Plague Read online

  Shetani stumbled out of the room and collapsed on the floor just outside the quarters, crushing the fresher dead man under his weight. Breathing heavily, he sat up and peered again inside the space, through the miasma clogging the air.

  He knew the smell. It was easily identifiable in the unspoiled room, unlike the hallway. The seated figure’s scent hadn’t been masked by the noxious stench filling the corridor now.

  He lifted his arm and sniffed his own flesh, focusing on the specific scent.

  The same, he thought. We are the same.

  He recognized the scent of his current form, but he also recognized the smell of something else. The army outside smelled only of the devil in him. The scent that attracted him to this place was unique, like him. There was another that the scent had in common with… The ones that fled from here. Shetani knew that deep down he was similar to them.

  Was… But not anymore.

  Confused at the notion of what he was, Shetani jumped to his feet and pounded down the corridor, smashing what was left of the body’s head under his foot. He took the first right at a sprint, pushing off the wall as he made the turn. The plaster crumbled beneath his strength.

  He understood what the seated dead man was to him—he just didn’t comprehend how it was possible. He could also tell this place was old—too old for him to have anything in common with anyone here.

  The human aspect of his mind was still functioning well enough for him to know and understand things he took for granted. He knew this was a man-made structure and that it was old. But he didn’t understand the finer details, like the Nazi paraphernalia or the subject matter of the books in the office... He even knew it was an office and not some primitive cave, the knowledge popping into his head just now.

  But instinct was overthrowing knowledge and primitive aggression was subduing caution. He felt no fear…until now.

  Is something changing in my head?

  In something of a panic—another new feeling—he skidded to a halt at the sight of a staircase leading down, his oversized heart pounding like a drum. Again, he could go in two different directions. Straight or—

  The other scent hit him like a slap in the face and without another thought, he dove down the stairs. He jumped from level to level, landing hard on the basement’s tiled floor in one large leap, crushing another section of flooring. Upon arriving he squatted, claws outstretched, ready for anything.

  The smell of what drew him radiated through the tight confines of the underground facility. It was faint, though, having been there for a while, dissipating over time.

  Like the seated man.

  Just in front of the stairs was another T-junction. He gave pause and sniffed the air. The overpowering scent, matching the one from the hallway above his head, struck him hard. He would not go left. But the smell coming from the right was different.

  This time he breathed in deeply, letting it absorb into every square inch of his nasal cavity. The aroma caused an almost euphoric bodily response. His muscles relaxed, squelching the abnormal nervous twitching impulses throughout his body. His nerves calmed and his self-control returned. It was similar to the seated man, but not, like only a fraction of it had been instilled into the other.

  The thought of the pure scent was too much and he charged down the hallway. He was this close to identifying what called him there.

  26

  On all fours, like one of the other killers outside, Shetani continued forward, exiting the small hall between the stairs and the next T junction. His other two, newer, appendages were still folded atop his thick back. He tried to move them and found the effort less painful than before, but they still weren’t ready to use. He could also feel a slight itching sensation emanating from them—annoying more than anything else. He breathed in again, focusing his senses on what was around the corner rather than on something as insignificant as an itch.

  He went right, towards his unknown destination. Following the same layout as the floor above, he made the sharp turn—immediately passing through what could only be described as an invisible odor barrier. He shook his head, slamming it into the right-hand wall of the dark corridor, but he didn’t stop. It was the scent he had picked up earlier, and it became more and more overwhelming the closer he neared its source. The smell-wall he had just passed through, overstimulated his senses, causing his mind to momentarily buck, reverting into the primal beast he continued to evolve into.

  Physically, he thought, but not mentally. Something continued to change in his mind. His body grew stronger and more overpowering. His mind was growing stronger too but in a much different way.

  Slowing, he stalked forward like a cat, claws ready to slash and gore anything that appeared in front of him. But nothing did. It was as still as death down here and had been for some time.

  He stopped when he saw the barred door, staring at it with mixed emotions. Whatever he was drawn to, it was in that room, behind the cage-like barrier.

  He again moved closer, breathing heavy with anticipation. He needed to see what was in there. It beckoned him forward.

  Inhaling, Shetani tasted the air. The human scent was thick here too, covering the bars themselves.

  Human?

  The revelation caught him off guard. Something was definitely happening to his memory. Images from a past he still couldn’t fully recall flashed through his mind. Just a few moments ago, he had no idea what the scent was that drew him, but now he could confidently say it was human. The people that fled in the flying machine had also left a trail here.

  Flying machine. Information, like ants marching one-by-one back to their homes, came. One at a time, small bits of his memory returned, feeding his subconscious.

  He stretched forward smelling the metal, catching a whiff of one the humans. Its fragrance was sweeter, softer, more…feminine. He glanced up from the bars and froze when he saw what was on the other side of the cell’s door.

  Slowly standing tall, he never took his arachnid-like gaze off of the creature that sat inside the prison, strapped to a chair. He gripped the heavy door and with one raged-filled roar, yanked it from its hinges, flinging it down the hall. He stepped inside, peering closely into the dead eyes of…

  We are the same. It’s the second time he had the thought.

