I jerked my hand away, a trail of black light drifted from his arm to my fingertips. It held for a moment, then drifted off like smoke. I could still feel the pressure of the shapeshifter's hands around my throat.
"Yeah, crazy, huh?" G-Nome smiled weakly. "That was whack . . ." He trailed off.
He was dead.
I pulled his sopping body out of the toilet and set him gently on the ground. He didn't weigh much.
"Where'd you get a gnome?" Franks asked.
I shook my head. "The Condition has a doppelganger here. That's what Torres was talking about."
"Who?" Grant asked.
"The girl from Texas, Dawn. She must have been on guard duty and killed that other Newbie, then she came back to clean up here and murdered G-Nome." I knew almost nothing about doppelgangers, except that they were some kind of rare shapeshifter. "Then she went back and shot Harbinger."
"So that's how you caught me." Grant muttered. "A gnome. . . ."
"If the doppelganger got away, it could be anyone now," Franks said, not looking up from the ward stone. "I can't figure this out. You have to know the inventor's codes." There was a massive bang as something landed on our roof. Grant and I flinched and raised our weapons, but with a sudden tapping, the noise retreated. There were all sorts of undead out there. "Who could make it work?"
I shrugged. "Earl, of course." I didn't add if he's still alive. "Maybe Julie, or one of the older Hunters, but they're all at the main building. Let's get back there and find somebody." Apparently Franks agreed. He handed the ward to me. I stuffed it in the bag and hoisted the stolen AK. "Tunnels?"
Grant stood. "I don't really want to try the front door right now."
The compound was a war zone. A few hundred yards away the main building was under siege. Black shapes were clambering up the walls. Occasional explosions highlighted more dimly-visible things moving in a circle around the structure directed by robed figures. Muzzle flashes flew from every window on the top floor. Continuous streams of tracers rained from the roof into the surroundings and a few worked patterns across the night sky.
"What are they shooting at in the air?" Grant asked hesitantly.
The three of us were clustered, kneeling next to the opening into the tunnels. The ladder stretched into the darkness below us. "I don't know," I said quickly. This asshole was creative enough to animate bears, so who the hell knew what he had for air support.
Headquarters seemed to be holding its own. The heavy portcullis had been dropped over the front door. A mass of misshapen bodies was piling up at the entrance. Hammering and hacking could be heard even over the gunfire. Suddenly a brilliant streamer of fire ignited from the narrow windows above the door, as someone used a flamethrower to hose down the monsters at the gate. Flaming bodies stumbled about before collapsing.
The flamethrower revealed something else charging out of the darkness. A massive shape, big as a truck, plowed through the burning dead and collided with the gate. The crash echoed across the entire compound.
"What's that?" I hissed.
Four streams of tracers lit into the giant, followed by more fire, and what had to be a chain of 40mm grenade detonations. The now-burning beast backed up for another run. "Hmmm . . . zombie elephant," Franks answered thoughtfully. "Unless it's a dinosaur. Hard to tell with the armor."
So Hood had either murdered a zoo or he'd pulled a Jurassic Park, but either way, this was really bad. "Back door it is," I suggested, shining my flashlight down the ladder.
Two dozen white eyes blinked back at me.
"Shoggoth!" Franks bellowed. His palm struck me in the shoulder, knocking me aside. A black tentacle exploded from the hole, splitting the air where I had been standing. It snapped back into the dark with a bullwhip crack. Franks yanked another grenade from his damaged suit coat, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the hole. "Back."
I ran toward the barracks. I could hear Grant huffing along beside me. The grenade detonated, but rather than a boom, it was a hiss. Thermite. The shoggoth made an unbearable noise, a terrible distorted wail, like somebody had overloaded a bank of speakers by having an insane howler monkey attack the microphone. We clamped our hands over our ears. The noise faded away.
When I turned around, smoke was pouring from the hole. "Is it dead?"
Franks looked at me like I was stupid. Of course not. Harbinger had said that the warding kept out undead and transdimensional creatures, which apparently included the Condition's pet shoggoth. With the shield down, it must have burrowed right into our tunnels. "We've got to get back down there."
"No more grenades," he replied.
They were only vulnerable to fire. Now there was no way to get into the main building. "Damn it!" That thing would own us in the tunnels.
"Quiet!" Grant exclaimed, holding up his hand. Large wings batted above us in the night. The shoggoth's scream must have gotten its attention. The three of us ducked back under the overhanging roof of the barracks. The thing circled for a moment, each beat of the wings ponderous and slow. As the noise stopped, something landed on the roof above us with a crash of breaking shingles.
I held my breath. I was screwed. Monsters below us, monsters above us, monsters all around us. We were armed with a few stolen small arms and a magic rock that we didn't know how to work. We had nowhere to go, and my companions were a snitch and a psycho. Talk about bleak. Dust fell from the overhang as the winged monster above us shifted.
There was a flash from the opposite side of the compound. There was a violent impact overhead and whatever it was above us crashed into the roof. The mystery creature leapt upward, visible for just a moment as a gray mass, before two wings spread wide and it jerked straight up and out of sight, absurdly fast.
What was that? Grant mouthed, obviously afraid.
I shrugged, hell if I know, then pointed in the direction of the muzzle flash. It had come from Milo's workshop. Either Milo was at his shop and had sniped the thing, or somebody else had done us the favor. Either way, it beat sticking around while other things came to see if there was anything edible over here. Franks realized what I was thinking and nodded. There were a few terrain features we could use for cover between us and the shop, but there was a long expanse of open ground at the end. Sticking Milo clear out there made sense when he was playing with explosives and deadly chemicals, but didn't seem so clever right about now.
