“Reloading!” Hunter yelled over the rampage to Taylor.
“Into the tunnel!” Taylor countered. “Go!”
Hunter entered the tunnel and dropped the magazine from his AR. He slapped another one in, chambered a round, and made his way to Drake and Dejah who stood just a few feet inside the passage.
“Where’s Taylor?” Dejah questioned in fear.
“He’s coming,” Hunter assured the little girl.
“Good, ‘cause I’ve got something for his friends,” Drake said, swinging the flamethrower from her pack.
Hunter cracked a smile and covered the entrance to the tunnel.
Taylor backed into the passage, still firing at the unseen outside the tunnel.
“Go!” Taylor commanded, looking over his shoulder. “Go!”
Hunter, Drake, and Dejah barreled forward and down the tunnel. Taylor backed further into the passage firing as he went.
“How far?” Taylor asked into his radio.
“Twenty-five yards in and waiting,” Hunter replied over the radio.
Taylor backed further down the passage, firing at the hostiles before him as he did. He pulled an M84 stun grenade from his tactical vest, armed it, and tossed it before him. Baboons swarmed into the passage. Taylor fired thrice more then ran down the tunnel. The animals followed. The lead primate came to a halt at the thrown circular object on the ground and smelled the area.
The sudden detonation of the grenade unleashed a blinding wave of seven million candela and the percussion of 170 decibels.
The tunnel shook, and loose earth and gravel on the floor jumped.
55.
Hunter pulled Dejah close to him and said, “Get ready.”
Dejah nodded and held tight to Hunter’s waist. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She heard the explosion and then felt the faint remains of the shockwave as it traveled down the tunnel and into her, Hunter, and Drake. Dejah opened her eyes and asked, “Is that it? It’s over?”
Hunter ignored the question, gently pushed Dejah off of him, and got into a crouched position with his rifle pointed before him.
He raised from this position only a moment later when he saw Taylor jogging toward him.
“Never get used to just how loud those things are, do you?” Hunter joked.
Taylor stuck his fingers in his ears then laughed. “Huh?”
“All gone?” Drake asked Taylor.
“Doubt it,” Taylor admitted.
“Nothing at our six,” Drake continued.
“Then let’s go that way,” Taylor said.
“But is it a way out?” Drake queried.
Taylor walked past Hunter, Drake, and Dejah and further into the tunnel. He studied the floor and walls with the aid of his flashlight. He saw evidence of plenty of comings and goings on the primates’ part, and he explained such to the remainder of his team. He took point and led Hunter, Drake, and Dejah further into the passage and away from the carnage behind them.
56.
“Buzzards,” Agent Andrews announced from behind his binoculars. “A whole bunch of them.”
“You mean flock,” Agent Carter countered from behind his own pair of binoculars.
The two agents were standing atop the roof of their SUV, studying the early morning sky. Agent Carter turned to face the same direction as Andrews and reiterated his coworker’s earlier declaration.
“Yep, that’s one big flock.”
Agent Andrews lowered his binoculars and turned to Agent Carter.
“I used the collective noun ‘bunch’ because we’re in a casual setting and as such formality is not required.”
“I understand,” Agent Carter countered. “I was only trying to help you.”
“Then you should have corrected me with ‘wake,’ as it’s the correct collective noun for buzzards,” Agent Andrews corrected. “Also acceptable are ‘venue’ or ‘kettle.’”
“Kettle? Really?”
“Yes. And venue.”
“I had no idea.”
“Now you know.”
The two men ceased their discussion of buzzards and the collective nouns associated with the birds and stood upon the roof in silence studying the area surrounding them. A sudden cloud of dust on the road below the circling buzzards caught their eye. They trained their binoculars on the abnormality and Agent Andrews asked aloud, “What is that?”
57.
Megan was hysterical.
All that she had seen and heard had caught up with her and flooded her body with pain, fear, and uncertainty.
She sobbed uncontrollably.
Screamed at things in the truck.
And cursed the road before her.
The biggest problem with the latter was the ruts and potholes that kept her from driving faster.
The second was the caliche dust that kicked up from before Tom’s truck and coated it in talcum.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” she screamed through heavy sobs. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Megan flipped the truck’s windshield wipers on and flooded the windshield with washer fluid. The powder-like dust mixed with washer fluid and frosted the windshield in a white-colored sludge. Megan continued cursing and pumped the windshield washer until the control wand broke off in her hand.
The wipers opened a hole in the sludge just in time for Megan to clearly see the Border Patrol vehicle she was about to plow into at 50 miles per hour.
58.
Agent Andrews and Agent Carter jumped off the roof of their vehicle just as it was struck by the speeding truck. Both men rolled off the ground and instinctively rose to their feet with sidearms drawn. They cautiously approached the wrecked vehicle, cutting through a cloud of radiator steam, dust, and smoke.
They were five feet from the cab when a disheveled blonde woman fought her way from behind a deployed airbag and into the road. Gravity and shock grabbed the woman and threw her to the ground. She grabbed her bleeding head, stood, and, upon seeing the men in uniform before her, began screaming.
“Dead! They’re all dead!”
“Ma’am, are you okay?” Agent Andrews asked as he holstered his pistol.
“They’re all dead! All of them!” Megan continued.
“Ma’am, you’ve been in an accident,” Agent Carter stated in a calm voice. “Agent Andrews is going to help you while I retrieve the first-aid kit from my vehicle.”
Megan nodded. She paused for a moment then began yelling again at the sight of Agent Andrews moving toward her.
“No! We gotta leave. We gotta leave now. They’ll kill us. They killed everyone.”
“Who’s everyone, ma’am?” Agent Andrews asked.
Agent Carter returned with a first-aid kit and a bottle of water. He held the bottle out to Megan. She grabbed the bottle, retreated a few steps, then chugged the container dry.
“You’re in shock, ma’am,” Agent Andrews informed Megan. “You need to sit down.”
Megan slammed the empty plastic bottle to the ground and declared, “Screw that! We’ve… we’ve gotta go. I’m telling you, they killed everyone, and they’ll kill us too.”
“Who, ma’am?” Agent Carter inquired. “Who killed everyone?”
“These… these,” Megan searched for the words. “These apes! Freakin’ monkeys. Those monkeys killed everyone.”
Agent Andrews and Agent Carter looked to one another then looked to Megan and offered in unison, “Chainsaws.”
59.
“Light.”
Hunter, Drake, and Dejah rushed to Taylor’s side to get a better look at his promise.
“Light,” Taylor repeated. “Up ahead.”
Dejah smiled and clapped her hands. Hunter and Drake nodded in stoic understanding and fell back into position behind Taylor and Dejah.