something in Spanish, then said, “I’m going to flank it.”

Before X could react, the lieutenant was running out of the room and down the stairs.

X looked back to the road just as a walking nightmare burst out through the wall of fire. Swollen muscles flashed orange across a body as thick as one of the tree trunks. The thing opened a bony jaw and let out a roar louder than thunder.

Wendig and X answered the cry with automatic gunfire. In the other room, Fuego directed his flame nozzle onto the road, coating the beast as it lumbered toward the building.

Looking through the iron sights, X hardly believed what he was seeing. Unlike the Sirens, the monster didn’t have a skin covering. And yet, the muscles didn’t appear to be unprotected, and the head was almost all bone.

The burning beast brought up black-taloned hands to protect its eyes from the gunfire and flames. X had never seen one of these before, but Tin and Magnolia had described something similar that they’d encountered at the Hilltop Bastion.

Was this the type of beast that killed Commander Rick Weaver?

The thick pectorals rhythmically flashed orange, as if in time with its thumping heart, as it reached over its back. When the creature brought its arm back down, the claws held a bony dart the length of a man’s forearm.

It threw the projectile, but X ducked just in time to avoid it. A long, sharp bone thudded into the wall and stuck like an arrow, quivering.

X rose back to his feet and waited to get a shot at the creature’s eyes, as Rhino had instructed. The monster hunched down as it ran toward the house. For such a large beast, it moved surprisingly fast, darting from tree to tree for cover.

As it moved, X saw it kept the bone shard darts stowed in the flesh of its own body, in the meaty part just above the shoulder. From this angle, they appeared to fan out around its neck like some kind of morbid spiky collar.

About fifty feet away now, it flexed its muscles and let out a deafening guttural roar. The noise was louder than a dozen Sirens at close range, and the upgraded speakers he had installed in his helmet amplified the noise even more.

The echo continued even after the monster stopped screaming. Ears ringing, X peeked above the window frame to see the beast pulling another bony dart.

He brought up his gun and held the trigger down, riddling the monster with bullets. It stumbled back but then threw the projectile, this time at Fuego, who unleashed another rope of flame at the same moment.

X looked over into the next room as the bony missile hit the tank over Fuego’s shoulder, punching right through the thick steel. The soldier screamed at the top of his lungs and continued hurling flames at the beast.

“No!” X yelled, diving away. But it was too late. Fuego exploded in a massive fireball that burst through the opening in the wall and slammed into X and Wendig.

Flaming shrapnel punched into the walls, ceiling, and floor. X felt the burn of something in his leg and then his arm, then all across his back. He rolled on the floor to put out the fire.

His optics winked off, shrouding him in darkness for a moment. The flames provided enough light to show Wendig, lying in a fetal position and groaning.

X couldn’t hear much, just the dull ringing and then a clanking sound and, finally, a human scream—not of pain but of anger.

He pushed himself up to the window to see Rhino standing in front of the structure. A wave of dizziness dropped X back to the floor, where he took several deep breaths. He felt no loyalty to the Cazador lieutenant, but he had to help before the abomination killed them all.

Come on, Xavier. Get up or get cooked…

X pushed up from the floor a second time and then crashed back down again. He rolled onto his back to find a hunk of shrapnel in his thigh armor. Another piece had stuck in his shoulder pad, and a third was lodged in the side of his helmet, just above the visor. He wasn’t sure any of them had penetrated, but he couldn’t swear that the warm wetness in his suit was just sweat. Could be piss…

I hope it’s just piss.

The floor of the room to his left suddenly collapsed, crashing to the first floor. X had a feeling the floor under his boots was next. He managed to get up, holding steady during a wave of dizziness. His vision cleared to see Wendig reaching up.

Fuck you.

X grabbed his rifle and walked away, but hesitated when he reached the doorway. He had killed this guy’s cousin, and now he was leaving him to burn alive?

He would leave you to burn.

Right?

“Don’t make me regret this, you prick,” X said. He stumbled back over and grabbed Wendig’s hand. Planting his boots against the uneven floor, moving inches at a time, he dragged Wendig out of the room. Then he helped him up, pulled the good arm over one shoulder, and got him down the stairs.

Outside the building, the grunting and roaring continued as Rhino fought the beast with his double-headed spear.

X began to cough as he staggered down the steps with Wendig. The smoke had started to infiltrate his helmet now that his battery wasn’t working to power the filter. He stopped to fiddle with the battery, which had been knocked loose from its socket, but even when he clicked it back into position, it didn’t activate.

It was just another way for him to die, he thought as they reached the bottom of the stairwell—cooked alive in this formfitting armor oven.

Most of the lower room was on fire when X spotted Whale lying beneath the half a tree that the beast had hurled through the window.

He and Wendig moved over to help, but it took only a glance to see that the big guy wasn’t getting back up. The log had crushed Whale’s chest plate, and a branch had sheared off the bottom of his helmet and unhinged his jaw.

And yet, somehow, he was still breathing.

Wendig reached down with his good hand. He yelled in Spanish, gesturing for X to help.

“You fucking serious, man?” X said. It didn’t take a genius to see that Whale was done.

