Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series Page 8

  Jarek exchanged a concerned look with Alaric then rose and checked the pistols holstered at his thighs while Alaric belted on his own guns.

  “If we could go one damned day without some fresh hell …” Alaric mumbled, pulling on his coat.

  He was only one sleeve in when something thumped into the door. Hard.

  Silence. Then a low growl.

  Jarek drew a pistol and traded a speculative glance with Alaric.

  “Sir,” came Al’s voice in his earpiece, “there’s something seriously wrong out he—”

  Bam! Bam!

  The sharp cracks of an insistent fist on the door. Whoever it was followed with a maddened bark, and then the door flew in with a crash.

  A single man stood there, garbed in rag-tag Resistance armor and practically foaming at the mouth with anger.

  No, not just anger. Jarek had seen all shades of angry. This guy’s eyes were stark raving mad with mindless fury.

  “Davidson!” Alaric barked. “What the—”

  Davidson charged into the room with a strangled yell.

  Jarek’s insides shriveled at the frantic madness in his eyes, but instincts kicked in, and he caught Davidson’s wild swipe with a raised elbow.

  The guy wasn’t pulling his punches—or aiming them particularly well. His arm hit Jarek’s elbow hard enough that Jarek grunted in pain. The low crack told Jarek Davidson’s arm might have just broken, but that didn’t seem to bother the crazy bastard too much. Instead of reeling in agony, Davidson stepped in and made for Jarek’s face with his teeth.

  Jarek darted back a step and caught his raging pursuer hard across the head with a whip of his pistol butt.

  Davidson crashed into Alaric’s desk and toppled unceremoniously to the concrete floor.

  “Jesus, dude!” Jarek cried after him, adrenaline bouncing him on the balls of his feet. “What the shit?”

  He tried to take a deep breath, tried to center himself.

  But Davidson wasn’t done.

  The crazy bastard shook off the blow that absolutely should have left him stunned stupid on the floor and instead scrambled for Alaric.

  “Davidson, stop!” Alaric barked.

  Jarek started forward, sure the maddened soldier wasn’t about to miraculously start listening now.

  Alaric, apparently coming to the same conclusion, spat a curse and kicked Davidson in the head before Jarek could.

  This time, Davidson was at least too stunned to do much more than groan and roll around on the floor.

  “Al, zombies,” Jarek said quietly.

  “Understood, sir. On my way. May I ask—”

  “Fucking zombies, Al!” Jarek snapped with entirely more fire than he’d intended.

  So maybe he’d watched one too many zombie flicks. So maybe raving, teeth-gnashing madmen kind of scared the shit out of him. They could all sue him later, just as soon as they figured out what the hell was happening.

  “Right you are, sir. I’ll just pretend these people aren’t beating each other senseless out here.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you, sir.”

  “Shit.” Jarek turned to Alaric, who was watching him like he was half-expecting Jarek to pull a Davidson. “This is happening out there too.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Alaric muttered.

  Beside them Davidson was starting to try to pull himself shakily back to his feet, eyes completely unfocused, a low growl rumbling from his throat.

  “Come on,” Alaric said, striding past Jarek to the door. “We need to … Shit, I don’t know. Find restraints, for starters.”

  Jarek gave Davidson one last glance and hurried after Alaric without complaint.

  In the hallway, Jarek pulled the door shut behind them. Shouts and screams seemed to be coming from every direction of the base.

  “I need to get to Rachel,” Jarek said.

  As if in reply, Davidson slammed into the door behind them and began pounding on it.

  Jarek clutched the doorknob, ready to fight his pull, but apparently doorknobs were beyond Davidson’s current state of mind. He simply kept beating at the door with a mindless cry.

  “You two!” Alaric shouted down the hall to a man and woman who’d rounded into the hallway, weapons at the ready and frantic confusion in their eyes. “You know what’s happening?”

  “No, sir,” the woman called as they jogged over, looking relieved to find someone who wasn’t currently bat shit insane.

  Jarek couldn’t say he blamed them.

