Cascade Box Set 2 Read online

  The guy pulled his gun off his shoulder. “Show me.”

  “Why the fuck I gotta show you anything, I got too—”

  The man swayed his rifle in Zach’s direction.

  “Okay, calm down, it’s just in here, this way.” Zach backed off towards the basement stairwell.

  The man approached him, waving his rifle in his direction. “Why don’t you go first?”

  Zach pulled a face, pushed the door open and walked a foot inside. Just as the guy went to do the same, Zach slammed the door closed smashing the guy in his face, while pulling his own handgun out and shooting the guy at point blank range. He instantly fell. The other guy almost dropped his rifle in surprise, and as he tried to raise it, Zach fired another two shots, hitting him in the chest. He fell onto the wall and then to the floor.

  Zach looked both ways and waited for people coming his way. None came. Siren covered the shots.

  He quickly ran to the guy he last shot, grabbed his rifle, throwing it over his shoulder, then pulled the guy into the basement stairwell with the other. He slid the Glock back into his pocket, then picked up the first guy’s rifle. Pulling the mag’s out of both rifles he checked how much ammo each had left.

  Unlike the basement, this corridor had clear etched words on the walls, detailing what floor and where the stairs to the other floors were. Running, he quickly found the entrance to the stairs and started to ascend.

  *****

  On the ground floor of the control tower Sam heard shouting and footsteps walking over the wet concrete outside and had an idea. He moved down the stairs as quietly as he could, tugging on Bass’s shirt as he passed him. He then sat with his back up against the external door and braced himself best he could. Bass appeared from the gloom and did the same. Sam could hear him grimacing in pain.

  The door handle above their heads turned and they pushed back against the door ready for someone to try to open it. They felt some pressure on their backs.

  “Who’s got the key to the tower?” said a young male voice outside.

  “How the hell should I know!” replied a female voice.

  “Clovis told me to get up in the tower and see if any more of those things are coming this way.”

  “Then you got a problem.” The female voice faded away with her footsteps.

  “Dang it.”

  “What you doing!” A second older man’s voice shouted.

  “I’m going to shoot it open,” said the young man.

  “We need the bullets you idiot. Just go find the damn key!”

  A number of footsteps then receded into the distance.

  Sam and Bass both let out breath, although Bass’s was accompanied with a groan.

  “I’m glad they wanted to save their bullets,” whispered Bass looking up at the door handle just inches from his head. They both laughed as quietly as they could.

  At the top of the tower Cal watched as at least five tanks fired shells at the insect like creatures that were now floundering on the airfield. The armored covered E.L.F’s had trashed at least a third of all of the planes and helicopters, but they were now immobilized themselves, their tentacles thrashing around as they tried to stop the barrage of molten metal rain down on them. As each tank fired the tower shook.

  It was obvious to Cal the battle outside was going to be over soon, and he still hadn’t heard from Zach. If Geneva’s forces knew they were in the tower it would only take one shot from one of those tanks and none of them would be returning to Camp Bravo. Can’t stay here.

  He looked down below the tower. Three quarters of it was surrounded by the airfield, but behind were some small buildings intermingled with trees. They might be able to shelter there, although it would mean Zach and anyone with him would not have his protection. He wavered on the spot, not being sure what the best option was, then thought of Fiona back at the pharmacy, and he made up his mind. Grabbing his pack and rifle he descended the stairs, with his night vision goggles on.

  At the bottom he clearly saw Sam and Bass with their backs up against the outside door. The tower shook again.

  “We can’t stay here,” said Cal.

  “We heard voices outside a few minutes ago, they wanted to come in. They will be coming—” before Sam could finish, the sound of boots splashing through puddles came from outside and a key slid into the doors lock.

  Cal rushed forward and nudging Sam and Bass to the side and he stood against the wall.

  The handle opened. “Finally,” said the young male voice.

  Cal pulled the door inwards violently bringing the young man with it. He then grabbed his arm and pushed him up against the side wall. Sam pushed the door closed extinguishing any light from outside.

  In Cal’s green hued view he saw the handgun sticking out the side of the young guy’s pants and grabbed it before young guy could.

  “Take this,” said Cal handing the gun to Sam.

  Cal could see the look of panic in the young man’s eyes as he struggled to get free in the almost complete darkness.

  “Who are you?” The man shouted.

  “Calm down, and you won’t get hurt!” said Cal. He wasn’t sure if he meant it.

  “Let me go and I’ll calm down!”

  “There might be more coming, we need to go,” said Bass.

  “Was there anyone else with you?” said Cal.

  “I ain’t saying shit. You’re one of them, aren’t you? From the Austin Camp? You come to kill us all? Help!”

  Before he uttered another word Cal slammed the butt of his rifle into the young man’s forehead rendering him limp, and he slid down the wall.

  “I can’t see a thing, but I figure he’s not going to be a problem anymore,” said Sam.

  “He’s out cold,” said Cal.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zach had carefully searched two floors of the former army aviation headquarters without finding a single soul. It looked like whatever Cal had done at the airfield worked.

