Hawkins looked past the chaos. The jungle grew thick again, perhaps one hundred yards from beginning to end. Beyond that, he saw the coast. Their only means of escape lay on the other side of a battlefield.
“I think we should skirt around behind the bunker,” Hawkins said. It was the slowest, but safest route. If their enemies occupied each other long enough, they might make it past. Of course, there were still the children to consider, but they would handle that debate when they got closer.
“Sounds good to me,” Bray said.
Hawkins didn’t hear Joliet or Drake agree with the plan. His sensitive ears had picked up a new noise. Mixed with the din of battle, it didn’t sound like much. The problem was that it came from behind. He took a few steps back and looked over the steep rise they’d just climbed. At first glance, everything looked fine. Then he noticed that the dark soil of the jungle below wasn’t soil at all. The ground was alive.
The spiders had multiplied, using men and cattle to spawn more young.
Hundreds of them.
Hawkins backed away from the edge as the first of the spiders began scrambling up the hillside. “Change of plans.” The others peeked over the edge and saw the advancing army of killer chimeras.
“Run,” Hawkins said. “Straight through. Run.”
49.
At first, the plan worked great. Preoccupied by the deadly swarms, the soldiers paid them no attention, and Bray’s bell kept the chimeras from targeting their small group. But the flamethrowers were turning the tide against the airborne monsters and for every man that fell to a draco-snake bite, five of the small creatures were either cut down by the constant 9mm bullet spray or were set on fire. It was the former that slowed their progress.
“Ahh!” Bray shouted. He kept running, but now limped.
Hawkins slowed to help him. “You’re hit?”
“In the calf,” Bray said, wincing with every step. “But I can still move.”
As more and more chimeras poured from the jungle to their left, the soldiers to their right advanced. And while the bell still worked its magic, the mercenaries would soon notice their chaotic charge through the clearing. And when that happened, it wouldn’t be stray bullets coming their way, it would be a barrage. There was no choice but to head for Kaiju, Bennett, and the children.
Hawkins veered left toward the bunker. A palm tree to his right took a round. He glanced back at the baseball-size indentation in the bark. If the tree hadn’t been there, it would have struck his head. He glanced toward the soldiers and saw two of them tracking their dash. “Duck!”
Hawkins obeyed his own command just as a three-round burst rang out and zinged over his head. He angled farther left, putting more trees and distance between them and the soldiers. More bullets shattered the trees around them as the two soldiers switched to full automatic and held down the triggers. Hawkins covered his head with his hands as he crouch-ran. He glanced up for just a moment and saw movement ahead, but he didn’t slow. Couldn’t. He just kept his head down and did his best not to collide with a palm trunk.
He glanced back and saw the others still with him, running low. The incoming gunfire had stopped, too. He could still see the soldiers, but they were dealing with a swarm of seagulls. The frenzied birds never stopped attacking. Even when the sky filled with the feathers of the dead, they continued fighting.
Hawkins realized why. Over the chop of helicopters, the crack of gunfire, and the keening wail of dying people and animals, there was a constant pulse, pulse, pulse. Bennett had either hit some kind of emergency button that repeated the signal around the island, or he was pressing his finger down on that remote.
No longer fearing a bullet to the side of the head, Hawkins stood and resumed his run. A shriek nearly toppled him over. He looked ahead and saw a second battle.
Kaiju was there. Roaring and twisting. The monster swung out with its arms and tail, fighting a far more agile enemy. There were three of them—the children—leaping around, striking with their small claws. One looked familiar. Lilly, the panther-girl. Another had a more reptilian body with a crocodilian snout. The third was mammalian, but Hawkins couldn’t ID any specific species on account of the puffy, black hair.
Kam said there were five, Hawkins remembered. And then he saw them. Two small, limp bodies lay in a patch of grass. Had the litter attacked? Or had Bennett ordered Kaiju to kill them?
The reptilian chimera was suddenly caught in Kaiju’s oversize aye-aye hand, which, even lacking its long finger, was still deadly. The small creature let out a high-pitched scream before it was silenced with a crack. Lilly and the other chimera cried out and pressed the attack. Lilly clamped on to Kaiju’s arm with her catlike teeth. The behemoth roared in pain, shaking its arm, and finally swiped Lilly and sent her flying.