  “Come with me,” Alaric told them. “We’re gonna rally everyone we can and get to the commons.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Jarek said, starting in the other direction for Michael’s room.

  Alaric looked for a second as if he might argue, maybe even pull the Commander card and order Jarek to stick with the group, but then he turned to his new recruits. “Let’s go.”

  “Don’t get bit,” Jarek called after them.

  Alaric spared him an incredulous glance, then he waved his soldiers on and they disappeared around the corner.

  “Just sayin’,” Jarek mumbled to himself, prowling toward the opposite end of the hallway, gun at the ready.

  He still wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, though he had a sinking feeling there was something telepathic in play, possibly of the funky psycho harvester broadcast variety. Whatever it was, if nearly a decade of binging movies to kill his unfortunate abundance of spare time had taught him anything, it was that when perfectly sane people all of a sudden started biting, you sure as hell didn’t want to be one of the ones who got bit.

  He’d just reached the end of the hallway and was pausing to listen when he damn near ate his own words.

  It was hard to tease out one thing from another with all the activity and shouts coming from all over the base—hard enough that Jarek only caught the shuffling footsteps and quiet groaning growl a second before the woman stepped into view and caught sight of him. She was tall with dark hair. And complete madness in her eyes.

  Jarek didn’t have time to finish his shout of, “Don’t do it!” before she sprang at him with a shrill scream.

  He caught her by one wrist, spun, and slammed her to the wall, pinning her there with an elbow to the throat. She paid the—what had to be considerate—discomfort no mind and continued bucking against him with surprising strength.

  “Dammit, lady, I don’t wanna—Shit!”

  He turned at a movement to his left, dropping his grip on her wrist to reach for his other pistol. Then he processed the two men standing there with lucid eyes and raised stun guns.

  “There’s two more of ‘em,” the right one growled.

  Jarek abandoned the pistol grab to raise his free hand in surrender. “Wait! Don’t shoot! I’m not a crazy person. Yet.”

  The two exchanged a glance, then the one who’d spoken took aim and fired.

  Jarek threw himself away from his new berserker friend with a yelp and came away blessedly free of any stunner leads. The same couldn’t be said for the dark haired woman, who lunged after him but didn’t make it more than a step before she began convulsing and went to the ground in a disturbing display of growling, shrieking twitches.

  “Jesus, cowboy,” Jarek said. “Maybe an ounce of warning next time?”

  The shooter calmly held his gaze as he loaded another stun cartridge by feel. “I thought the Soldier of Charity knew how to take care of himself.”

  And with that, he gestured to his partner and they set off the way Jarek had come.

  “Thanks,” Jarek called after them. “Dick!”

  At least someone had had the good sense to break out the stun weapons.

  “Worst first day of school ever, Mr. Robot,” Jarek said as he turned down the next hallway and continued toward Michael’s room. “And where the hell are you, by the way?”

  “Almost there, sir.” Al sounded tense. “Navigation is … parametrically challengin
g at the moment.”

  “As in people are trying to kill you?”

  “Emphatically, sir.”

  “I’d tell you to try being inanimate, but”—Jarek turned into Michael’s hallway and spotted Alton Parker stalking his way, eyes shimmering faint red—“I might be needing you here, buddy. Nowish.”

  Jarek had one second to try to process how bad it would be for a raknoth to fall into mindless rage inside Resistance HQ before Johnny’s flaming red hair darted into sight behind Alton.

  “Take my pendant, you stubborn ass!” Johnny cried. “We can’t afford to—”

  Alton shook his head and said something Jarek couldn’t quite pick out.

  Johnny was saying something back and reaching for his neck when two wild-looking men hurtled out of a room they were passing and straight for them.

  To his credit, Johnny reacted with impressive speed and neatly pulled his attacker into some kind of hip throw that left the guy pinned and frothing on the ground.

  Alton, on the other hand, had closed his eyes in a silent snarl as his attacker crashed into him like a particularly big-headed puppy challenging a full-grown bear. The raknoth’s face twitched like he was fighting for control, then he reached out and, almost gently, shoved his maddened attacker to send him, airborne, back into the room he’d come from.

