Clickers III (6 page)

claws made a terrible clicking noise, like two steel plates being banged together. Wick shrieked as he watched the creature begin to feed on his lower half. Then a Dark One speared him through the heart.

Melissa Levitz thought she’d escaped the carnage as she ducked into a small beach hut. When she heard a rustling sound behind her and felt something shove hard against her back, Melissa was unsure what had happened at first. Then she glanced down and noticed the stinger jutting from between her breasts. She drew breath to scream, but her cries turned into a choked gobbling as the stinger was drawn back inside of her. She felt it throbbing as venom was pumped into her body. Seconds later, her skin began to bubble and hiss as if she were being cooked from the inside. Blisters formed on her body. Melissa’s eyes grew wide as the blisters swelled, and then burst, oozing pink fluids. Melissa squirmed and thrashed, sliding down the tail and trailing viscera. She opened her mouth to scream and vomited blood and her own dissolving internal organs instead. The Clicker yanked its tail free and Melissa slid to the floor. The hole in her mid-section bubbled and steamed. Parts of her insides still clung to the stinger.

One group of researchers decided that their best chance of escape was to actually flee into the ocean and run along the beach. The five of them waited for a break in the carnage and then did just that. As they plunged into the surf, another group of Dark Ones came ashore astride a pack of Clickers. The hapless humans never stood a chance. The Dark Ones cut the first three down with their tridents and swords. A Clicker attacked the fourth scientist, snipping away her arms and legs as if she were a paper doll. The foaming spray turned crimson. The fifth scientist scampered backward, heading ashore again. He tripped, sank beneath the waves, and then surfaced, sputtering and coughing as his attackers loomed over him. A Clicker’s stinger darted forth, stabbing him in the chest. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only white. Seconds later a Dark One who sat astride the beast, thrust a three-pronged trident into his face and then yanked it back out, taking the man’s eyes with it. The victim jittered, convulsing on the sand. The Clicker’s tail pulsed, pumping venom through the appendage. The Dark One stabbed the corpse again, laughing with glee. Nearby, another Clicker consumed a still-living human. The helpless woman shrieked and wailed as the creature’s claws tore at her flesh, slicing skin and muscle away with an almost delicate precision, and shoveling the meat into its beaked mouth.

Many of the fleeing scientists took shelter in the jungle, hoping that the thick vegetation would hide them from the murderous creatures—and it did, until several black Clickers waddled to the edge of the jungle and began to spray the trees and undergrowth with venom. The noxious fluid splattered the humans as well. Wood and flesh bubbled and melted.

The Dark Ones waded ashore behind the rampaging Clickers, stepping around the bubbling piles of flesh that had once been human bodies. Armed with tridents, nets fashioned from a peculiar, flexible metal, and weapons salvaged from various shipwrecks, the lizard-men joined the fray, slaughtering any researchers unlucky enough to have escaped the Clickers unscathed.

Clouds passed over the moon, plunging the beach into merciful darkness.

The screams continued.

Clark Arroyo set the rake inside the condominium’s utility shed and cast a backward glance at Tony Genova’s unit. He had a clear view of the front door, but the dense shrubs that he’d maintained over the past few days provided good cover from his vantage point. There was no way he could be seen by the three government agents who’d just showed up—not under the cover of darkness.

Despite the weeks of preparation for this day, he hadn’t anticipated a visit from Tony’s FBI handlers, especially so soon. Clark had been keeping track of them; they usually checked in on Tony in person once a month, and every week by phone or email. The last time they’d visited Tony in person was a week-and-half ago.

So why were they visiting him again so soon?

Clark watched out of the corner of his eye as one of the agents touched the side of Tony’s neck and the former crime-figure slumped to the floor. Half of him lay inside the apartment. The other half lay on the stoop.

The agents moved quickly, but Clark was quicker. He dipped behind the utility shed, counted to five, then risked a peek through the vegetation.

Whoever these guys were, they were good. They’d moved Tony inside and shut the front door.

Clark took a breath and wondered what his next move should be. The fact that the agents had knocked Tony out on his ass only meant one thing—they weren’t his usual handlers, which meant they represented something else. Something more sinister. Someone with an old score to settle? Possibly, but Clark doubted it. Clark had been trained on how to read people. In his previous line of work, Presidents and other important figures had lived and died on how well Clark and his fellow agents could scan a crowd and figure people out. You couldn’t protect someone unless you’d assessed the potential threats; in Clark’s case, he could glance at someone and guess within thirty seconds what they did for a living, know approximately how much they made per year, their marital status, and most importantly, whether they represented a threat or not. The only other individuals that Clark had ever met who had this innate ability were salespeople.

Genova’s assailants were unmarried. None of them wore wedding bands, nor was there a white circle on the skin of their fingers denoting where a ring had been. They were neat and well groomed. Dressed casually, but not sloppy. They had an air of self-assuredness. More importantly, their demeanor and body-language denoted them as professionals. Professional what, was the question.

Not criminals. They didn’t fit the type, not even for the ailing and aging Mafia wiseguys who Tony Genova had once worked for. And not FBI. And probably not any of the government’s other alphabet soup agencies, either. So who were they? Black Lodge? When he’d worked as a Secret Service Agent, Clark had heard rumors about such an organization. Back then he’d chalked what he’d heard up to nothing more than conspiracy theories and the paranoid ravings of internet madmen who couldn’t cope with their everyday reality. But since the Clickers and Dark Ones invasion four years ago, which had sent Clark Arroyo’s life into an unending spiral of turmoil, he’d come to the conclusion that perhaps some of what he’d heard wasn’t all conspiracy theory bullshit.

