James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“I, too, thought I saw them,” Doc said. “And now, John Barrymore, what is to be done about it? Should we try to make some kind of stand?”

“No,” the Armorer said. “Won’t help Ryan or Krysty. For now we got a lead on them. We work on keeping it.”

Another turn, though, and he found the way partially blocked by the buckled steel door. A sudden wash of gunfire coming from inside the room beyond whipped over him.

The companions went to ground, drawing their weapons. Mildred came up close beside J.B., leaving Doc and Jak paired off. The gunfire trapped inside the room continued.

J.B. got close enough to look through the open space of the buckled door. There were five sec men inside the room. Another was stretched out holding his stomach, dying slow, but getting it done just the same. The Armorer didn’t need two guesses to figure who the guards were shooting at. He lifted the M-4000 scattergun to his shoulder and sighted in, ready to take advantage of the fact the gunners didn’t know they were around. Yet.

“Shoot ahead,” Jak whispered, “know behind.”

“Yeah, but I’m aiming to shoot us out of a cross-fire situation,” J.B. said. “Providing it can be done. ‘Sides, those White Sands soldiers start blasting at us, could be the guards up ahead will think there’s more of us.”

Jak nodded.

“You just stand ready to take up some slack at that end,” the Armorer said. “Things look like they’re about to get a whole lot more interesting. Doc?”

“Ready, John Barrymore.”

J.B. settled his finger over the trigger, taking up slack. “Mildred?”

“Yeah.” The woman had been curiously quiet after they’d gotten her moving in the direction Krysty and Ryan had gone.

J.B. wasn’t a man to pry. She wanted to talk about it, she would. He’d never ask. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

“I got the man at twelve o’clock standing in the doorway. Going to work my way left.”

“I’ll take the right.” Mildred took a two-handed shooting stance.

“There’ll be no time for a reload.”

“I won’t need it,” she replied.

Settling the sights, J.B. stroked the trigger. The load of flechettes streaked forward. The man’s head exploded like a pumpkin, spraying blood over the walls and his comrades. Though they were shocked and caught off guard, it didn’t take long to react to the threat that had formed on their flank.

Then there wasn’t anything left to do but the dying and the killing.

“THEY’RE HERE!” Boldt shouted, looking back down the tunnel. He gripped the railing of the platform overlooking the hydroponics vats.

The plant-thing turned its head. Something wet and viscous, centrally located in its face as eyes would be, glimmered for a moment as if it were focusing. “There is one among them who knows. This person is a part of the earth, chained to her rhythms. We had not expected this. She senses us somehow.”

“Merlin!” Boldt screamed.

“On-line,” the computer’s mechanical voice answered.

“Kill the intruders!”

“Affirmative.” Gun ports opened up along the walls, revealing the wicked snouts of weapons.

Boldt watched as two shadows came stumbling into the vault room. The wall-mounted machine guns opened fire, blazing a line of bullets toward the two targets.

“The plague countdown has begun,” the plant-thing said. “Five minutes and counting.”

Boldt glanced over his shoulder, seeing the red LED numbers flicker into being on the computer ahead of him. He shifted his gaze back to the cryo chambers, then threw himself over the railing.

RYAN HELPED KRYSTY RUN, taking almost half her weight as he pushed hard, shoving them through the other end of the tunnel and into the room beyond. The machine gun fire that greeted them wasn’t totally unexpected.

The bullets slapped against the steel floor. He charted the movement of the man leaping from the cabinets of water to his side, and the red LED readout ahead of him 455. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the why of it.

On his knees, bringing up the SIG-Sauer, Ryan protected the red-haired woman with his body. He sighted on the machine gun sweeping toward them. The thing was mounted on gimbals, and possibly they were the weak point.