Foamers (20 page)

John jumped from the bed and ran to the driver’s side door, where Tiny’s forehead
rested against the steering wheel. They had miscalculated the amount of damage they
would do to the Humvee, and the impact had knocked Tiny out cold. As John’s flustered
hands struggled to unhook her seatbelt, Mick unloaded an entire magazine from his
pistol into the side window of the Humvee. Each barrage bounced off the bulletproof
glass, leaving white scuffs. He released the magazine from his pistol as he backed
against the rear door of the Humvee, and slid in a loaded magazine.

Tiny lay limp in John’s arms as he turned away from the truck, not sure what he was
going to do with her, but knowing he couldn’t leave her unprotected. Three strides
in front of him, a Tribesman exited the Humvee and stared at him through the howling
snow. The dazed soldier struggled to bring his rifle up from where it hung. John
took his brief—but only—window of opportunity. With a quick step forward, he brought
his foot up as fast and as hard as he could, like he was punting a ball, and crushed
his high-topped hiking boot into the soldier’s groin. John planted a second kick
squarely in the center of the man’s chest. The man fell into the snow. John dropped
his knee onto the prone man’s neck. He found his own actions surprising, amazed to
see what his body was capable of when unleashed. Since the hospital he felt different:
remade, better, evolved. He understood what Tiny meant by Primed.

Fighting to keep his body in place on the struggling man, John’s heart sank as a
Tribesman emerged from the door behind him. John closed his eyes and hoped they would
be kind enough to spare Tiny. Three shots echoed between the vehicles, and John was
surprised at how painless dying was until he realized he hadn’t been shot. When he
forced his eyes open, Mick was there with smoking gun still in hand.

Mick pulled his handcuffs off his belt. In the chaos John hadn’t noticed the man
under him had become unconscious. Mick rolled the man facedown and cuffed him.

“How many are left?” John asked.

Mick’s eyes surveyed the Humvee. “None in this one.”

“Kade,” Tiny moaned and reached for something that wasn’t there. “I love you.”

Mick shook his head at John. “She must have hit her head real hard.”

Mick instinctively dropped onto his back and aimed between his knees as a Tribesman
came across the roofs of the Humvees. Mick’s first shot smashed into the man’s ballistic
mask, and the second hit him dead-center in the vest. The impacts spun the man like
a ballerina. John set Tiny in the snow, and drew the hatchet from his belt. The silver
head chopped into the Tribesman’s neck; the blood melted the surrounding snow. John
yanked the hatchet free as two more Tribesmen came around the rear of the Humvee
and opened fire.

To avoid the volley, Mick rolled to his chest and scrambled for the Humvee. The
rifles blasted snow into the air as a line zippered toward Mick. John stood with
a blank expression on his face, completely frozen. Then, in a flash of fur, Argos
and Fenris hurdled Mick, heading for the Tribesmen.

Argos launched into the chest of the nearest Tribesman and tumbled with him. As the
second swung his spray toward Argos, the dog sank his fangs into the exposed neck
of the former soldier with a hair raising snarl. The impact of the bullets swung
Argos to the side of the body but didn’t loosen his jaws.

Fenris clamped down on the second man’s arm, thrashing the rifle away from him. As
the man reached for the knife on his belt, Mick, who had since recovered, slammed
his shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him to the ground beside his dead comrade.

The air crackled from a mini burst of thunder as Mick tased the man. Mick placed
a foot on the man’s neck. The pounding of his heart deafened his ears as he aimed
at the man’s head.

“Roll over and put your hands behind your back,” he said, as a whimper caught his
ear.

Argos lay with his head on the corpse’s chest, looking at Mick with slow-blinking
eyes that were already glassing over as Fenris licked his muzzle. Argos whimpered
again as he lifted his face, just enough to make one hard swallow before laying
it back on the corpse.

Mick checked the chamber and aimed at the man’s chest. “Don’t move, you piece of
shit.”

One—Two—Three—Four—-Five shots hammered into the man’s Kevlar vest. The vest was
manufactured to stop a high-powered bullet, but at this range one of Mick’s bullets
might penetrate. That wasn’t the chance he was betting on. He hoped all of them stopped
at the vest. That would be five bone-shattering, organ-liquefying, painful death
punches.

