He grabbed her shoulders to keep her up, trying to help her back to the truck. It was accelerating slowly, giving him time. A warning had popped up on every Vulture’s screen, informing them Habib was injured. He kept her upright with one hand, firing the carbine with the other, killing two more trife that were coming their way.

  “Sarge. Caleb, go,” Habib said. “You don’t have time to help me, and I don’t want you all to die because of me. I know you would.”

  “Shut up. I’m getting you out.”

  “You aren’t.” She reached up with her other hand, yanking off the helmet to reveal her face. She didn’t look like a Marine under the SOS. She should have been an actress or a singer or something. “Don’t worry about me, Sarge. I didn’t want to go to space, anyway. I belong here on Earth with my family. I’ll see them in Heaven.”

  Caleb was set to argue, but her eyes glazed over and she got heavy in his hands. It didn’t matter if he wanted to save her, she was already dead.

  He lowered her body, shooting three more trife and then quickly ejecting the magazine and replacing it. The swarm was so thick their hissing sounded like a constant hum, and they were seconds away from overtaking the truck.

  “Rodriguez, floor that thing as best you can,” Caleb said, turning and dashing across the platform toward the escaping vehicle.

  “Sarge – !”

  “I’ll make it.”

  The truck’s engine echoed in the space, and it lurched ahead, gaining speed. Caleb ran toward it, rolling to the side as a trife landed in front of him, avoiding its lunge and getting back up to continue the sprint. Another tried to take him from the side and he whipped the carbine around, smashing it in the face with the stock. The third dove at him from behind, but Banks cut it down from the rear of the truck.

  “Come on, Sarge!” Banks yelled.

  Caleb reached the edge of the platform and jumped, heading full speed toward the back of the truck. He dropped the carbine to his side, slamming into the metal rear and grabbing onto the ladder there, losing his grip with one hand and dangling from it. He gritted his teeth, holding on as the truck reached the metal door in front of it, slamming into it and breaking through, the sound of rending metal echoing loudly in the space.

  The trife seemed to sense their quarry was escaping, and they hissed louder, becoming more desperate to reach them before they disappeared. They dove at the back of the truck from wherever they were. From the floor. From the ceiling. From the tops of the other vehicles. The Vultures did their best to manage the sudden flow, but it was impossible to catch them all immediately.

  Caleb heard cries and shouting above as the trife landed on the truck and attacked the scientists. He cursed and started up the ladder, grabbed suddenly when one of the demons fell on his back. He rocked beneath it, pushing it back and kicking out. He hit it in the chest, knocking it to the ground. The truck made it out of the building, and Caleb leaned around the edge of the trailer to see into the street ahead.

  They were all going to die.

  Chapter 5

  The map on Caleb’s HUD was frightening enough. A sea of red surrounding the Department of Health and Human Services, an apparently never-ending slick of the demonic alien trife surrounding them.

  The real visual was more terrifying. The trife ahead of the truck were like a roiling sea stirred up by a massive storm, a line of creatures that spread back into the dark and smokey haze, churning as if they were a single entity.

  Caleb pulled himself up the ladder as quickly as he could, jumping into the back bed of the truck. There were three scientists down, two of them motionless and the other groaning. Banks was injured too, with a gash in the joint of his elbow. They hadn’t all seen the road ahead of them, so they didn’t all know how scared they should be. Caleb had seen though.

  “Rodriguez,” Caleb shouted into the comm. “If we’re going to have to go through the bastards, at least get us moving in the right direction and step on it.”

  “Roger that,” Rodriguez replied. The truck slowed, approaching a corner. “Hold on.”

  Caleb crouched low, leaning on the tarp and whatever was under it. The brakes on the truck squealed as it slowed harshly, the cab turning down an adjacent street and back toward the waiting transport. They only had to cover about three-quarters of a mile to make it to what Lieutenant Jones called the safe zone.

  It was going to be the furthest three-quarters of a mile of their lives.