  He leaned in closer and sniffed, rearing back at the scent. It was like before, but ten times stronger. It would have again sent him sprawling to the hard floor, but he anticipated the reaction and reached for the wall outside the room.

  It’s the second time that has happened as well. Something as simple as a smell had caused him to react like that. Fool. He hadn’t felt the least bit clumsy or frightened before this. Whatever the two monsters were, they were something even he needed to have caution with.

  Monsters.

  The one upstairs wasn’t a monster in the literal sense, but he had obviously been one. It wasn’t as overpowering either. Maybe because it still looked human? He wasn’t sure exactly how much monster the person had in them before they died. Regardless, the two definitely had the same human scent.

  Like me.

  He again smelled his own flesh, comparing it to the dead here. Smiling for a second, Shetani lifted his other arm and found it covered in the fluids of the dead. It belonged to the one he fell on outside the office upstairs. It too held an identical odor, along with the putrid smell of their weapon’s discharge.

  Weapons. He looked to his hands, grinning. He didn’t need weapons.

  He reentered the cell and reached out, cutting away the thick leather straps keeping the arms tied down. Four arms, he thought. Next, he lifted one of the primary arms, surprised to find it much more flexible than he would have thought. He knew the older of the dead were supposed to be stiff and brittle. This was most definitely not that. This was like a taut kind of rubber or something close to it.

  Slowly, Shetani placed a heavy palm on the dead creature’s chest—flinching away after feeling something that didn’t belong. A faint, ba
rely noticeable thump twitched under his prodigious hand.

  Alive?

  The severely dehydrated beast was…alive.

  How? Even he knew that most living thing’s needed sustenance to survive.

  Living… He felt his own chest, finding nothing.

  NOT alive. The realization struck him hard. He was dead… He flexed his arms.

  NOT dead, but not alive.

  He shook off the discovery. He was Hai Wafu—Living Dead—and it made him smile. He was the best of both.

  Shetani looked back over his shoulder, sensing the pounding of the hooved throng above him. The reverberation could be felt under his feet and in his ears, thanks in part to his heightened senses.

  Looking back down to his relative, he had an idea, grinning as he turned. He quickly headed back the way he came. He knew exactly what to do. It would take time, but in the end, it would be worth every second.

  The best part was that there was a stable and almost willing source of fuel just outside. He wouldn’t feed on the others here, though. They didn’t possess the new meat and fresh blood he now desired. But what of the other? Shetani didn’t think the mostly dead would mind how new or old the meal was. He was sure it would just be happy to be alive again.

  27

  “Right…” Logan said, leaning forward on his knees. “What do we know?”

  Along with CJ, Fitz, Jan, and Adnan, Logan, seated at his desk, had gathered his team inside the inner ring of racks and shelves. In front of each shelf was a metal table, each one being filled with recently outfitted and customized weapons. The ones that were empty held a couple of his friend’s butts.

  Dada and Kel were elsewhere, checking that the compound was locked down and sealed tight. The only entrance would be from the garage at the rear of the complex. Its door was thick and heavy, and impossible to open from the outside without a remote.

  “Infrared, huh?” Fitz asked Mo, who was standing, leaning against one of the racks that encircled Logan’s workstation.

  Mo nodded. “I was curious and flipped on the unit equipped to Kipanga’s belly—the one we installed last year, but haven’t really used. Normally, it would show anything alive within a few degrees of our blood’s temperature as an off-white blob.” He took a breath. “But the Nach…”

  “What of them?” Jan asked.

  “They read as white-hot—” Mo replied, “off the charts white-hot—like they had a spike of internal temperature—”

  “Like a fever?” Logan asked.

  “Could be,” Mo said, “but it’s not like I had a thermometer handy.”

  “You can borrow my rectal thermometer if you want,” Fitz said with a smirk on his face.

  “What do you think it is—the God Blood, I mean?” CJ asked the group, rolling her eyes at Fitz. She threw out the question for everyone and anyone to answer curious at any and all opinions.

  “I thought we nailed that one already?” Fitz replied. “It’s some sort of World War Two-era super elixir, administered to human and animal subjects, giving them a steroid user's wet dream of results and a cannibal’s wet dream of an appetite.”

  CJ’s nose flared in disgust.

  “Some of them were Nazi soldiers too,” Jan added, shaking his head. “They really didn’t care who they tested it on. Just as long as they got their damned results.”

  “Probably some blokes that didn’t exactly agree on what they were doing there,” Fitz said. “The real SS soldiers stationed there, I mean—not the Wohn Tod traitors.”

  Everyone nodded. It was clear that they staged some sort of coup and took over the facility from the inside out. Whoever was actually a part of the Reich was eventually captured and experimented on like any other POW. Once the bunker was in the hands of Mengele and his men, they must have gone into full-blown psycho mode.

  “That’s not what I meant, though,” CJ said. “What I meant was, what is the virus—the God Blood itself? What is it doing to the things that call this place home?”

  “Turning everything infected into fucking monsters, that’s what!” Fitz said, getting up and pacing the room.

