Chapter One Hundred Eighteen

The Dragon Factory

Tuesday, August 31, 2:35 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 25 minutes E.S.T.

The creatures howled like demons as they closed on us. The nearest was thirty yards away and its tail whipped back and forth, clanging on the overhead pipes. I hit it with a short burst and the creature slewed sideways, blood and pieces of its shell flying into the air. The others stopped for a second, but then the wounded one hissed and scuttled forward, bleeding but far from dead.

“Oh, fuck,” said Bunny, and opened up into the mass of them.

“Frag ’em!” I yelled. Our M4s were fitted with the new M203 single-shot 40mm grenade launcher mounted under the barrel forward of the magazine. It had a separate handle and trigger, so I grabbed that with my left while holding the primary rifle hand with my right. It gave me two guns at once—and I needed all of the immediate firepower I could muster. The downside was that the grenade launcher was a single-shot.

I aimed for the center of the biggest mass of them and fired.

The explosion tore three of them to pieces, and I suppose it was comforting to know that beneath the insect carapace there was a flesh-and-blood animal. Not sure if it could still be accurately called a dog, but it could die like one.

Top turned and fired up the concrete ramp. The confines of the ramp maximized the force of the explosion, and it tore the creatures apart and blew a hot, wet wind back at us that painted us with gore.

Far above us there was a rumble of thunder and all at once every light in the underground flared and then winked out.

“EMP!” I yelled.

“This is not a good fucking time!” bellowed Bunny. He dug desperately into his pockets to produce a handful of chemical flares. He broke and shook them and then threw some of them in all four directions. The creatures had been as startled by the darkness as we had, and I realized that their eyes were still canine. Dogs could see in poor light but were as blind as we were in total darkness.

“I think you just turned on the EAT AT JOE’S sign,” I said.

The creatures immediately began rushing at us again.

“Frag out!” Bunny yelled, and threw his grenade. It hit the back of one of the animals just as it flicked its tail, and the round took a little hop as it burst. The downblast flattened one monster and tore the guts out of the pipes above. Water and steam showered the animals and there were even higher-pitched screams as they were scalded. In their confusion and fury two of the scorpion-dogs turned on each other in a murderous frenzy, the stingers stabbing over and over again until they both staggered away on trembling legs and then collapsed, victims of each other’s poison.

Top had his back to mine and we fired continuously as more of the creatures swarmed out of the darkness.

“Aim for the head!” I cried.

At first the sheer numbers of them that rushed toward us pushed along the corpses of the monsters we killed, but then Bunny got into the game and threw a hand grenade first to Top’s side and then to mine. The blasts deafened us but decimated the creatures. On both sides the front ranks were blown to bits, and the creatures backed off for another hesitant second and then rushed us again.

“I’m out!” Top called, and Bunny started firing while Top switched magazines. As soon as he started firing I went dry and Bunny covered me.

There were ten left.

We emptied another magazine each.

Then there were seven. Fifteen feet away.

Too close for another grenade. Bunny opened up with his rifle.

Four. Ten feet.

Top burned through an entire magazine as they nearly reached our firing position.

Two. One whipped its tail at me and the sharp stinger stuck in the Kevlar chest protector.

Bunny jammed his rifle against its head and pulled the trigger.

It leaped at Top and bore him to the ground. The scorpion tail whipped around Top as he screamed and twisted to one side, then the other. I couldn’t risk a shot, so I kicked the monster in the face, once, twice, drawing blood, hurting it, but it snarled in pain and fury and tried to bite my foot.

Then Bunny did something that was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. He jumped on top of the monster and used his body mass to pin the powerful tail to the dog’s back. The stinger shook and twitched inches from Top’s face.

“Get it off me!” Top screamed, and his voice was filled with pain. I couldn’t tell how or where he was hurt. The mastiff—even without the ponderous tail—had to weigh 250 pounds of powerful muscle, and all of that mass was crushing down on Top. And Bunny’s enormous body was piled on top of that. Fat drops of venom dripped from the stinger and splashed Top’s forehead and cheeks.

I drew my leg back and kicked the brute as hard as I have ever kicked anything. I could feel its bulging side collapse under the impact. Ribs broke and the creature let out a disturbingly normal dog yelp, but the kick did the trick and the creature reeled sideways. I shuffled in and kicked it again, just as hard. The scorpion-dog fell over and Bunny pulled at it, forcing the thing away from Top. The big young man and the dog rolled over and over and then Bunny locked his arm around the monster’s bull neck. He was growling more savagely than the dog. I could see his massive arm muscles swell under his shirt and then Bunny jerked his whole body up and back. The was a huge wet crack! and then the monster dog flopped into limp stillness.

Bunny rolled off it, gasping, saying. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit. . . .”

I knelt over Top, who was struggling to sit up. I was mindful of the venom on his face and I tore open a first-aid kit to find some gauze pads to dab it up.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a wince. “Think my ribs are busted.”

I undid the Velcro on the Kevlar and probed his sides. The hissed intakes of breath told us both the news.

“Your whole side’s cracked. Five, six ribs.”

“Fuck me,” he said, and tried to reach his right hand across to feel for himself, and then another jab of pain shot through him. “God damn it. . . .”

I felt wetness under my fingers as I continued to probe. “You’re bleeding.”

Very gingerly I lifted his shirt and looked at his back. I was almost sorry I looked. The brown skin of his side was slick with red blood, and in the midst of it two white and jagged ends of bone had torn through flesh and muscle.

“Is it bad?”

“It ain’t good.”

“Tell me, Cap’n.”

“You have a couple of compound rib fractures. I can stop the bleeding, but we can’t set them right now.”

“God damn it . . . I want to be in this fight.”

“Dude,” said Bunny, who was standing above us now, checking our perimeter, “you were just in a firefight with mutant monsters. You’re going to be able to brag about this shit for—like—ever.”

“If there’s a world to brag to, Farmboy. We ain’t caught up to them Nazi psychos yet, or did you forget?”

“Point taken.”

“You want painkillers, Top?” I asked after I was finished with a quick patch job.

“Just say no to drugs,” he grumbled.

“Let’s see if you can stand.”

We helped him up and there was no way to do it that didn’t hurt. Top called us names I won’t repeat. Bunny steadied him as he tried to walk. He could manage it, but there was no way he was going to get back into this fight. We all knew it.

“Look, Cap’n, you and Farmboy gotta get going. I’ll guard the stairwell.”

“You can’t fire a gun—,” Bunny began, but Top cut him off.

“I can shoot a pistol, son. Want me to show you? Bet I can kneecap you from here.”

“Okay, okay,” Bunny said, “grouchy old bastard.”

“Clock’s ticking,” Top said to me. “You need to be gone.”

“We are gone,” I said, and turned away to head into the complex. After a moment I heard Bunny coming behind me.

I looked back once and saw Top standing there in the doorway. The dead monsters were all around him, and he looked like an ancient warrior on some battlefield out of legend. He sketched a small wave, and then Bunny and I rounded a bend and he was gone.