No Such Thing As Werewolves (44 page)

The adrenaline had faded, but the suit had injected him with some sort of chemical cocktail to stem the tide of his injuries. They left him fuzzy, but that seemed a small price to pay in exchange for keeping upright. Jordan shook his head. His mind was wandering.

He scanned the wreckage until he found a pair of legs jutting out from under what appeared to be a large section of the helicopter’s console, most of the dials shattered and worthless. He seized it in both armored hands, heaving with the suit’s considerable strength. The move flung the console off the prone figure, its armor dented and scored from the combat.

The helmet had been nearly ripped away, revealing Yuri’s familiar face. His goatee had been burned away, and his flesh was raw pink, but one of his eyes was focused on Jordan. “Time for raise. And vacation.”

Jordan smiled inside his suit, offering a hand to the beefy Russian. The man took it, and together they pulled him from the wreckage. He was able to stand, though he clearly favored his right leg.

“Can’t help you with the raise, but after this fiasco I have a feeling we’re about to get a permanent vacation,” Jordan said, reaching up to tap the release code into his helmet. It popped open with a hiss, and he removed it. The night air was cooler than he had expected, given the conflagration raging on the house’s remains just a few dozen yards away.

“Not our fault,” Yuri said, coughing weakly.

“No, but that hardly matters. Why don’t you limp over to the other survivors? Extraction is already inbound. I need to call the Director,” Jordan said. He waited for Yuri to begin moving toward the terrifyingly small cluster of survivors before moving in the opposite direction himself.
 

Several of the men were scanning the darkness with flashlights, and he couldn’t blame them. Coyotes had come out of nowhere, and more than one soldier had lost a tendon. A few had even had throats ripped out.

Jordan strode far enough away that he wouldn’t be overheard. Not that there was much risk of that. Anyone not in power armor must be at least partially deafened from the combat. Thankfully Jordan’s own hearing had been preserved. He could still hear the occasional cry of bats high above, now that the combat was over.

He pulled his smartphone from a secure compartment and dialed the Director. It rang once before the screen resolved into a face like granite. The Director’s eyes were hard. He already knew.

“Alpha escaped. Eleven casualties. Two suits destroyed, one more barely operational,” Jordan explained with clinical detachment. He’d known some of those faces, but this was war, and in war you compartmentalized emotions or you broke.

“Acknowledged,” the Director replied. His features were impassive, and although his eyes smoldered, Jordan wasn’t positive it was anger he read there. Frustration maybe? The Director continued. “I’ve arranged a flight to Panama. Pick up a suit and tie when you arrive. You and I have been called to account. The old man wants a face-to-face.”

“Awful long way to fly us for an execution. Why Panama?” Jordan asked.

“Every senior department head has been summoned, but none of us have been told why,” the Director said. He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “I do know that your op has been terminated. We’ve given up on fighting the werewolves, but I have no idea what the contingency plan is or what the old man has planned. Knowing him, it will be something none of us expect. You and I may even survive this debacle. Then again, we might not. Either way, get your ass on a plane.”

“Yes, sir,” Jordan said. The screen went black. Jordan was too tired to be curious. If they were going to crucify him for his actions, so be it. At least he’d face it on his feet.

Chapter 63- Garland

The strange little man blinked out at them from a thick, bristly beard, like some lawn gnome with a hangover. He stood next to a small cargo plane that could have been lifted straight out of a bad ‘80s movie. The paint was peeling, and there was actual duct tape in more than one place. The thing fit the airfield, which was nearly deserted save for several similarly sized planes at a few of the other hangars.

“So let me see if I get this. You want to fly to Peru, where all those attacks started, so you can wake up some Egyptian hottie who can tell us how to stop the world from ending?” Garland said, setting the brown paper bag on the Tarmac with a clink, the same clink magnums of beer made. It wasn’t even 10 a.m.