  “How ya doin’, Red?” Johnny called, still struggling to control his own berserker. “You still with us?”

  Alton opened his eyes, which were decidedly redder than they had been pre-ambush, and turned to Johnny right as another pair of Resistance troops scuttled into the hallway, weapons readied.

  “Oh, fuck!” one of them gasped, pointing his gun.

  “Don’t!”

  Jarek, Johnny, and the other Resistance soldier all yelled the word at almost the same time.

  None of them made a lick of difference.

  Two gunshots cracked down the hall. Alton jerked, then tilted his head back and gave a roar that shriveled bits of Jarek’s anatomy.

  Johnny backed away from Alton, slowly raising his hands. The guy he’d had pinned sprang to his feet and lunged for Alton, who apparently seemed like the most interesting thing in the hallway at the moment.

  He was sure as hell the most dangerous thing.

  Alton swatted his would-be challenger aside like an unwanted beach ball. The guy hit the wall with a sickening crunch and lay still.

  The shooter prepared to fire again, but his partner grabbed him and pulled him frantically around the corner, which to red-eyed, raging Alton must’ve looked something like a fleeing rabbit looks to a hungry wolf. He tensed to spring after them.

  “Shit,” Jarek muttered. Then, much louder, “Hey, Parker!”

  Alton showed a moment’s hesitation, but didn’t turn.

  Only one thing to do, then.

  “Sorry about this, buddy,” Jarek called, raising his gun.

  Johnny sharply shook his head at Jarek, wide-eyed.

  Jarek sighted on Alton’s back and pulled the trigger.

  Alton whipped around, all of his red-eyed fury settling firmly on Jarek, and charged with a resonant roar.

  Jarek backpedaled, two options cloying for place in his mind, which couldn’t seem to get beyond screaming that there was a pissed off raknoth helling down the hallway toward his pathetic meat-sack form.

  Run or dodge, or run or dodge, or—Shit!

  Alton closed faster than seemed physically possible. Jarek threw himself to the side. Not enough. Not fast enough. Alton reached out a clawed hand, and—

  Something dark flashed past Jarek and slammed into Alton in a full-on tackle.

  Fela.

  “Al, you magnificent bastard!” Jarek cried.

  Alton staggered backward, wrestling with the suit, which had wrapped its arms firmly around his waist. Or maybe not that firmly.

  Al had only driven Alton back a few feet before the raknoth got his balance back.

  “Uh-oh,” Al said.

  Then Alton pivoted and chucked Fela into the wall.

  Jarek needed to do something—needed to buy a few seconds to let him suit up.

  But before he could so much as think the word distraction, Alton whirled and advanced on him.

  “Run, sir!” Al cried, scrambling Fela back to her feet.

  There wasn’t time for that.

  Jarek twisted under Alton’s wild grab and nearly cried out at the brush of Alton’s arm on the top of his head. One misstep, one hesitation, and—

  Alton twisted after him with a heavy backhand, and Jarek threw himself backward.

  He hit the floor hard, unforgiving concrete slapping the air from his lungs, and kicked to scoot away. Alton stalked after him like a primitive predator, basking in the kill to come.

  Jarek raised his gun, knowing it was futile.

  Alton dove forward.

  Halfway to Jarek, something caught the raknoth in an invisible embrace and held him there, floating in midair. Then that something slammed Alton into the wall hard enough to pulverize half the cinder blocks he struck.

  He roared once, looking furious, but his struggles seemed to be weakening.

  Jarek tilted his head back and caught an upside-down view of Rachel striding toward them, one hand gripping her staff and the other outstretched toward Alton.

  She looked pissed—more pissed than Jarek could remember ever seeing her—and something told him it wasn’t solely because Alton had been about to enjoy a fine Jarek tar tar.

  At least Alton seemed to be calming down now, for whatever miraculous reason. He’d ceased his struggles completely when Jarek glanced back, and the raknoth fire was draining from his eyes.