The Clickers had been real. So had the Dark Ones. And if they were real, why not Black Lodge?

And if that was the case?

Clark felt a pit of fear settle over him as he closed the door to the utility shed. He’d arrived at the condominium complex wearing the green coveralls worn by the staff groundskeepers. The Mexican groundskeeper he’d gotten them from had been only too happy to accept Clark’s thousand bucks in cash in exchange for the uniform, his job for the next few days, and his silence. Clark had observed the groundskeeper for a full week before making his proposition, so he knew the man worked solo all day. It had provided the perfect opportunity for casing Tony Genova’s unit and plotting his next move.

Only now, he didn’t know what his next move was going to be.

Clark leaned against the closed utility shed door, his mind racing. He was in close enough proximity that he would hear when the shadowy figures who’d entered Tony’s unit left. He’d come too far now to abort his mission. He had to wait this out, see what kind of move they’d make, before he could decide what to do.

His original plan had been simple. Gain entry to Tony’s unit by

pretending to be a Mexican immigrant groundskeeper who needed access to the rear deck of the unit. Clark was one-half Mexican anyway, spoke Spanish (as well as Japanese, French, German, and Cantonese) and could easily emulate the speech and mannerism of an immigrant worker. Once he was inside he’d knock Tony unconscious, get him tied up, then wait for him to wake up. Once he was conscious, Clark would explain Tony’s options. Cooperate or Old Man Marano would get word that Tony was still alive, as well as the former hitman’s exact location. Clark figured the choice was obvious; the don might be serving time, but he had a reach outside the prison walls that would result in a very dead Tony Genova within twenty-four hours.

Simple, right?

Clark was pretty confident Tony would cooperate. After all, this was a guy who’d negotiated his way into a pretty cool relocation/new identity thanks to Livingston’s Administration. Both his original options would have resulted in painful deaths. That indicated Tony Genova was very interested in staying alive, no matter what the cost. If he dropped dime on the Marano family in exchange for this cushy new life, he’d drop dime again to get Clark what he needed.

To be exonerated.

Left alone.

To live out the rest of his life in peace.

Livingston had that power. He could end this relentless investigation into former President Jeffrey Tyler’s death. He had the influence to shape and manufacture evidence, which would in turn be used to provide the official documentation on the man’s untimely death. Conspiracy theorists would still ponder the events of that day, would still come to their own crackpot theories, and some would even cling doggedly to the notion that Clark had, indeed, killed President Tyler. But those theories would never go on any official record. Until the current investigation was shut down, a false solution presented, and the trail leading to Clark Arroyo was erased permanently, he could never be at rest.

He could also stop killing people, too.

Despite the fact that he was good at it, Clark didn’t really like doing it.

Unfortunately, the events of the last two years had forced his hand. The killings would never be traced back to him. He’d made sure of that, having been trained by the best and the brightest in the US Government. But Tyler’s foot soldiers were still around, and they were causing trouble for him. They were like cockroaches. Pests that invaded your living space and wreaked havoc until you killed them. And just like cockroaches, they kept popping up and sniffing around, trying to find anything that would bolster their theories that a US Secret Service agent had killed President Jeffrey Tyler in cold blood.

Thank God much of this had gone under the radar of mainstream America. They’d been too preoccupied with other things; rebuilding the East Coast, dealing with the emotional turmoil of a fallen President, then the brief shift of power to President Bower followed by Livingston’s sweep a little over a year later. Rebuilding and eradicating the Clickers and Dark Ones threat had been foremost on everybody’s minds since then.

And as that war had gone on, a smaller, more covert, battle was being waged by the last stragglers of the Tyler Administration.

And that battle had led him here, to the dry desert of Arizona. To Tony Genova’s new life.

Clark wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and glanced at his watch. Five minutes had passed since the newcomers had slipped into Tony’s condo unit so effortlessly. Tony would be conscious now. The guy who’d tapped Tony’s neck had used a pressure point technique. If applied properly, it only rendered the victim unconscious for a few minutes. Clark had been planning on using a similar technique on Tony as a first option.

The RNC had been making noise about President Tyler’s death ever since the smoke cleared from the devastation wreaked in DC. Shell casings found in the secret tunnel where Tyler’s partial remains were found matched the Sig Sauer Clark had bought for his own personal use, which was the handgun he’d pulled out of his glove compartment the night Ken White had escorted him out of the building during the height of Hurricane Gary. Clark had had a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, which he freely gave to the FBI and the Homeland Security agents who’d interviewed him in the weeks following Hurricane Gary: President Tyler was not in his right mind when he’d fired Clark, so he’d retrieved his personal weapon and found a way back in to the White House. He had done this to help serve and protect his country. Yes, he’d made his way upstairs to the conference room where so many of Tyler’s cabinet members had met their untimely deaths, but he’d done so out of an obligation to help his fellow Secret Service agents. In the ensuing firefight he’d shot many Dark Ones. It had been utter chaos. And at the height of it, Clark had found one of the secret passages that led to the underground bunkers and shoved President Tyler inside in an effort to save his life.