  As he walked up the staircase to the top floor of the building, a feeling of dread started to creep over him and his energy started to seep away. He stopped and took a deep breath. I’m going to find her.

  As drops of sweat fell from his face, a noise came from the corridors behind the door just ahead of him. On the wall next to it, a list of important sounding departments were painted. She has to be here.

  Stepping onto the topmost landing, he stood close to the door and listened. More noises came through the solid looking door, but he couldn’t make out what they were.

  He put his hand on the handle and opened it in one movement. Instantly voices of multiple people hit him.

  The corridor spread out in both directions, and contained doors on both sides and at one end. A group of five men who had been talking, about twenty yards to Zach’s left, stopped and looked at him.

  “I was told that I needed to deliver these rifles to someone on this floor?” shouted Zach towards the men. Four out of the five continued talking, while the fifth, the tallest who was also sporting a ponytail walked towards Zach with an inquisitive expression.

  “On whose order?” said the tall man.

  “Terry,” said Zach randomly selecting a name.

  The tall man scrunched his face up. “Who the fuck is Terry?” he then pulled his rifle off of his shoulder.

  Zach was done with talking. Screw this.

  He pulled one of the rifles off his shoulder and fired hitting the tall man in his arm, making him fall backwards. The other four men scattered into doorways and started firing back.

  Zach did the same bursting through a closed door and landing on the floor just inside the doorway. As he looked up, he realized two other men were sitting at a table with cards in their hands. Zach quickly raised his rifle and let loose a volley of shots hitting both of them across their chests. Both fell onto the floor knocking their chairs over. He then scrambled back to the doorway, and fired in the direction he knew the men were.

  As bullets splintered the doorfra
me next to him, a noise came from behind in the room and he swung his rifle around to fire. Two women he recognized emerged from a door.

  “Zach?” said Corporal Gregg’s. Behind her was Doctor Chapman. Both of their faces showed bruises and lacerations, but apart from that they seemed in good health.

  “Grab a gun!” shouted Zach as more bullets caused him to duck back into the room. It was then he noticed over the women’s shoulders the bright flashes and explosions way off in the distance through the windows.

  Both women ran forward and pulled the rifles and handguns from the two dead men on the floor.

  “Where’s Abbey?” said Zach.

  Greggs kneeled opposite Zach, on the other side of the doorframe. “We haven’t seen her since this morning, but we heard men saying Geneva has left with the prisoner.”

  “And where is he?”

  “They just said he’s left for the other base.”

  She’s not here. The thought that Abbey wasn’t even on the base, hit him like he had been shot and for a moment he was disconnected from the sounds and fury around him.

  “Zach? Zach!”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going to get you out. Is there anyone else here with you?”

  “They had some men from Atlanta on the base, but I don’t know where they are.”

  “Sam, Isaiah and Bass are with Cal, they should be safe—” Bullets slammed into the wall above his head. They’re getting closer. “Is there another way out of this room?”

  “Yeah, the room we were kept in, there’s a door that leads back into the corridor further down.”

  “Take that route, and get to the—” A bullet scrapped past Zach’s face, slicing the skin on his face, he lurched back as blood sprayed out covering Greggs and the nearby wall.

  Chapman ran forward and grabbed his head examining his wound. “He’s okay.”

  Zach pushed her hand off. “I’m fine, get to the stairs, I’ll be right behind you.”

  Greggs stood but didn’t move.

  “Go!”

  She frowned, then both women ran back to the room they came from.

  Zach fired back by sticking the rifle outside for a few seconds, not knowing what he was shooting at, other than the general direction. The return fire had stopped and he heard whispers. He went to fire again, when the rifle just clicked, out of ammo.

  He threw it to the floor, then pulled himself away from the door and slammed it closed. He then ran to a filing cabinet and dragged it, dropping it on its side in front of the door and bullets smashed through the door just missing him.

  He pulled the other rifle from over his shoulder, turned and ran.

  *****

  Cal Looked through his night vision goggles from his position inside an abandoned hardware store on the main street running up to the headquarters. The alley out back had been the one that he saw Zach and the others meet up. He was alone in the shadows of the empty shelves, and tired. Whatever he did to bring the E.L.F’s to the base had drained him.

  It took some convincing, but he managed to argue that it was better Sam and Bass took the opportunity they had to get back to the hole in the fence at the airfield, and make their way to the gas station. It made no sense risking them getting caught again, he preferred working alone anyway.

  The tingling in his neck had gone, and so had the sound of battle just a few hundred yards away and the whirring siren.

  Flickers of regret for sending those creatures to their deaths breezed through his mind. He sighed, then looked again through the large glass window into the street.

  While he had been in there, groups of men had run past, each packing M4 rifles. The Hell Fire gang were not short of armaments.

  He raised his radio and clicked it three times. He could have talked into it, but without knowing Zach’s situation he didn’t want Zach’s radio to suddenly come to life with his voice. No response came back.

  It was a miracle they had not been discovered, but that luck wasn’t going to last.

  He shook his head, and clicked on the talk button on his radio. “Zach?”