  As ridiculous as it sounded, Fitz was right, and Logan had no idea where to go from here. How do you fight something like this on a wide scale? You can’t kill everything in the Serengeti to prevent the spread, and you can’t hunt down everything that has already been infected. The square footage was just too great. Even if he had a hundred men it wouldn’t be possible.

  “It’s also altering their DNA at its finest levels,” Jan said. “It’s changing them—”

  “The saber-lions,” Logan said.

  “Exactly,” Jan agreed. “Whatever the Gott Blut truly is, it’s giving the animals and people infected added aggression and the means to become true super-predators. It’s tapping into their ancestral traits and bringing them out after the virus invaded their systems.”

  “Like foot long teeth and camouflaged fur?” Fitz asked.

  Jan just shrugged.

  Logan looked up to Adnan. “Any word back from the military?” He had asked the I.T. guru to call it in, even though he had planned on doing it. If contact was made, Logan would take over. He asked Adnan to do his best to explain what was happening without bringing up the undead packs of animals now roaming the plains.

  Adnan shook his head no. “Not yet, but I left a message with them and implored them to ring us back as soon as they got my call.” His face fell a little.

  “What?” Logan asked, noticing the change in body language.

  “I’m just not sure how seriously they are going to take it. It may be hours before we hear something back from civilization.”

  Logan nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, standing and walking to the nearest table. He lifted his slightly modified SCAR, checking the scope that now sported an infrared feature. “We stay in the Pen until we hear back from the outside and hunker down. We can patrol the grounds outside in the Rhino. Two man teams. No one goes outside alone.”

  The Rhino was Logan’s brand new technical. It was a military-grade Hummer outfitted with a .50 caliber M2A1 heavy machine gun and bullet-proof glass. The steel siding would protect anyone on the inside from the standard ammo used by poachers. The Hummer also had steel plating covering each of the tires, making them invulnerable to attack from the sides as well. It had yet to see action since the SDF recently acquired it.

  “Mo,” Logan said, looking to the pilot, “how’s fuel?”

  The man shrugged. “Fine, but no long trips unless absolutely necessary.”

  “We need to go back to the site,” Fitz said, getting everyone’s attention.

  “What—why?” CJ asked, her eyes wide in fright and shock at such a request.

  Fitz held up both his hands, pleading for her to calm down. “Easy, mum… I just want to get the Rover back that Jan and I left there. It is fully stocked and we may need the extra wheels if we have to bail and head for the hills.”

  No one spoke, unsure of what to say. But Logan, being the leader of the group, did what all men in charge would do.

  “He’s right and I’ll go.”

  Several voices argued about it, but he squelched it down with a loud bang, his fist punching the metal table. The equipment atop it rattled, causing everyone to quiet immediately. They knew how serious he was if he lost his cool or raised his voice a decibel higher than usual. If Jan was as calm as he was, Logan was the Buddha himself. Logan’s demons caused him anguish on the inside, but on the outside, he was as passive as a statue.

  “Mo will fly me out and drop me right on top of it,” he said. “Then I’ll high-tail it out of there and head back here ASAP.”

  “Like hell you are,” Fitz said, standing in defiance. If there was one person in the room Logan would listen too, it was Gray Fitzpatrick. Logan respected his words above all others when it came to things of this nature—even more than his sister’s.

  Logan was about to argue, but Fitz just calmly held up his hand and added, “At lea
st,” he smiled, “not without me you’re not.”

  “Gray—” Logan said but was cut off.

  “Don’t even try, mate,” Fitz said. “You and I both know that going out there alone right now is the wrong thing to do, and there is no one better by your side than yours truly.” He emphasized the last point my sticking his thumb out at himself.

  Logan conceded, rubbing his forehead, trying desperately to ward off an oncoming headache. It didn’t work. The slight pressure behind his eyebrows increased with every second that passed.

  “Plus,” Fitz said, with a smirk, “I have a new toy to try out.”

  28

  They were in the air fifteen minutes later, heading back towards ground zero. Knowing the flight would take roughly thirty minutes, Logan and Fitz went over the plan again, Mo listening the best he could while still flying straight and true.

  “What the hell is that?” Mo asked, interrupting the huddle when seeing Fitz’s new toy. It was unlike anything he’d seen since joining up with the SDF.

  The Aussie grinned patting his recently acquired XM-25 grenade launcher. It was black in color, like their new BDU’s. They opted for the new clothes for nighttime concealment with the hopes of leaving as small a footprint as possible until they reached the Land Rover.

  That’s the plan, anyway, Logan thought, listening to Fitz.

  “The XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System features a state-of-the-art targeting software that calculates the mark’s range with a push of a button.” Fitz flipped over the weapon, showing Logan the red button. “It then transfers the data to an electronic fuse built into the 25mm round.” He held up one of the large shells and continued. “These projectiles are capable of exploding directly above the target in question when programmed, peppering the enemy—in this case, the Nach—with shrapnel.”

  “Does it have to be programmed?” Logan asked.

  “No,” Fitz replied. “You can just point and shoot like any other weapon. The targeting system is just an option.”