But to X’s astonishment, Whale grabbed his axe off the ground and then used the haft to push himself to his feet. Blood leaked out of his cracked chest armor and trickled from his broken jaw.

He brought the axe up, and for a fleeting moment, X backed away, thinking Whale was going to swing on him. Instead, he stumbled through the burning room and led the way outside, where Rhino and the beast dueled.

The fires in the forest and the building gave X his first close-up view of their enemy. It stood seven feet tall and had a muscular frame wider than two men.

Its taloned hands parried Rhino’s double-headed spear, deflecting the blow with a loud clang. The beast took several steps backward, turning a gray armored back with the collar of spikes.

It brought a fist down toward the top of Rhino’s helmet. Rhino raised the spear, but the shaft snapped in two, and a talon shrieked down his chest armor.

Whale staggered forward and swung his axe down on the back of the beast, lodging the blade between two of the bony spikes. It let out a roar and turned on its attacker.

“No!” Wendig shouted. He fired the handgun in his good hand, and X pointed his submachine gun at the eyes, but the weapon clicked on a jammed round.

Rhino jabbed one end of his broken spear into the monster’s neck from the side, earning himself a backhand that sent him crashing to the ground. Whale punched the monster in the face with his brass knuckles, with an audible cracking of bone. Doubling over in pain, he fell to his knees in front of the beast as it reared backward, one hand to its face.

Letting out an enraged scream, it grabbed Whale by the helmet in both hands and popped his head off like a cork from a bottle. Then it tossed the head at X as the body slumped over, squirting twin jets of blood into the air.

Wendig struggled to change the magazine in his pistol, and X grabbed the sheathed blade off his duty belt as the monster lumbered toward them.

Behind it, Rhino was getting back to his feet. He picked up one of the broken spear shafts and made a run for the creature as X and Wendig backed away.

A boom and crack sounded behind them as the house collapsed in a billowing cloud of glowing embers. Sirens, spectators to the violence, circled overhead, waiting for a chance at fresh-killed meat.

When X turned back to the monster, it had stopped to sniff the air. Rhino used the opportunity to grab the haft of the axe still jammed in its back, and wrenched it free. When it turned toward him, he jammed the other half of his broken spear into its eye.

X moved to flank the thing while Rhino brought the axe down on its chest, sinking the blade deep in its muscle. Blood welled out, covering Rhino in carmine.

The shriek that followed sent all three men reeling backward. The noise was unbearable, even now that X’s speakers were offline. He fell to his knees, gripping his helmet where his ears were to no avail.

In its rage, the creature turned and kicked Wendig, sending him skidding across the dirt and into the flooded basement of a neighboring house.

X stood and turned away from the beast, making it a few feet before it picked him up by one leg, and flung him through the air. He landed on his back near Rhino. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, but it also saved his life. If he had landed facedown, the shards of shrapnel would have been driven through his armor, suit, and flesh.

Another roar sounded as X rolled up to a sitting position. He blinked and blinked, trying to get a view of Rhino. The lieutenant, weaponless, was back on his feet now with his fists up as the creature approached.

He jumped back to avoid a swipe of curved talons. Then he threw a punch at the jaw, which did little more than fuel the creature’s rage. It reached out and grabbed Rhino by the neck, lifting him off the ground, as X finally got to his feet.

He staggered the first few steps but then managed a trot. The creature lifted Rhino higher until his boots were a good three feet off the ground. X looked for something to fight with, and his eyes narrowed in on the spiky apparitions on the beast’s back. He grabbed one and pulled with all his strength.

The beast dropped Rhino’s limp body to the ground and whirled toward X, hunching down and screeching. X jabbed the spike at its remaining eye but missed, and talons slashed his chest armor.

He smacked down on his back again as the monster towered over him. Reaching down, it plucked him off the ground and raised him into the air. The huge hand clamped down on his throat, cutting off the air and threatening to crush his windpipe.

He flailed with his arm, trying to find something to grab—something to fight back with. Over the years, he had survived because he always left himself an out, but this time, he didn’t have any.

The beast pulled him closer to its face. As X’s vision faded in and out, he looked into the soulless gaze of a monster straight from the pits of hell. And in the reflection from that baleful eye, he saw the triangle of shrapnel sticking out of his helmet, just above the visor. Leaving the pointed shard lodged where it was, he rammed his head into the monster’s eye.

The mutant howled in agony and dropped X to the dirt, where he scrambled away.

X filled his lungs with air, and as his vision cleared, he watched a dripping wet man limp across the dirt with a broken spear in his hand. He approached the monster, waited, and then jammed the blade into the roof of its open mouth.

The ground shook as if a tree had fallen.

X also collapsed, allowing himself a breather.

He felt a hand on his shoulder a moment later and glanced up at Wendig. Reaching down with his good hand, the warrior helped X to his feet. They staggered over to Rhino, who was slowly coming to.

“You okay?” X asked.

Rhino pushed himself up and looked at the dead monster. All three of them stared for several seconds, catching their breath.

“Impressive, Immortal,” Rhino finally said. “Only one thing left to do now: take the head.”

“I wasn’t the one to bring it down.” X nodded to Wendig, who had already grabbed Whale’s axe. Using his good hand, the injured Barracuda hacked at the neck, in the flicker of the raging fires.