Blair hadn’t the faintest idea what to make of the man. His bushy hair hadn’t been touched by a brush since Metallica had rocked the mullet, a mullet this guy had never given up. The beard grew like a hedge ignored for a decade and he wore a faded black T with what might have once read
Poison
. It was hard to say with so much of it worn away. His jeans hung uncomfortably low and bore dark stains in more than one place.
 

All of that, Blair could handle. What he couldn’t was the stench. This man was the foulest thing Blair had ever encountered, and having new senses only made that worse. Unsurprisingly, Liz looked ready to gag too. At least they were suffering together, though he doubted Trevor was escaping the experience entirely. Still, the man was his friend, so he must have found a way to tolerate the funk.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. You fly us to Peru, and we try and stop this thing,” Trevor replied with a shrug and a sheepish grin.
 

“How much are you paying me for this adventure?” Garland asked, eyeing the bag of beer longingly.
 

“Uh,” Trevor said.

“You can’t even fucking pay me?” Garland asked, goggling at Trevor as if he’d just been told the world was about to end. Which he had, now that Blair thought about it.

“Maybe when we get back, but I can’t really take a side trip to an ATM. We need to leave right now,” Trevor said. He seemed genuinely embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Garland. I know this is a big ask. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Did you bring your own weed?” Garland asked with a sigh of defeat.
 

“They blew up my house, Garland. The whole fucking thing.”

“I have to smoke you guys out too? That really sucks, Trev,” he replied, though with no real heat. Blair suspected he was just happy to have people to smoke with. The lawn gnome clapped Trevor on the shoulder. “You know I like you, but I gotta eat. I can’t afford to front the gas down to Peru. Can’t run a business that way, you know?”

“Garland, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’ve tried a few drugs before,” Liz interjected, giving Garland a smile that might have been a little friendlier than strictly warranted.
 

“Drugs? I’ve got some opium if you want. We can smoke that once we’re up,” he shot back, warming at Liz’s attention. “Goes great with a little beer. Just the right mix of mellow and mellower.”

“Have you ever done ayahuasca?” she asked, pitching it low like a secret.

“Nah, that shit’s almost impossible to get ahold of. You have to know a shaman and…”
 

“I know a shaman, Garland. If you take us down to Cajamarca, I’ll get you ayahuasca. You can even do it with a real shaman,” she offered. His eyes lit up as though he were Indiana Jones being told where to find the Holy Grail.

“All right, I’ll cover gas. But I want one more thing, or it’s no deal,” he said cagily, though bits of a smile threatened to surface.

“What’s that?” Trevor asked, wary but looking hopeful. He folded his arms across his chest, shifting his weight as a plane taxied in the distance behind him.

“Your hot sister has to ride up front with me.” He grinned, giving Liz an obvious wink.

Trevor turned to his sister. She closed her eyes in weary resignation and then gave a tight nod. Blair couldn’t blame her. It was going to be a very long flight for them, but it would be longest for Liz. She was definitely taking one for the team.

“Sure, Liz would love to sit up front with you. You can tell her all those stories about when we worked at Computers for Everyone together,” Trevor said. They all laughed, except for Liz. She was not amused, as evidenced by her sour expression. “We’ve got some stuff to load up. Listen, we’re not going to get inspected, are we? They’re, umm, not street legal.”

“Man, if they inspected me before I flew out, they’d have impounded Henrietta and dumped me in Guantanamo,” Garland said, slapping the side of the dilapidated aircraft with a metallic thud. He grabbed the handle of an oval door, yanking the metal open with a groan of protest. “Stow your stuff in the back, and take seats close to the front. That will help balance the load. Liz, why don’t you help me do preflight? I’m sure they can handle it.”

Liz gave a shrug and a sheepish smile in Blair’s direction. “At least it gets me out of work, I guess. Have fun carrying luggage.”

Garland gestured chivalrously at the door, and Liz ducked inside, heading for the cockpit. Trevor nodded back to the luggage they’d piled at on the Tarmac. Fortunately, Trevor had stowed two green nylon packs in his Rover for camping. They’d used them to haul what little they’d salvaged. Next to the packs was a pair of long blanket-wrapped bundles containing the few guns Trevor had managed to rescue before they’d made their escape.
 