"Leapfrog," Franks stated. He pointed at Grant, "One," then at me, "two," then jerked his thumb at himself. "Three. Move."
If something spotted us, we were as good as dead. Grant took one quick look at the dark sky, then back at the fires leaping up around headquarters. Nothing seemed to be coming this way. His Adam's apple bobbed visibly as he swallowed hard, then he took off at a full sprint for the next building. It was a Tuff Shed we stored maintenance equipment in. He reached it, then spun around, jerking his head in every direction. He waved for me to come, then raised the Uzi and waited.
I leapt to my feet, moving as fast as I could. My blood was thundering in my ears as my big boots slammed into the gravel. I made it halfway before I heard the wings. Grant was looking right over me, eyes unbelievably wide, as he jerked the Uzi up and opened fire. I fell on my face, sliding across the dirt like I was trying to steal a base. The winged monster zipped past me in a blast of wind. Jerking my head up, I saw the wings spread as it soared upward again, giant three-toed talons trailing behind. I wanted nothing more than to lie here and try to hide, but that was suicidal. Clambering back up, I ran the rest of the way to the shed.
Grant was stammering. "Okay, walking dead, that's fine. Running dead, I can handle. But the flying dead? Hell with this. I quit."
I gasped for breath. "Too late. You're fired." Franks had seen what had happened to me, but went for it anyway. He moved unbelievably fast for such a big dude, arms and legs pumping like an Olympian. "Here it comes," I said, as I caught sight of the flying monster banking around. It was trailing Franks now, high in the air. It tucked its wings in and plummeted like a missile right at him. The AK's iron sights were rudimentary at best, and I could barely see them in the dark, but I did my best, pumping round after round at the speeding target. We weren't going to stop it in time.
Franks must have known that. He suddenly stopped, throwing his weight back, skidding through the gravel as he turned, raising his own stolen AK one-handed and firing, a long strobe-effect burst of full-auto right into the creature. It flared its wings at the last moment, then Franks was simply gone, scooped right off the Earth and sucked into the sky.
They passed right over us, and the last thing I saw before they disappeared over the top of the shed was Franks crawling up the monster's legs and actually punching it in the face.
The land-based undead had heard the gunfire and shadows were moving in front of the flames, lumbering our way. Grant and I looked at each other, then at the direction Franks had gone. That was the direction we were heading anyway. Tactics were out the window, and now it was time to haul ass. Correction—speed is a tactic. "Run!" I shouted.
We cornered the building, moving fast for the relative safety of Milo's workshop. Grant is a lot lighter than I am, and even wearing his armor, he quickly left me in the dust. When you're getting chased by a zombie bear, I guess you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than your friends. I briefly contemplated shooting Grant in the leg.
Then I heard the beat of wings again. Damn it, not now. This time the beating seemed somehow lopsided and unbalanced. The gray shape appeared out of the sky ahead of us, ungainly, with one wing fluttering. A darker shape that could only be Franks was dangling from one side, slamming a fist repeatedly into the monster. It spiraled down, out of control, and crash-landed into some kudzu-coated trees.
I veered slightly off course, heading for the trees. The noises were clear. Somebody was administering a severe beating. The monster was on its back, Franks was astride its chest, raining hammer blows down on its mutant skull, beating the hell out of a creature that was approximately the size of a living-room couch.
One giant claw shoved Franks off and the creature sat up. It was a zombie, but a zombie of what I couldn't tell you. Its legs ended in raptor claws, but its upper body was that of a man. Leathery bat wings extended from each shoulder, one clearly crushed and broken by the fall. Its face was a skull now, but about the size of a five-gallon bucket and filled with teeth that looked like rusty nails. Blank eye sockets swiveled toward me.
It took me a couple of shots in the dark before the skull exploded into powdery fragments. It dropped.
Franks appeared. His breathing was ragged. "I hate flying coach."
"Man, you're a regular comedian tonight," I said as I jerked another magazine out of my pocket and reloaded. "We've got to keep going, more bears coming fast." But he didn't respond. When I glanced back, he was facedown into the kudzu. "Aw hell."
Grant had kept on running for the workshop and I could no longer spot him in the dark. I could, however, hear the undead getting closer. Franks weighed a ton. The smart thing to do was leave him here. It wasn't like I owed him any mercy. This whole thing was his and his stupid organization's fault.
I actually made it a couple of steps toward the workshop before I stopped. He wouldn't have left me. "ARRGHH! Stupid Fed. Stupid Franks." I scooped him up, got one arm over my shoulder, and shouted in his ear, "Move your ass!" His big head lolled to the side. He was unconscious. "Oh, it can never be easy. Never! Easy!" I heaved him into a fireman's carry. The kudzu vines dragged at my boots. The shuffling, metallic snorting of the undead was getting closer. Safety was still a hundred yards away. I kicked my feet through the thick plants and tripped and stumbled for safety.
I could see the workshop clearly now. Someone was moving in one of the windows, a long tube on their shoulder. I cleared the kudzu and could run again, slipping through the dirt, ankle throbbing with each step. A terrible noise came from the workshop and a streak of fire tore past. The trees behind us exploded. Rocket launcher. Oh, these monsters had picked the wrong place to mess with.
More rockets followed. Judging by the rate of fire, Grant had reached the workshop and was joining in. Milo had a ton of stuff stashed.
"Pitt!" A voice bellowed behind me. "I'm coming for you."
The Englishman.