“Get Tiny and the dogs in the Humvee,” Mick said and stormed off into the snow. He
didn’t know where he was going, but he had to clear his mind. As his anger took
control the snap inside of him had felt as vivid as a Thanksgiving wishbone. Capture,
or even death, wasn’t punishment enough for the man who had shot Argos. Mick didn’t
just want him to suffer; he had
needed
him to suffer. The floodgates of everything
that had happened since the Primal Age began, broke, and let forth his rage upon
that man. The part that scared Mick was he felt better for having committed the act.
He had thought himself above the Primes, a higher order of social code, but he was
no different.

When Mick looked up again, he saw four dark silhouettes coming through the storm.
He crouched low, hoping they hadn’t seen him. He aimed his pistol, more in defense
than to attempt firing. Outnumbered four-to-one, he would have to pull off flawless
neck shots and do all of this when the targets weren’t clearly visible. His friends
considered him their best shot with a pistol—some may even have said he was a great
shot—but even an expert would struggle with these odds.

The Humvee groaned in its turnover, which acted as a beacon to the Tribesmen. The
four silhouettes hurried through the blowing snow. Mick considered the possibility
of dropping a few of them at short range and then engaging the rest in close combat.
The idea of moving back to the Humvee crossed his mind, but if they saw him, he was
dead.

“Coming through,” X’s voice shouted from somewhere off to Mick’s right.

X’s dark figure met with the four gray ghosts, but X wasn’t alone. First there was
one silhouette on all fours, and then a second, and a third, and before Mick knew
it, the foamer troop was in pursuit of X. The four Tribesmen opened fire on the pack,
illuminating them like flashes of lightning. Two of the foamers were immediately
cut down, while the rest pounced on the Tribesmen. In the whiteout, Mick couldn’t
make out more than shapes, but he could hear the growls of the foamers, the wet rip
of flesh, and the screams of the warriors clear enough to piece the feeding together.

“This way!” Mick shouted through the commotion. X’s shadow came toward Mick, until
he materialized out of the snow.

X paused with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. His chest heaved as he
rubbed his goose bumps. His coat had long since been cast away to become faster and
harder to grab. As he recovered his breath, he could hear the engine of a Humvee
over the gunshots.

“They coming to pick us up?” X asked.

“No, they’re back there,” Mick said, pointing in the direction of the rest of the
group.

X’s brow wrinkled as he looked in the opposite direction. Both of them recognized
the outline of a Humvee barreling in their direction. They locked arms as they attempted
to pull each other to safety. Each of them pulled harder, creating a deadlock, until
something tackled them. They crashed to the snow as the Humvee skimmed past. Mick
found himself pinned under Grace. The longer that girl was part of their group, the
guiltier Mick felt for his treatment of her. This was arguably the third time she
had saved his life.

“Thanks,” Mick said, as X hoisted her to her feet.

She nodded at him and shakily pointed to where their Humvee waited. The three of
them hurried, anxious to keep Kade’s plan moving. When they reached the Humvee, they
piled in. John was in the driver’s seat, with Mick beside him and the now-conscious
Tiny in the turret spot. X filed in behind John, with Grace on the opposite side.
In the rear of the vehicle, Ashton sat against the wall with Argos’s head in her
lap, a sleeve from her shirt pressed to one of his wounds. Fenris’s soft eyes remained
on her dying partner.

No one spoke for fear that it would jinx their good fortune. John steered the Humvee
to the road. Using the curbs to ping-pong his way along the buried road, John forced
himself to feel as tough as he looked. He refused to let his hands shake. He was
Primed.

After a few minutes that felt like hours of on-edge driving, John finally reached
the end of the campus road, where Kade was supposed to meet them.

“Where is he?” John asked.

“Are there any more flares?” Mick replied.

“We used them all,” Grace said, her eyes glued to the window, watching for movement.

“Kade!” Tiny yelled into the vacant, blowing snow.

“I figured he’d just use himself as a decoy,” X said.

“And you didn’t try to stop him?” Ashton snapped back.

“You know damn well I couldn’t have stopped him,” X replied.