  Rachel’s boots clicked closer until Jarek was staring along the lovely curve of her leg and up to the eyes that were somehow exuding more fire than Alton’s. She spared him the briefest of glances. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “What does it look like?” Jarek said between pants. “I’m here to rescue you.”

  Seven

  Jarek had never been a fan of scavenging. God knew he’d done plenty of it in the years following the Catastrophe. It had been a necessity to survive. The best thing he’d ever found, though, hadn’t been food. Not by a long shot. That honor almost certainly went to the storage drive he’d happened across camping out in an abandoned apartment one night. More accurately, it went to the contents of that drive.

  Movies. Thousands of them, a cinematic sampler of the century’s works.

  Sure, movies weren’t much use to a starving man. But to a fed man whose social circle had pretty much consisted of Al, an occasional visit with Pryce, and whatever band of marauders or mercenaries happened to be trying to kill him that week?

  That drive had been worth a thousand cheeseburgers.

  On one of the countless nights he’d spent in the following years lounging in his ship and watching his way through the better part of two thousand movies, he’d happened across a movie called 28 Days Later. The sight of the title had brought back memories of his dad. He couldn’t even remember why at first, but eventually it came to him. He’d wanted to see it back in the day, before the bombs fell. Somehow, he’d seen an ad somewhere and had set to work bugging his dad to take him.

  His dad, of course, had calmly explained that the movie wasn’t age-appropriate for Jarek and that, besides, the film was just a remake of an old classic and probably an enormous pile of flashy crap anyways. The one from the turn of the century, his dad had said, that was the one Jarek would have to watch—in a few years, maybe.

  Remembering that little snippet of his dad, Jarek had been struck by one of those sudden, mournful pangs of loss that were routine and yet always unexpected. He’d breathed a heavy sigh. And then he’d watched the crap out of that movie.

  Whether or not it stood up to the standard of the one from the early 2000s, Jarek couldn’t have said. Regardless, it was thanks to 28 Days Later that he had some loose framework to classify what in the ever-living hell had just swept thr
ough Resistance HQ.

  “That,” he said, “was some straight up rage virus shit right there.”

  Rachel frowned up at him from Michael’s bedside, clearly not following. Behind her, Lea looked a bit pale.

  He didn’t blame her.

  “That wasn’t a virus,” Rachel said. “It was—”

  “Messengers,” Jarek finished. “Yeah, I put that part together. I’m just saying—never mind. Not important.”

  “Are they done out there?” Rachel asked, glancing back at Michael in clear concern—probably more for whatever was happening in his head than what might happen to his body.

  Jarek poked his head out the door, eternally grateful to be back in Fela’s sturdy embrace again. Across the hallway, Alton glanced both directions and gave Jarek a small nod.

  Jarek listened with Fela’s auditory sensors and came to the same conclusion as Alton settled back into his remorseful raknoth pose.

  The impromptu rage storm seemed to have abated, and HQ was beginning to pick up the broken, or bitten, pieces.

  “All clear,” Jarek said.

  Which probably meant now might be a good time for Alton to fill them in on what the shit had just happened.

  Jarek had some vague understanding, of course. Something—presumably the rakul—had sent some violently bad vibes their way, apparently using messengers, and people had started trying to kill each other. What was less clear was … well, pretty much everything else.

  Did this attack mean the rakul were close? Could they do it again? Had the event been local or worldwide? All those and a thousand more like them.

  At least most of their cloaking glyphs seemed to have held up to the messenger juju. Well, except for Michael’s, but that was a separate issue as far as Jarek knew.

  Many of the Resistance soldiers’ minds had been shielded behind glyphs much like Jarek’s, but not all of them. Apparently, the glyphing device the Resistance had procured from god knew where had been lost, destroyed, or maybe even stolen during Golga’s attack a few weeks prior.

  Whichever it was, now that HQ had dropped its game of flying under the radar, there were plenty of new faces around—faces that hadn’t been properly warded against the potential for being telepathically goaded into completely losing their shit.