Meantime, Wells fired another series of blasts, and this time the male tourist dropped to the ground like the lifeless sack he should have been.
The woman continued to reach for Gant. He kicked her square in the chest to buy time at the same time he took notice that Wells's attacker was now out of commission.
"Jupiter, where did you hit it?"
Wells's mouth opened and worked but no answer came out.
"I don't know!" he finally shouted.
The female attacked again. Gant shot her again, but this time Wells joined the chorus of silenced rounds. The two men tore her apart, bullets knocking off limbs and eviscerating her abdomen. Gant put a round straight through her skull for good measure.
However it was a bullet that tore into the woman's knee that apparently made the difference. As the bottom half of her right leg all but evaporated from the trauma, Gant spied sickly white strands hiding among the mess of blood, bone, and muscle.
What remained of the woman's torso collapsed to the ground and oozed into pieces. The creature — what had once been a girl — ceased moving.
At that very same moment the tall grass parted yet again and out came a man dressed in a fine business suit. His lower jaw had been replaced by a strange weave of what resembled white string.
He was not alone. They filled the tall grass, dozens of them, flowing forward like a silent tide moving to drown them.
Gant did not have to order a retreat; it came naturally. But the bungalow behind them had already succumbed to the flood and the creatures approached from both directions, a ring of walking dead constricting like a noose around their necks.
6
We are all going to die.
This was not the first time such thoughts had filled Annabelle Stacy's mind. While volunteering at a refugee center during the Libyan civil war she had found herself in the midst of an artillery barrage. However, this danger — a circle of what appeared to be animated corpses drawing tight — was far more sanity testing.
"Weapons free!" Gant commanded.
At that, the major and Specialist Wells opened fire with their silenced carbines, concentrating on the line of creatures approaching from the grass. A chorus of thump-thump-thump sung from their guns.
Dr. Stacy — her hands shaking — turned and eyed the second half of the trap, the half approaching from the bungalow. A wall of shuffling and stumbling cadavers, some hunched over, others holding their heads at odd angles. Fortunately, the night hid the more gruesome details, and Stacy refused to reactivate her night vision for just that very reason.
Nonetheless, she found the will to fire. Again. And again. Her unsilenced pistol clapped the night air in thunderous reports, and the flash from the barrel made its own lightning storm in the dark, illuminating torn skin, broken limbs, and gored chests with every flare.
Her first shots missed as she let the barrel creep up with each successive tug on the trigger. Then the training kicked in. She eased the pressure and squeezed instead of tugged; she also aimed a hair lower. Despite the darkness, her next volley of bullets hit home and she analyzed the results with the scientific side of her mind; the side that still operated despite the insane situation confronting her.
One bullet hit the gut of a thin fellow. The creature did not even flinch … but it did fall over to the ground, where — as best she could tell in the dark — it stopped moving.
Another shot found the base of an elderly gentleman's throat but he continued forward without pause. Her third round scored a head shot on an oriental woman in shredded pajamas. Her dead face fell apart into small bits, leaving behind a gory mess, yet she kept coming.
"There's no weak spot!" Jupiter wells shouted as his bullets met with the same inconsistent success.
"Yes … yes there is," she shouted back. "But it's not the same spot. It could be anywhere!"
"Keep firing," Gant shouted as he changed a clip. "We need an opening. Anything. Some way through."
She admired his determination, but willpower alone could not account for the waves of doom flooding forth. Half a dozen motionless corpses piled up in front of Gant and Wells as well as a trio on her front, but the enemy kept coming; no fear, no hesitation. The three infiltrators retreated into a tighter circle, nearly back-to-back.
Dr. Stacy switched out a clip on her weapon and realized it was her last. In mere seconds the bullets would be gone.
Should I save a round for myself?
Before she could answer that thought, a sound swept over the field of grass and shoreline near the bungalow. She could not see the source; not with the thick canopy of clouds keeping the moon and stars at bay. But she heard it clearly enough. The sound of heavy props flying low overhead, followed by the stench of exhaust from a cluster of engines.
"What the hell is that?" Wells shouted as he used the butt of his rifle to knock away one of the faster attackers.
"A plane. It was a big plane," Gant answered and he fired a burst.
"Is that Franco? Did they come back?" Stacy felt a pang of hope despite knowing that even if it were Franco in that plane he could do nothing. Certainly not in time.
"Keep firing. Just keep firing your weapon!" Gant ordered.
She did. She squeezed the trigger. The bullets flew forward, hitting rotten slabs of flesh. Spent cartridges arched out and away from the fast-working slide, and a puff of acidic smoke billowed from the handgun.
One more of the creatures dropped over as her last round slammed into its knee. It did not fall from the leg wound; it crumpled over and ceased moving. The "fatal" shot added yet another layer of confusion to the situation, but she had no time to consider the meaning. The swarm passed over the fallen fiend and came within arm's reach.
Dr. Annabelle Stacy felt a scream build in her lungs. A deep, primal scream. The death-song of a person confronting the sure knowledge of her imminent demise.
During the drop from six miles up, she had wondered what her parents would have thought if they knew their daughter had jumped from the edge of space. Now those parents flashed before her eyes. She wished she had never left that boring, confined home. She wished she were there right now, curled in her father's arms, safe from the monsters that, when she had been a little girl, he promised did not exist.
Not his fault, she thought. He didn't know. There are monsters, Daddy.
They fell over.
All at once. Each and every one of the shambling former humans surrounding the desperate trio, as if they were machines and their collective "off" button had been pushed. The creatures made more noise in one big chorus of "thuds" then they had in their pursuit of the team.
She stood there — back-to-back with Gant and Wells — with her empty gun held aloft, its slide locked open, and a stream of smoke rising from the barrel.
As much as the attackers had come from a nightmare, their sudden collapse seemed even more dreamlike.
"What … what happened?"
Major Gant did his best to retain his usual decisive tone but his voice did waver: "You are the science officer; you tell me."
The three held their position for several seconds longer, as if fearing movement might reawaken the things. Gant finally stood straight, then Wells, and finally Stacy regained some measure of composure.
"Hang on," she said as her mind rifled through the possibilities. "Where's my gear?"
She carefully walked around and over the ring of now-motionless bodies that had — seconds before — threatened to tear her to pieces. As she moved, her lungs hunted for oxygen, causing her to lose concentration and stumble. Gant's strong hand caught her before she tumbled.