Tiny slouched back into the Humvee. “Kade, where are you?”

* * *

Kade was on his knees with Sarge behind him. Kade’s face was a mask of blood, with
two white eyes peering out from beneath, and his nose pointed in the wrong direction.
A continuous flow of blood ran from his right eyebrow and dripped off his jaw. The
zip ties around his wrists had cut bloody lines into his flesh, and the stitches
in his side had ripped open again. It was impressive just how much blood his body
could produce.

A slow death ran in his family, so he found this fitting. Huntington’s for his mother,
the Flu for his father, and a pummeling from a dickhead for him; and they always
said he wasn’t like them. He would have asked Sarge to hurry it along, but every
extra minute it took Kade to die was one more his friends could escape. The cold
was annoying, though.

Grabbing the base of his ballistic mask, Sarge rested it on top of his head. Sarge
flicked his lighter open and lit his cigar. He took a long puff, causing the tip
to grow bright red, and then let the smoke leisurely rise from the side of his mouth
like he was golfing with buddies.

“You know, you’re lucky,” Sarge said, pointing at Kade with his cigar. “We’d have
killed you right out of the gate if Victoria didn’t want you to live long enough
to know that all of your friends were dead.”

“Oh my, I am so lucky,” Kade replied, and felt Sarge’s boot swiftly slam between
his shoulder blades, knocking him face-first into the snow. The muscles in his neck
strained to the side as he took short breaths through the side of his mouth. Two
thoughts came to him that confused him more than he had ever been baffled before.
The first was that he wasn’t ready to die, and the second was that he didn’t want
to die. Never in his existence had they crossed his mind, and in fact he often thought
counter to them.

“I see why she wants you to suffer. You’re a prick,” Sarge said, taking another drag.

“I prefer to be called an ass,” Kade responded. Sarge answered in kind by stomping
his face into the snow. Sarge hoisted him to his feet by the hair and wrenched his
head back, holding the embers of the cigar just above his throat.

“I wonder who died first. Maybe it was your sister, or the one you secretly love.
Ah, hell—I don’t care which one of them died first, just as long as you know they’re
all dead. Every one of your friends is dead.”

Kade stared into the storm wondering if Jem was still alive. He wanted to believe
his friends had escaped, but at this point, Jem seemed to be his best chance of having
a friend still alive on the planet. It seemed so long since he last saw Jem. Less
than two weeks had passed, but it felt like years.

He remembered the two of them on the couch, watching the movie about alien robots
from space who didn’t know when to give up. They always fought, even when they were
facing certain death. Jem had said he hoped Kade would understand one day why they
continued to fight. In the Old World, it made no sense to him, but now, in this moment,
it finally did. They fought because they were part of something bigger than themselves.
They loved, they cared, and they were totally entwined with each other and found
their strength in that. Tiny, Ashton, Mick, X, John, Grace, and even the mutts—they
were all just parts of him. As long as they lived, so did he, and he wasn’t going
quietly. He was alive. He was Primed.

His neck singed as he pushed against the embers. Sarge dropped the cigar in shock.
Kade kicked Sarge in the groin causing him to double over. Gritting his teeth, Kade
yanked his hair free of Sarge’s grip. As Sarge forced himself to stand upright, Kade
faced him. Sarge had threatened his friends. Sarge was the only obstacle between
living and dying. Kade may have been defeated, but he sure as hell was going to die
fighting.

“Just because Victoria doesn’t want me to kill you, doesn’t mean I won’t,” Sarge
said with a sneer as he pulled down his mask.

Kade smiled back, his white teeth shining against his blood-covered face. “I’m going
to kill you.”

Sarge rushed him, swinging wildly. Kade dodged each attack as he waited for his
moment. A huge right hook descended for him, but he spun away and answered with
a mule kick to the outside of Sarge’s knee. The impact shoved the knee out of place,
causing Sarge to step back.

“You’re not worth the honor,” Sarge replied, drawing his sidearm.

Kade lifted himself onto his toes and lowered his upper body. For a brief moment.
He felt like he was back in high school, waiting for his opponent to take the penalty
kick. The cold tingle ran down his spine. His eyes darted from Sarge’s trigger finger
to his eyes and back again.