Chapter 46: Not Today

We filled coffee cups we found in the security room with diesel. Not entirely an unpleasant smell, it reminded me of the navy ship building docks. We set these just outside the elevator doors.

“What do you think,” asked Ave, “mix some alcohol in?”

“No,” Marci shook her head, “it won’t burn with water. Only anhydrous mixing with ethanol will work, but even Fred’s top shelf stuff here contains mostly water.” She paused for a second, cupping her ear to the door, “Listen.”

I heard it then, like a scattering of pebbles. Again. Then a larger clump. The ants were already filling the elevator shaft. It made sense. The poison gas left scores of their deceased behind, bodies cluttering up the hallway. A large slamming sound came from the shaft. “That sounded big.”

“They’re filling it up.”

“Well, forget this part of the plan, then.” I shook my head, “Onto the next part.” We were going to burn diesel to draw the ants into doing exactly what they were doing, filling up the shaft. “We lucked out, but I wished we’d noticed before we drew all this fuel out of the generator tank.”

“Yeah,” said Marci, “they’re likely as distracted as possible.”

Ave smacked her war hammer into her palm, “Well then. What are we waiting around here for?”

***

By the time we’d gotten back, Fred had stuffed cloth down six bottles. He didn’t look happy doing it and ran his thumb along the label of one of them. The liquid inside was golden in color. “Anejo. Aged tequila. I had a sip, she tasted exquisite.”

I patted him on the back, saying, “It’s down to about three quarters, Fred.”

He flashed a big, green smile, “Maybe more than a sip.”

“She?” asked Marci.

“A fine lady,” Fred shook his head slowly and sadly. “Cultured and wise.”

Marci rolled her eyes.

I asked, “How’s Dylan? Still unconscious?” That would be bad if he were, indicating moderate to serious brain damage. Or severe spinal cord damage.

The door to the security room opened, and Bent walked out, hands clasped tight together, but his demeaner was less tense than before, “He woke up. Pale as ghost but talking normally.”

From behind him, Dylan yelled out, “I can count to nine! And do the alphabet. Twice.”

“Yeah,” he gave a left-sided shrug, “I made him do it twice.”

Dylan appeared at the doorway, holding onto the door and leaning heavily, “Once backwards. Bastard.”

Looking him over, I said, “If you’re not ok to walk, we need to figure something out. We’re going to have to move pretty fast up there.”

“I’m fine. I’ll keep up.” His knuckles were white, grasping the frame so hard.

“You don’t look fine. They’ll eat us if we mess up, Dylan.”

He looked down. “Alright. I’ll stay behind.”

“Fuck that,” said Fred. “I’ll carry you.”

“No,” I began, “I have a better idea. Can you hold a gun steady?”

“Yeah. In my right hand. My left is not so great.” He opened and closed it. Dents lined his bracers where the errant bullets had ricocheted off. “But I think I can change clips. Yeah, I can. I’m good.”

Marci walked up to him, taking his hands in hers, looked into his eyes, “Ok, focus on me.” She moved her flashlight over his left eye, then right. “Your left eye is a little slow.” She repeated the procedure, “Yeah, I think you have a mild concussion. Let’s see if you can aim. Point your finger at the far doorknob.” She lit up the door.

He was on target, but it wasn’t a live test, so impossible to tell if he’d accurately hit something.

“Any dizziness?”

“No, I’m fine.” He closed his eyes, “Ok, a little.”

“Damn,” said Ave, rubbing the left side of her face, “we really need to carry plenty of those healing potions around. They’ve saved us more times than I can count.”

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, pulling my submachine gun off my shoulder. “But first, I’ll need all the clips for the Skorpions and . . . a chair. One with wheels.”

***

We were at the landing to the lobby in the staff stairwell. No ants had come down this far, no point in them returning to the level they’d started on, once they discovered it was free of zombie bodies. Fred had carried Dylan, Ave had brought up one of the wheeled admin chairs.

Fred set Dylan into the chair, gave his shoulder a squeeze, they nodded to each other. As I handed Dylan four submachine guns, he flashed me wide eyes and a joker smile. That’s right, our deadly convalescent.

We all huddled close, and I whispered, “Alright. Fred, Ave, you start, then Bent and Marci, Dylan and me following. We’re all good on our jobs?”

They all nodded.

“Sweet. Let’s go.” Leaving Dylan near the door, I stepped up to it quietly while the others positioned themselves nearby. My trap sense didn’t go off as I placed a cloth over the handle and slowly, very slowly, slid the key into the lock, wincing at each tick and the muffled click it made as I unlocked it. Turning the handle, I quickly pulled the door open.