  Still no response. If Zach had been caught, there was no way he was going to be able to get him out. Not unless he called more creatures down on them and he wasn’t sure he had the juice left in him to do it.

  He went to turn around, when a noise came from his radio. He clicked on the talk button. “Zach? You there? Over.”

  “I’m here. I’m with Isaiah, Gregg’s and Chapman… but no Abbey. She’s been taken with Geneva to another base. Over.”

  Another base?

  “Where are you? Over.”

  “Making our way back to the tower. Over.”

  “No! We had to leave that location, too much going on there. I’m in a hardware store. The alleyway you met the others is at the back of it, are you near there? Over.”

  The sound of voices came from his left, down the street. They seemed to be coming his way.

  “Yeah, we’re close.”

  “I’ll meet you there. Over.”

  Cal ran through the shop and out the back. He was soon in the intense darkness of the alley. He could hear the voices of a large body of people out the front of the shop, together with vehicles. Running west over the pools of muddy water, he got to the end of the alleyway, and looked out across the other streets. He then spotted Zach crouching down at the side of a smashed pickup truck.

  Looking both ways along the street, he ran forward as quickly as his tired legs would carry him and dived behind the truck next to Zach.

  Zach grabbed and shook his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Cal hesitated. “Abbey?”

  Zach turned away. “We need to go.”

  They all ran forward, keeping low using the scattered vehicles as cover, until they were back in amongst the trees that surrounded the airfield.

  Thirty minutes later as the rain grew heavier, they traipsed back to the gas station. The destruction at the airfield meant they had not seen or heard any vehicles on the roads around the base, but they all knew it was only a matter of time before they did.

  Zach walked up to the Humvee in the garage, and pulled the tarp off of it. “Someone grab the fuel cans from the back and fill her up. It’s going to be a tight fit getting us all in.”

  Sam and Isaiah duly obliged and started pouring the fuel.

  He hadn’t had much chance to talk to any of them since the escape but as the rain fell heavy on the metal roof above their heads, he was glad to see them standing in front of him.

  The rain had washed away most of the blood on his cheek, but it still seeped blood as he got into the driver’s seat. The others got in behind him, with Cal getting on the turret and Greggs sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  Nobody spoke as he pulled out onto the rain soaked highway.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As the Humvee moved along the Georgian country roads, its headlights swept across wintry trees and the occasional abandoned farm building.

  Hardly a word had passed between anyone in the vehicle, which suited Zach. His thoughts were on Abbey, and what she must be going through. Despite a voice at the back of his mind saying what transpired at the base was a win, he couldn’t help but feel a sickness in his stomach.

  He glanced over to Greggs who was asleep as it seemed everyone else was, apart from Cal who was still standing at the turret.

  They had been on the road for an hour. No one had followed them, and they had luckily not come across any E.L.F’s.

  He slowed the Humvee stopping it in the middle of the road and turned on his little flashlight to look at the map on his lap. The route seemed fairly simple, just keep heading west and north west.

  Cal ducked back inside. “We all good?” he said rubbing his hands together.

  “Yeah, just checking our route. You sense anything?”

  “Nothing,” Cal then stood back up.

  He heard someone move behind him, and a hand landed on his shoulder. “How’s the face?” said Cha
pman.

  He had forgotten the three-inch laceration on his cheek was even there. He felt it gently with his fingers then pulled back when it stung. “My head’s still where it needs to be.” He forced a smile back in her direction.

  “It’s going to need butterfly stitches when we get back to the pharmacy. But you got any alcohol in this thing?”

  “Behind you where Sam is, in one of those bags. Might be some there.”

  Chapman reached back, feeling in the gloom for hard bottle shaped objects. Eventually she found something and reached into the bag and pulled it out. Holding it up to the light revealed a bottle of Whiskey. “This will do. Here, pour some on the cut.”

  Zach did so and winced as he cheek burned in response. He thought about taking a swig, but he needed to be sharp, or at least as much as he could on four hours sleep. He handed the bottle back to Chapman. “How’s everyone else?”

  “I’m gonna need a new hand, at some point,” said Isaiah, apparently not asleep.

  “You should go, full on hook,” replied Sam lying best he could in the storage space at the back.

  Zach and Chapman smiled.

  “I’ll take a sip of that stuff,” said Sam to Chapman next to him. She handed the bottle to him.

  “How you holding up, Bass?”

  The sergeant was sitting in the back left, his head resting on a small blanket. “Leg’s throbbing like a son of a bitch, how far we got to go?”

  “Four hours yet I’m afraid,” said Zach.

  “I should really take a look at it,” said Chapman.

  “And what you going to do to fix it?” said Bass, his words coming out with more force than he meant. “I’m sorry Doc, I’d rather we just pushed on.”

  “No need to apologize. Sam, give the man the drink.”

  Sam did and Bass took two hefty gulps as Zach turned off his flashlight and pulled off.

  Over the next few hours the dark forms of trees and single-story houses flew past. Occasionally Cal would tell Zach to slow down or stop, as he sensed something passing their route up ahead, but nothing was deemed a direct threat.