Blair waited for Garland and Liz to disappear inside the plane before he broke the silence. “How reliable is this guy?”

“Garland? Incredibly. I know he looks like a roadie who never left the ‘80s, but he’s a hell of a pilot. He’s flown under the influence of every drug you can imagine so many times that it’s all instinct now,” Trevor said, bending to heft one of the packs.
 

“Where do you know him from?” Blair asked, genuinely curious. The association was a strange one.

“We were both techs at a computer store back in the mid-nineties. I’d just started school and spent all my time smoking weed and playing video games at the store after hours,” he explained, picking up the lighter of the two gun bundles. Blair hefted the heavier with almost no effort. “Garland was the ‘old man’ back then. He knew all sorts of things the other techs didn’t. We all learned from him. Not everything computer related. He used to do lines of white powder off his hand in the back of the shop. I still don’t think he realizes we all knew. Anyway, he fixed computers all day long and was high the entire time. Piloting is the same for him.”

“You’ve vouched for him. That’s enough for me. Besides, if you’re wrong, it’s not like we’ll be around to complain,” Blair said, hefting the remaining pack in his free hand. They started for the plane. “Sounds like you’ve got a hell of a lot of stories. You’re a fascinating guy. I’m glad we met, and not just because you’ve saved our asses repeatedly.”

Trevor gave him a wide-eyed look and then a sudden grin. “Honestly? This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. There’s no way I would have missed this. If the world’s going to end, I want to be in on the group that tries to stop it.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Blair said, ducking inside the plane. The dimly lit room smelled of sweat and stale smoke. He dropped the guns and the pack in the rear corner next to a pair of battered bucket seats. “Listen, we haven’t had a chance to talk about the Mohn attack.” He glanced into the cockpit where Liz and Garland sat. The faint sounds of their conversation drifted back.
 

“I figured we’d discuss that together once we’re in the air,” Trevor said, dropping his own packs. He slid into one of the seats. “No sense doing it now just to have to explain it to Liz later.”

“It’s not Liz I’m worried about. I saw something horrible, Trevor. I’m not sure how Garland will react,” he said, settling into the seat next to Trevor. The stuffing in the cushions had been compressed into what felt like concrete, and the cracked leather smelled like Garland. “Can we trust him with everything? Or do we want to keep some things back?”

“I think we can trust him, but now you’ve got me worried,” Trevor said. He took the seat across from Blair. “What the hell happened back there that you haven’t told me?”

“We didn’t escape on our own,” Blair admitted. He buckled the frayed seatbelt. “Ahiga showed up. He saved my ass from Jordan, the commander of Mohn’s forces back at the pyramid. It was Ahiga that took down the first helicopter, and he’s the reason those coyotes attacked. He held Mohn off long enough for us to get away. They killed him for it.”

“That’s shitty, Blair, but not ‘keep it from Garland because he might freak out’ shitty,” Trevor said, clearly expecting more.

“As he died, he initiated something he called a mindshare. He showed me things. Trevor, he showed me the end of the world,” Blair said, seizing Trevor’s gaze. “The ancient enemy we mentioned? They’re zombies, Trevor. The virus was engineered, just like the werewolf virus. Only it creates zombies. Zombies just like the one’s you’ve seen in movies. The ones on
The Walking Dead
.”

“Holy. Shit,” was all Trevor had.

“Here’s the thing. This is going to happen when the virus gets enough energy to ‘wake up.’ It gets its energy from the sun. Ahiga says there will be a massive solar event and that it will happen soon. He described a CME, Trevor, just the sort of thing you warned us about. When it hits anyone suffering from HIV is going to die, but they aren’t going to stay dead,” Blair explained.

“My God,” Trevor said, blood draining from his freckled face. “So the zombie apocalypse is going to start right after most of the world loses power? All those contingency plans. Theories about people using social media to spread the word if it ever happened. None of that will work.”