One line of the knee-high, bipedal ant-creatures entered the room, carrying dirt and rocks, another line left the room, going outside. For every ten smaller ones, a warrior ant, more than twice their size, stood nearby, scanning. They all froze, like before, triangular heads turning toward us, listening intently.

Our exit was on the other side of the room, and we had to get there as quickly as possible. If they poured in, if they got between us and the long hallway, we’d soon become their food.

Fred and Ave stepped forward, burning bottles of expensive and rare alcohol in their hands, and tossed those into the large ants beyond. Each shattered, whiskey, tequila, cognac and vodka spraying all over, white and blue flames sprouting up all over. The big ones paused, then screeched, rubbing and rubbing their bodies, but only serving to spread the flames around. Nearby little ones immediately jumped in to help, first spreading the flames even more, then simply hugging on, trying to put them out with their bodies.

Claws outstretched, bunch of little ones ran toward us, Ave and Fred began swinging, the little bipedal creatures flung here and there, blood spraying. Ave and Fred moved apart from each other, creating space for Bent and Marci, who ran up. Bent fanned his fingers apart, thumbs on each hand touching, flame bursting forth into the masses, and they screeched.

Some ducked under his sheet of fire and charged, claws extended, sharp teeth at the ready. Marci dropped into a crouch, lightning blasted out of her hands into the nearest ones. The creatures seized up, shaking, and fell, smoke rising off their chests.

One dropped onto Bent from above, began tearing at his hair, biting his neck. Another missed, falling right beside him, shaking its head, then reaching around for his legs. More were crawling along the ceiling toward us.

Pushing the chair forward, I yelled, “Dylan, get the ones on the ceiling!”

He aimed upward and began spraying the ceiling with bullets as we moved behind our teammates, across the room. Bodies dropped, but more poured in. When the gun ran out, he tossed it, taking another.

I shouted, “Pull back! Pull back! Toward the exit!”

Ave whirled around, hammers smashing the little bipeds back and forth as they ran at her. I couldn’t tell if she heard me, but then she took a step back, and another. There were too many attackers for her to give ground easily.

“Dylan, the entrance! Maybe we can clog it up!”

He aimed there, flipping to full auto, and sprayed.

Pulling his chair along with my right arm, I began firing my Glock into the entrance with my left. We were nearing the doors to the long hallway out of here, but our teammates were stuck fighting the mob.

Marci’s scream cut through the din – her leg was gripped in the claws of a big one and it pulled her into a mass of them. Electricity shot out, plenty of them stiffened up, but she was nowhere to be seen, covered up by them all.

“Go!” said Dylan, “I’m good here!”

Leaving him by the doors, I ran, pulling out my sword in my right, shooting with my left.

In front of me, Bent freed himself of the little beast, threw it away, then shot flame into the crawlers on the ceiling, directing the waves of fire toward the entrance and breaking their lines, causing more of the bodies to fall on the mass that Marci was trapped under. I swore internally and worried as the ceiling itself blackened, paper peeling off and burning away, the fire expanding. Black smoke drifting down, my inner voice was screaming at me to get out of here.

I pushed past Bent, shouting, “Go where Dylan is! We can’t hold them!” then began tossing bodies off Marci, cutting or stabbing any still alive. I hit one with the pommel of my sword, then threw it toward the elevators.

The part of the pile facing the entrance suddenly exploded outward in a burst of light, the air filled with electricity and the smell of burnt flesh, my own muscles clenching and unclenching like someone had tasered me.

“Get off!” yelled Marci. She kicked at the stiff little ants around her feet.

Throwing a couple more away, I found her shoulders, pulled her up to her feet, and she nearly collapsed again, letting out a shriek.

“It’s my leg!” She leaned heavily on me, “They bit it or something.”

With more running at us, I couldn’t spare a glance. Slashed one that had run up and another suddenly flew back when a bullet struck it. “Come on, we got to get out of here! Take my other handgun!” My arm around her waist holding her tight, we headed for the exit.

Reaching around my body, Marci tore it out of the holster, shot at whatever was following us, then said, “Oh no. Fred!”

Not sparing a look, I dragged her a few more steps, saying, “I have to get you to the exit before I can do anything.”

She switched hands, shot a few more times, dropping more, then threw the gun at one. “Out! Drawing!” She pulled her own pistol, began shooting.