  The truck picked up speed and shuddered slightly as it started hitting the trife, who were either too stupid to move or thought they could stop the heavy vehicle if enough of them sacrificed themselves to it. They were pulled under the wheels and flattened, thrown aside by the fenders, and left broken and bent by the truck’s front nose.

  Crashing through the trife in front also meant driving down the middle of the rest, putting healthy trife on both sides of the truck. The Vultures spread out, two on either side, aiming their weapons and waiting.

  A trife jumped from the sidelines, easily able to get its fingers around the top edge of the bed to pull itself up. It didn’t have a chance. Washington aimed his pistol and fired, his round snapping its head back and knocking it from the truck.

  Another made an attempt, and Sho took it out just as easily. On the other side, where Caleb and Banks were, three more tried to scale the truck, and a burst of rounds pushed them back.

  “Sergeant!” one of the scientists shouted. Caleb looked to the back of the truck as a trife climbed over the side and rushed the scientist. He screamed and fell backward onto the tarp. Caleb aimed and fired, and the trife fell.

  More replaced it as the larger group started climbing up the sides of the truck. Caleb didn’t have enough Marines to stand at every possible entry, and it was only a matter of time before they would be overwhelmed. “Rodriguez,” he said. “Cut back to the west.”

  “West?” Rodriguez replied, confused. “We don’t have enough of these assholes to deal with already?”

  The second mass of trife were coming in from that direction, closing fast but not fast enough.

  “Not really, no,” Caleb replied.

  Rodriguez laughed into the comm. “I ever tell you that you’re one crazy son of a bitch?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Noted.” Caleb activated his external microphone. “Hold on!” he shouted for the benefit of the scientists.

  A moment later, the truck started to turn again. The maneuver surprised Caleb too because they hadn’t reached the end of the street.

  “And he thinks I’m crazy?” he said to himself. The truck was headed right toward the blown out face of a diner, cutting the corner too soon to confuse and slow down the trife.

  Caleb heard a shout behind him, and he turned around to see a trife had gotten to Banks. The demon had its arms around his shoulders, its legs wrapped around his legs, and its mouth trying to find a weak spot to bite.

  “Get the hell off!” Banks roared, the contact too close to bring his carbine around. Caleb charged the demon, rushing to help.

  The truck hit the curb, bounced up and slammed into the diner. The sudden change in momentum sent Caleb off his feet. It sent Banks off his feet too.

  Right over the edge of the truck and into the horde.

  “Banks!” Caleb shouted, rushing to the other side of the truck. They were pushing through the walls of the building, smashing through the counter and the tables toward the broken adjacent window. “Rodriguez, we have to stop.”

  He found Banks standing in the middle of the group, not even looking back at the truck. He had his carbine in one hand and his pistol in the other, and was shooting trife as quickly as he could.

  “No,” Banks said. “You keep moving damn it. You get back to the Deliverance.”

  Caleb’s heart pounded, his body tense. He kept his eyes on Banks as the trife fell in front of him, shot down in his blaze of glory. Then the demons took him from the rear, first one, then another, then three more.

  Banks made sure to turn off his comm before he started screaming.

  “Damn it!” Caleb shouted.

  The truck cleared the corner, gaining a few seconds of respite from the attack. Caleb turned his head, finding a trife on top of a scientist, claws covered in blood. He shot it, needing all his resistance to keep from emptying his magazine into the hellish creature. His Vultures were dying. Banks had been a close friend.

  This was all Valentine’s fault.

  If she had left the bunker earlier. If she had been waiting at the top of the steps. If she had moved up the stairs faster. He stopped himself. There was no value in blame. It wouldn’t make Habib or Banks any less dead. He had to get the rest of his team and the rest of his scientists out of this disaster alive.

  He checked his HUD. The truck had maneuvered into a short space between the two groups of trife. The area around them was evident. They had entered the eye of the storm. A harsh silence descended on them, and he had a moment to scan the truck and find each of the survivors.

