“What does that mean?” Byrne whispered.
“Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie and make you feel better?”
“The truth.”
“We’re on our own.”
“They’ll come,” Warren whispered. “They can’t afford for us to be found here by anyone else. There will be too many questions.”
“They’ll just firebomb the whole town and make it look like an accident.”
“Would you two shut up?” Richards whispered. “They’re not going to firebomb the town. They need what we have.” He looked pointedly at Byrne. “They need what he has.”
“I don’t have anything,” Byrne whispered. “There’s no outbreak. No virus.”
“But they don’t know that. For all they know we’ve collected the next Ebola virus or a potential biological weapon of mass destruction. Either one is worth its weight in gold to the powers that be.”
Warren peered down at the alley through the gap beside the dented metal tub.
“They won’t leave us here,” he whispered. “They’ll come for us.”
“And then they’ll turn this town into a crater you can see from space,” Graves whispered.
“That kind of thing doesn’t happen,” Byrne whispered. “There are protocols, especially when dealing with virulent organisms.”
“You just keep telling yourself that, Doc.” Graves chuckled. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd there have been more potential pandemics since the turn of the century than in the entire history of man before that?”
A creaking sound overhead.
Conversation ceased and all eyes looked to the ceiling.
“Something’s up there,” Byrne whispered.
“You think?”
“Shh!”
Motes of dust sparkled in the dim moonlight that passed through the roof. Byrne watched them billow on a current of air he couldn’t feel.
Another creaking sound. This time from closer to the bedroom.
Warren aimed his rifle at the ceiling and slowly approached, placing each foot silently on the wooden floor.
A shadow passed over a tiny hole and the column of motes disappeared.
“I have a shot,” Warren whispered.
“You could bring the whole roof down on our heads,” Richards whispered.
“One shot won’t compromise the structure.”
“We can’t take that risk. Hold your fire and wait for extraction.”
More creaking from directly above Graves, who slowly stood and aimed his rifle straight up.
A loud thump and a metallic clang. From below them.
Byrne scurried across the floor and looked down into the store. All was dark and still. No hint of movement.
“They’re testing our perimeter,” Richards whispered.
“They’re animals, for Christ’s sake,” Graves whispered. “They aren’t capable of—”
A shriek of scraping metal.
Warren ran back into the kitchen and threw his shoulder into the washbasin before it could slide from the sill. He shoved it back into place with a groan.
“Eyes open,” Richards whispered.
“They can’t get in here,” Graves whispered. “We have every ingress secured.”
“They took out the entire town,” Byrne whispered.
“While they were sleeping.”
“Shh!” Richards whispered.
A faint scratching sound. Overhead. Moving stealthily above the bedroom. Richards followed its progress with his eyes.
Clang.
Byrne looked down through the hole. Caught movement from his peripheral vision. Turned and saw a screwdriver roll across the floor. The chain through the handle on the shutters unraveled with a clanking sound and slithered to the bare wood.
“Help me!” he shouted, and frantically searched for anything he could drag over the hole.
“Use the table,” Graves said. He ran toward the barricaded rear door.
“Don’t abandon your post!” Richards shouted.
Graves dragged back the couch and pried the table from behind it.
Several shapes streaked past below Byrne. He heard the clatter of nails on metal and wood.
“Hurry!”
Graves inverted the table and slid it toward Byrne, who maneuvered it over the hole and climbed on top of it. Impact from beneath it nearly knocked him off. He grabbed one of the legs for balance.
Another blow. The table lifted from the floor and clapped back down.
Screaming erupted from all around them at once. The scratching sound on the roof turned to pounding, then to what almost sounded like thunder. Beams cracked and planks split.
Warren stepped away from the window, switched his AIR to full automatic, and fired up into the rafters. Dozens of bullet holes opened in the old wood, through which Byrne caught glimpses of long fur. Blood trickled through the gaps and bodies tumbled down the slope.
“The window!” Graves shouted.
The washbasin toppled inward at the same time there was a loud crash from the bottom of the front stairs.
Warren lunged for the washbasin as an avalanche of brownish-red fur filled the window. He yelled and fired into the mass of bodies, which drove him backward and to the floor. His shots went wild, hitting the wall on their way toward—
Byrne dove and tackled Graves. The bullets whipped past them and chewed up the bedroom wall, on the other side of which Richards retreated as he fired at the mattress, around which clawed appendages carved into the wood in an effort to squeeze past the barricade.
Graves pushed himself up from the ground and looked at Byrne as though seeing him for the first time. He gave a curt nod, rose to his feet, and bellowed as discharge spit from his barrel.
Warren screamed and struggled to squirm out from beneath the creatures that slashed at his isolation suit and pried at his hood. They snapped at his face shield and bit his forearms with teeth that looked like those of a chimpanzee, only with long hooked canines. His rifle clattered to the ground. He used both hands in an attempt to keep them away from his—
One of the creatures tore through his hood and clamped onto his neck.
Warren’s cries abruptly ceased. His lips framed inaudible words. The vasculature beneath his skin darkened and spread like purple lightning bolts.
The table popped up. Hit the floor. Slid to the side.
Byrne glimpsed hunched shapes rising through the hole and dove for Warren’s IAR. Rolled onto his back. Shouted as he pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked in his grasp and spewed fiery steel through the bedroom wall on its way down toward the orifice. The bullets tore through the bodies climbing from the store and rushing toward him, lifting them from their feet and painting the walls crimson.
The couch scooted into the room. The back door fell inward and served as a ramp for the creatures scurrying in from the night.
Graves sprinted away from it, toward the front door. There were bodies around his legs before he was halfway there. He fell forward and tumbled down the stairs.
“Go!” Richards shouted.
He blew past Byrne through the path Graves had cleared toward the stairs. He leapt from the top step and crashed down onto the planks that still braced the lower half of the broken door. Primates screamed and slashed at him as he kicked down the remainder and dragged Graves out onto the street.
Byrne was airborne before they cleared the landing. He hit his head, then his shoulder. Clipped his foot on the rail. Came down on top of furry bodies and careened onto the sidewalk. Pointed Warren’s rifle back into the stairwell and pulled the trigger.
More creatures poured from inside the house, even as their brethren fell. They climbed over the bleeding bodies of their brethren and pounced onto the sidewalk. Even more scurried down the façade and rained from the roof.
Byrne continued to pull the trigger, even after the magazine was empty. He dug his heels into the dirt in an effort to distance himself from the monsters. Their cold blue eyes locked onto him as they bounded toward him, their fists striking the earth, their long fur streaming behind them, their cries echoing through the desolate street.