“This whole place is giving me the creeps,” he muttered, holstering his pistol again as he stepped out onto the stairs. He glanced back over his shoulder, shaking his head as he checked the cabin one last time.
“That’s because we own this place now.”
His heart damn near exploded in his chest as he spun around, coming face to face with something out of a zombie movie. The withered and rotting face couldn’t belong to anything living, but it smiled at him as he screamed and went for his rifle on reflex.
Whatever it was, it didn’t make a move to stop him, but before he could bring his weapon up a leathery hand reached into his mouth and grabbed him by his face, yanking him forward.
The last things Corporal Jenner heard or felt were the obnoxiously loud popping sounds from his neck as he was pulled up off the stairs of the Learjet and dragged into the rafters of the hangar.
For a long stretch of time the only sound left around the hangar was the low moan of the arctic wind, signaling a coming change in the weather. Then footsteps scuffed against the tarmac as five camouflaged, uniformed men came running up and spread out.
“Look around. They can’t be far,” ordered the lead man, Sergeant Dale.
The men slowed, moving into the hangar with their weapons shouldered and ready to fire. One dropped to his knee by the abandoned M4 on the tarmac, lifting it up to check the action and sniff the weapon.
“Unfired.”
“Great,” Dale said. “All right, let’s clear this building, then move on.”
“Yes, sir.”
The team moved inside, ducking under the wings of the Lear as they went, sweeping the hangar with their M4s.
“Corporal Jenner!” Dale growled. “Where the hell are you?! Jenner!”
When no response came, the men paused briefly, but their leader signaled them onward. They penetrated the hangar and slowly swept through the large building. It only took minutes to determine that their missing man—men, it looked like now — was still missing. They regrouped inside, taking a moment to discuss their options out of the wind.
“All right, something clearly happened up here. Neither of those two is stupid enough to leave his weapons lying around on the tarmac like that,” Private First Class Rodriguez grated out.
“No shit, Private,” Dale snapped. “The question is what the fuck happened. Anyone see anything?”
“Didn’t see shit, Sarge.”
“All right, Rodriguez, Smith, clear the jet. The rest of us will cover the hangar until you’re done, then we move on.”
“Right.”
The team moved back to the front of the jet, three of them in the front, the remaining two covering the rear. They knew their job and were determined to do it by the numbers, but plans were plans and reality had a way of making its own.
Even with NODs, they didn’t see the attack coming. A shuffle of feet, almost hidden by the sound of their own movements, a hint of motion in the air — none of it was enough to alert them in time. Sergeant Dale heard a muffled impact, and then his face was spattered with something warm and wet. He spun toward the sound and motion, only to see a dark shadow blot out the green glow of his night vision. Before he had time to react, a heavy pressure sat on his chest like an elephant bearing down on him. He tried to breath, tried to speak into his radio as he slumped to his knees, but all that came out was a low rattle that even he could barely hear.
In seconds the entire team was lying on the ground, surrounded by dark shambling figures where they had stood. They were all focused on the same thing, a figure standing apart from the group, watching as the blood of the fallen soldiers cooled on the ground.
“Tell the others that it’s time.”
Captain Jones didn’t know what the hell had happened.
They’d moved out of the airport and spread out into the town, where everything was quiet. The place was like some half-frozen ghost town, and it wasn’t the cold that was sending shivers up everyone’s spines.
They saw their first person about two streets northwest of the airport, and since there was no fighting or rioting to speak of in the area, everyone took it as a good sign. Then one person became two, four, eight, and so forth. Within minutes there were dozens of figures standing around them.
Just standing there silently. Watching.
They’d tried talking to them, of course, approaching cautiously and as nonthreateningly as possible. But the people didn’t react. It was like something out of a ghost movie, Jones supposed, though considering what happened next, a zombie flick might be a more appropriate comparison.
They all started walking in response to some unheard signal, converging on the state troopers.
The troopers shouted warnings, and someone even fired a shot into the air. Captain Jones would have had him on report for that, if it weren’t for the fact that he was pretty sure the offending trooper was dead.
The blood. My God, I’ve never seen so much blood.
The captain of the state police huddled down in a dark corner, his radio to his lips.
“I don’t care!” he growled. “We need help up here! Send everyone!”
He looked up as a figure appeared above him. The eyes seemed to glow as he dropped his radio and pointed his service piece.
The forty-five roared eleven times as Jones screamed over the thunder, continuing to squeeze the trigger as his magazine emptied. The desperate click click click sound only stopped when Jones’s throat was torn out by his assailant’s teeth.
“Colonel!”
“What is it, Major?” Colonel Sam Pierce asked, glancing up as the other man rushed from the command center they’d established on the C-130 out to where he was standing and threw him a fast salute.
Major Johnson cringed slightly. “I don’t know, and that’s the problem. We just lost contact with a squad we sent over to check on the missing corporals who went to check out some weird tech glitch north of us, and the radios went crazy. And now Captain Jones is screaming for backup.”
“What?” Pierce stood ramrod straight. “What happened?”
“That’s just it, no one seems to know.” Johnson shook his head. “Everything was quiet as a church two minutes ago, and suddenly all hell broke loose. We thought we heard shots, but no one answered our calls until Jones got on the horn. A few people got through after that, screaming something about cannibals and zombies, but we can’t even get a hold of them anymore.”
Pierce nailed his second in charge with a glare most men would turn away from, but Johnson had been with him a long time. “Tell me that you’re joking.”
“Sorry, sir, that’s what the callers said.”
“Jesus.” The colonel shook his head. “Just what I need. Druggies on bath salts or meth, I assume?”
“No evidence one way or the other, but considering the reports out of Florida, Texas, and other states over the past few years, that would be my guess, sir.”
“Just great. Okay, get the men ready to roll out. The state troopers have asked for our help, and we’ve got the governor’s declaration of emergency on our side,” Pierce ground out. “Just pray to God we can clean this up quickly, or it’s going to be splashed over every network in the country by this time next week.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 6
Eddie Rankin frowned as he walked through the newly assigned squad HQ. Who the hell redecorated?
Someone had shifted the couch and moved several tables out into the open from somewhere. Chairs were scattered around the room too, and he needed to dodge around them as he made his way inside.