"Roger that. Rico, kill that guard and swipe those badges."

Rico nodded his head and kicked the door jam with a loud thud. It didn't budge, but the creature stirred, striking the door. The smacking sound of putrid flesh slapping the door caused Commie to double over, dry heaving inside his suit.

"Master key?" Rico asked.

"Not yet. Commie, how do we get the cave doors open?"

"Hold on a sec," Commie said between dry heaves. "There's a manual access there near the doors that requires a hand crank. It's secured with a padlock. The key and crank handle are inside the shack."

"Are you f.u.c.king sure?" Rex said, his voice filled with tension.

"Yes, sir, I'm sure. I stood this watch when I was the new guy. It's under the desk on the floor. Had to check it for power-failure drills."

"Rico, master key!" Rex exclaimed.

"Everyone back, get ready to move!" Rico pulled his sawed-off Remington shotgun from the leather holster on his back, flipping off the safety. He always kept a round in the hole. He pulled the trigger and shredded the wooden guard-shack door around the lock. Only a hole remained where the doork.n.o.b once was. Rico kicked the s.h.i.t out of the door again.

The door flew inward and knocked the creature to the floor, onto its face. It attempted to get back up, but Rico pulled the knife from his belt, stabbing it in the back of its soft, half-rotted skull. He was careful not to thrust too hard as he didn't want to damage the tip of his blade by going too far through the head into the concrete floor. With the bottom of his boot, he yanked the knife from the skull and wiped it on the guard-shack seat. The smell would have been overwhelming if it were not for the suits.

"Okay, five badges in here, no hand crank!" Rico yelled out the door. He knew there was no point in being quiet after the shotgun blast.

Huck glanced away from his sector of cover and risked a look down the steps. "Rex, they're on us, man, bottom of steps," he said calmly.

Rex ran into the guard shack to help Rico look for the hand crank. "Rico, grab 'em. We gotta move. They're coming up the steps."

Both Rico and Rex ran out of the shack and looked at Commie, flashing anger in their eyes. "Commie, what the f.u.c.k?"

"I don't know; that's where it was!" Commie said nervously, adjusting his NODs, looking around the area.

Griff was at the top of the steps, weapon ready and pointed down at the creatures stumbling up the stairs. Griff watched while the others dashed to the door, attempting to gain access using their fingers-the steel door was fifteen feet tall.

Commie moved to the other end of the huge door, hitting his shin hard on something. "f.u.c.k! That hurt," he shouted, looking down. "Found it!"

The hand crank was already inserted into the hydraulic panel. Commie quickly turned it as fast as he could; the door creaked and strained. It opened one quarter of a centimeter per full turn-a slow undertaking. Bits of rust flaked from the hinges of the ma.s.sive doors as they slowly creaked outward.

Griff yelled back to the group from the top of the stairs a few meters away. "I'm engaging, there's too many! Thirty seconds!"

That was all they had left before all h.e.l.l broke loose and undead would start their advance up the steps to rip them all apart. It was only fifteen meters from the top of the stairs to the doors that Commie was feverishly working to open. The door was a few inches wide now. Griff kept shooting, stacking them up on the stairs below. Surgical with his shots, he neutralized creatures he felt might fall a certain way to block the flow behind, buying a little time.

Commie turned the crank to the point of muscle failure. "My arms are toast-someone else jump in."

Huck jumped in on the hand crank and started spinning for his life. The door was now open nearly a foot wide.

Griff yelled back, "Commie, get your a.s.s over here and start shooting!"

"Moving!" Commie replied, mimicking brevity he'd heard along the way to the cave.

"Be d.a.m.n careful, Commie, fall back if they get closer than ten feet!" Rex reminded him, covering Huck.

Commie and Griff blasted away with their suppressed carbines. Some of the rounds pa.s.sed through the creatures and ricocheted off the concrete steps, hitting the metal roof and parked cars. The creatures continued their relentless march up the steps at them.

The undead got so close that Rex witnessed Griff brand them with the end of his gun, pushing them back. His suppressor was so hot from expelled gas that the creature's skin would sizzle just before Griff pulled the trigger, scattering brain all over the steps below, toppling corpses back down the stairway to h.e.l.l. If not for the darkness, all of them would already be dead. The creatures were that fast.

"Commie, take two steps back. They're advancing."

Commie complied and kept gunning.

"It's open enough," Rex said from nearby the doors. "Get your a.s.ses in here!"

Both Commie and Griff walked backward, shooting the whole way to the door. One by one they dropped their packs and threw them through the opening. Rex had just cleared the immediate area inside the cave doors but had no idea what lurked farther back in the tunnel. Relying on moonlight and NVGs, it was pitch-green beyond fifteen meters. He didn't have time to turn on his IR weapon light to sweep it further, revealing the blackness.

Commie squeezed through the door into the cave. It smelled of death and mildew inside. He thought creatures might be close. "How are we going to close the door behind us?"

The dead were screaming now.

All five were in the tunnel now, the door frozen at eighteen inches open. Rex looked outside, seeing those things throng about. They already filled the guard shack and Rex knew that they would soon be flowing to the cave entrance.

"Any ideas?" Rex solicited.

The radio crackled. "Hourgla.s.s, Scan Eagle is indicating a swarm event developing in your area. Looks like the creatures are beginning to rally on your posit," an unfamiliar voice said over the net.