A few steps ahead of us, Bent stood to the right of Dylan, flame lancing out at the ants, keeping them at bay. Two submachine guns lay beneath the chair, meaning Dylan was on his last, shooting at the entrance.

I shouted at them, trying to warn them, “Above you!”

A mass of the vicious little ants dropped on the two of them, pushing Bent into the ground, clawing furiously at his chest, neck and face. He curled up into a ball, twisting and writhing. Dylan fell backwards, chair and all, as a morass of the little beasts fell onto his chest and shoulders.

Marci began shooting above Bent and Dylan, felling the crawling ants before they could attack the two. “Save them! I’ll hold onto the wall!”

Leaving Marci’s side, I reached out and slashed one off of Dylan, stepped forward, sheathed my sword for worry I’d cut him, and just grabbed one little ant by the head, twisted till it let go. As it flailed about trying to get free, I thew it hard against the wall, picked up another and tossed it all the same.

Tearing the last one off, I slammed it into the ground head first, shouting, “Marci! Take Dylan, go further into the hallway!” I wanted them to get away from the fighting, or at least the entrance, so these creatures couldn’t overwhelm us.

After shooting a few more creatures, she nodded, hopped over to the chair, both leaning heavily on it and pulling the chair backwards as best she could, Dylan shooting any that ran for them.

Lying prone, Bent held one off his face by its arms, the creature twisting and biting empty air, and was trying to kick off another that was latched onto his waist. Three tracks under each of his eyes ran red streaks down his face.

I grabbed that one first and it curled up, teeth clamping down on my leather sleeve. Holding it tight in my left hand, I drew my knife and stabbed into its ear, twisting the knife around. Its mouth went slack, I flung it away.

The creature Bent held above his head by pulling its arms taut was trying to scratch him with its clawed feet. Worried I’d cut Bent, I steadied its head before stabbing sideways into its neck, and flung its lifeless corpse away.

“Fuck!” he said, blood all over his neck and face. “I think I’m fine. Help me up.”

“The only thing holding you together is adrenaline! Go with those two and give me your gun!”

Dylan yelled, from behind me, “Reloading!”

Pulling him to his feet, I drew my gun, ejected the mag, popped a fresh one in, took his gun in my left hand, pointed them at ants rushing in, and let loose, worried for Fred and Ave.

Smoke billowed down from the ceiling as more wallpaper curled off, the fire spreading wider and wider. Briefly halting at the wall, it grew along the edge, then burned bright yellow as shifted horizontal.

The beasts racing toward us stopped, heads shifting around. They all paused in a line, touching each other, and turned to the exit to the cavern. Newly arrived ones raced toward their comrades, alive or dead, and carried them outside. The line of ants broke apart as they joined their fellows in clearing out the lobby.

As I emptied my clips into nearby stragglers still rushing toward us, Fred’s sword appeared through the head of one of the bigger ones. Then he hefted it straight off the ground, throwing it into the entrance that was now mostly being used as an exit.

Ave was well across the room by the check-in counter, smashing and smashing the ants. It looked like a horror show, like a thousand hell babies with vicious teeth and claws lay heaped around her, and she was putting more of them down. Five or so of the bigger ones lay nearby, some with flattened heads, others crushed bodies, one trying to pull itself away. She dropped a hammer into its head, before looking around, rage-filled face slowly settling back to normal until her gaze finally found me through the growing smoke and across the bloody, broken bodies, and she smiled.

I shouted at them, “We have to get out of here!”

After finishing off their remaining attackers, Fred and Ave ran over to us, each covered in scratches, blood running down their leather armor, sweat glistening off their faces.

As they got to me, twenty or so of the large and larger ant-people stepped in front of the busy little ones, faces toward us, arms outstretched, claws at the ready.

“Wait! They’re forming up! Shit,” I checked my pockets, no clips left, “running out of bullets.”

“Bullets don’t work on those,” Ave hefted her weapons. “But my hammers sure do.”

“No,” said Fred, sheathing his sword. “Their fight’s gone. Look. They’re just making sure we leave.”

Fire covered the ceiling, and was burning well down most of the walls, black smoke filling the space.

“Or stay. Stay and burn,” said Marci.

“It doesn’t matter. As long as they’re not coming for us, that’s fine.” The smoke grew thicker and darker, obscuring even the orange fire producing it. “We need to get out of here, it’s going to be hard to breathe soon.”

“Just . . . Just a moment,” said Marci, stumbling a bit, “I need a tourniquet.” And then she fell.