  Washington and Sho remained on top of the truck’s cab, manning each side. The minigun dangled from Washington’s chest. Sho kept her carbine shouldered and ready. There were eight scientists still in the back of the truck, including Valentine. She had found a spot in the corner near the front, and she had her eyes fixed on the tarp.

  What the hell was in there that was so important?

  He wanted to ask her, but the eye of the storm wasn’t all that big.

  “Here they come,” Rodriguez said, his voice quaking. He was a tough man, but even tough men struggled to deal with the truth about the trife.

  Earth wasn’t humankind’s anymore.

  It was theirs.

  Chapter 6

  Caleb ran to the front of the trailer, looking over the cab to the trife ahead. They were identical to the group behind them, human-sized, ugly, and ferocious. They were slightly smarter than the first group though, because they moved aside as the truck neared them, choosing instead to jump at the doors of the cab to reach the driver.

  “Little help,” Rodriguez said, as three of the demons made it to the door, and another two leaped onto the hood.

  Sho was there in an instant, firing down at them, knocking them away one at a time while Washington covered the opposite side. Caleb watched the carnage, then traced the trife back as the truck started past them. He couldn’t manage both sides alone.

  “Sergeant!” Valentine shouted. She was on her feet now, coming toward him. “Give me your sidearm.”

  “What?”

  “I used to be a Marine too,” she said. “That’s how I covered my doctorate. I know how to shoot a gun, and you need someone to cover the right flank.”

  He didn’t waste his breath arguing. He handed her the carbine instead. “You don’t need to be as accurate with this.”

  She took it. He handed her an extra magazine to go with it, and then returned to the left side of the truck. Things were getting dicey again, the trife building up around them. He fired down at the demons, and he heard the carbine going off on the other side.

  “Rodriguez cut left again ASAP,” he ordered, noticing a cross street approaching.

  “Roger,” Rodriguez replied.

  Caleb turned around to look over the rear of the trailer. The first group of trife was closing on this one. He kept staring, waiting for the first of them to interact. He had been part of this war since the beginning. He knew how the demons worked, how they reacted, and he knew what to expect if the two groups were from separate nests.

  “Come on,” he said, interrupting his observation to shoot a trife that made it into the trailer, right before it lunged at a terrified scientist. “Come on!” He ran to the back of the trailer, firing into the trife. “For hell’s sake, come...on!”

  He shot another trife. It spun and hit the trife right behind it. That trife caught the body, and for a moment they stood there, reminding him of a picture he had seen once of a sailor kissing a woman in the middle of a crowded New York street. Only the first trife didn’t kiss the second. It dug its teeth into the opposite demon’s neck, tearing it out.

  “Yes!” Caleb shouted, spinning around again.

  A trife hit him, slamming into him and pushing him back. Then he was falling, claws scraping against his armor as he stumbled toward the rear edge of the truck. He couldn’t believe this was how he was going to die.

  He went over the edge, dropping the pistol and stretching desperately for the ladder. He got his hand on it, wrapping his fingers around it and holding tight. The trife that hit him fell into the scrum behind, screaming as it was attacked. Caleb regained himself, reaching up with his right hand to grab the next rung.

  He tried to grip it but couldn’t find the strength. Blood was pouring from a deep wound on his wrist, the tendons likely severed by the claw he hadn’t felt cut into him. He grunted, planting his feet and wrapping his arm around the rung, pulling himself up. Another trife leaped at him, and he kicked out at it, catching it in the face and knocking it back. He grabbed the next rung and lifted again, rising to the edge of the trailer. He held on tight while Rodriguez turned, bringing the truck around the next corner and heading back toward the transport.

  Two seas of inky black leathery flesh crashed into one another in a din of flailing claws and hissing. The two groups turned one kind of chaos into another as they began to attack one another in addition to the truck, each eager to be the one that killed the humans, as though the whole thing was one big competition, one big game to see which queen could score the most points.

  Caleb pulled himself up over the edge and fell into the truck bed. He dragged himself up enough to grab an emergency med-kit from a hardened container on his armor. He jabbed a needle into the wound to numb it. Then he slapped a large patch over it. The patch reacted to the blood, shrinking tight against the damage and stopping the flow in an instant.

  “Sarge!” Sho shouted at the front of the truck.

  Caleb checked his HUD. Rodriguez’s vitals had shifted, indicating a wound to his side. He looked ahead, seeing Sho leaning over the cab, throwing punches down toward the demon that had to be clinging to the side. He rushed forward while checking her ordnance levels. She was out of bullets.

  The truck shifted slightly, losing control for a moment while Rodriguez dug out his sidearm and shot the trife through the door. They straightened out again just as Caleb made it to the cab.

  “Sarge, are you okay?” Sho asked, noticing his wound on her HUD.

  “I’ve been better,” he replied. As soon as the adrenaline wore off the wound would hurt like hell. It would be worth it if it meant they survived.

  He checked his HUD. They were closing on the safe zone, the opposing trife evening out the odds for them and helping them turn the balance closer to their favor. The trailer was littered with dead, both trife and scientists. Doctor Valentine hovered on the right side of the truck, still aiming down and watching for more interlopers.

  “Lieutenant,” Caleb said. “We’re closing on the safe zone. Are you ready to receive?”

  “Locked and loaded, Sergeant,” Jones replied. “Come on in.”

  “Hold on!” Rodriguez shouted.

  Caleb threw himself down, rolled into the side of the trailer as the truck smashed into something ahead of it. The impact tossed the trailer, pushing it sideways, and Caleb felt it teetering, ready to roll. Then it dropped back down with a loud bang, bouncing everything in the back as its shocks tried to absorb the blow.

  Valentine left her position and climbed over the tarp, lifting the edge to check on whatever was underneath. When Caleb tried to get a peek, she lowered the cover and glared at him. “None of your business, Sergeant,” she growled.

  “Two of my people are dead for that thing,” he hissed back. “Two more are wounded. You lost half your people. It is my damned business.”

  “Need to know, Sergeant. You don’t rank.”

  He had gone from wanting to strangle her, to almost respecting her, to wanting to strangle her again in the span of a few minutes. He dropped the subject as Washington hopped down off the cab and made his way to the back.

  “Wash?” Sho said.

  Washington glanced back and smiled grotesquely. Then he picked up the minigun and started firing, ripping through fifty trife in five seconds, which was all the time it took for the gun to run dry.

  “What the hell, Washington?” Caleb said. Then he checked his HUD. The truck was suddenly surrounded by green marks, the rest of the battalion closing in to defend it on the last leg of its journey. Not that it mattered anymore. The trife had found something else to worry about.

  Each other.

  “We made it Sarge,” Rodriguez said. “Hell’s bells, I can’t believe we made it.”

  Chapter 7

  “Hell’s bells?” Caleb raised an eyebrow toward Rodriguez.

  “It was the first thing that popped into my head,” the Private replied, smiling.

  Caleb could sense the tension behind the smile. He felt it too. Maybe they had survived. Habib and Banks hadn’t. He had been fighting the trife long enough that he was used to losing people. At least, he liked to tell himself that. No matter how many friends died, it hadn’t gotten easier. In some ways, it got harder. He had memorized a list of all of their names, and he mentally added the two newest dead to it. Three hundred and seventy-eight names, and those were just the people who were close to him.

  His family, and his Vultures.

  Rodriguez’s smile faded as he watched Caleb’s face. Caleb knew he realized what he was thinking. That they were thinking the same thing.

  Three hundred seventy-eight names.

  Caleb’s parents were the first two. The virus had killed them both. He often wondered why it had taken them and not him. They said the outcome had a genetic component, and his family didn’t seem to have the genes to resist. It wasn’t just his folks. His drug-addicted brother who he had hardly seen and barely knew was gone. His aunts and uncles were gone. So many. For some reason he had survived. He knew his father would have told him it was because he was too damn stubborn to die.