"Roger," Rex answered rolling his eyes. "No s.h.i.t."

Rico began firing his carbine out the door at the creatures-they were getting curious. Because the door was open at an unfortunate angle, he had to hang his torso completely out to control his carbine shots.

Looking around the tunnel with his IR light, Huck found a pillow-top mattress sitting against the wall on top of a box spring. "Rex, give me a hand with this."

They slid the mattress vertically into the eighteen-inch gap of the open door just before a creature was about to poke its head in. It was a snug fit, but only a temporary fix.

"We need to stack a load of s.h.i.t here to keep the mattress in," Rex said to the others.

Everyone fanned out in the immediate area, looking for debris or anything that might be used to barricade the door. Commie began to walk deeper into the tunnel.

"Not too far, Commie-the old man ordered me not to let you out of my sight," Rex said.

"Yes, sir, you got it. I see something up ahead."

A golf cart. Rex followed Commie for a closer look. The small battery-powered cart was used as a shuttle to transport VIPs back and forth to each end of the long underground tunnel. It was marked with a removable sign that displayed a blue background and four white stars.

"Looks like a four star was the last to ride on this. Let's push it to the door," Rex suggested as he stomped on the pedal, releasing the brake.

They both moved quickly, pushing the cart to the opening. All five men grunted, lifting the cart, placing it parallel to the door. It was tight against the mattress that plugged the undead leak. Rex reengaged the braking mechanism, holding the car in place. The sounds of bony fists were loud against the steel while the men stood in a circle to gather their thoughts.

"Virginia, this is Hourgla.s.s. We're inside-keep an eye on the door. If you see them getting in, give us a shout. One of us will stay near the entrance to keep comms up with your station," Rex transmitted.

The reply came in a bit weak, but readable. "Roger that, Hourgla.s.s. I'm on it." It was Kil's voice this time; Rex's eyes did not roll.

The very fact they'd even made it to the cave was remarkable. There they were, a mattress and a golf cart between them and certain undeath, on a radioactive island wasteland inside a defunct top-secret facility. Easy day.

Kil was in the control room now and ordered the UAV pilots to adjust orbit over the cave door as requested. One of the men gave att.i.tude regarding the order, causing Kil to hammer him back in line by threatening to personally send the man to the cave entrance to watch the door. Kil was nervous about the situation on the ground ten miles away, but made sure to project confidence on the radio. He had read books on the Apollo 13 mission and remembered how important it was for mission control to keep their cool with the astronauts. Although he was safe on the submarine, he still understood the value of projecting confidence to those that needed it.

Fifteen minutes went by before Kil gave an update. "Hourgla.s.s, the creatures are not concentrating on the door. No increase in activity or intensity right now."

"Roger that, Kil, good to know. Thanks for the overwatch," Rex said, briefly letting his comm discipline slip. "Griff, you stay near the door and relay any radio traffic down the tunnel to us. We won't be able to pick up Virginia's transmission as we move farther down this tunnel."

Griff nodded in compliance.

"I'll lead. Commie, you stay between me and Rico. Huck, you are welded to Commie. Rico, you have our back." After he was certain that everyone understood what was happening, Rex began to advance. "Have a good 'un, Griff."

"You all too," Griff replied without looking back, fixated on the door and the undead outside.

The creatures had been screaming since the group entered the tunnel. The men blocked the noise as best they could. There was no getting accustomed to it. Moving deeper into the tunnel, Commie began to remember his time stationed here at the cave.

The walls were covered in artwork on either side, all created by military personnel stationed here over the years. One mural depicted a skeleton marine sitting in a chair, wearing a headset in front of some radio equipment. It seemed to listen to some unknown transmission. The quarter mile of murals was an odd visual representation of the loose history of this facility. Some of the details depicted in the art could only be understood by a former spook like Commie. Some renditions were hints of highly cla.s.sified real operations that occurred here. Commie smiled as the team moved by pieces of art he had contributed to before being transferred to his next a.s.signment.

"We're about halfway down the tunnel now," Commie told the others.

"Shhhh! I hear something up ahead," Huck whispered.

The men brought their weapons up to their shoulders in antic.i.p.ation.

"Commie, stay back here with Huck. Rico, you're with me."

Rex and Rico moved ahead a few meters.

The slight curvature of the tunnel straightened, revealing the last-stand barricade. There were dozens of the creatures, mostly in hibernation, standing on both sides of the makeshift barrier. A few of the undead moved about, triggered awake by the noises made near the cave entrance.

"There's too many for just us to handle-they'll wake up any moment and f.u.c.k us up," said Rico.

"Yeah, let's go back and get the guys," Rex said.

The two hoofed it back to the others, relaying what they had just witnessed.

"Okay, we're gonna need everyone. There are maybe fifty of them sleeping near a barricade a hundred yards up the tunnel. Some of them are waking up."

A crashing sound in the darkness interrupted the silence. A creature must have knocked something over near the barricade.

"Let's go take them out. Walkers first, then the sleepers. Commie, I don't want you near them. If they start rushing us, you run your a.s.s back down the tunnel to Griff, understood?"

"Yeah, I guess. I have a gun you know." Commie's ego was clearly stung a little in being told to flee.

"Yeah, you may have a gun, but none of us know Chinese," said Rex. "What happens if you get infected and we're forced to kill your a.s.s? Ever think about what might happen if we can't communicate with the Chinese when we reach their waters? What if part of the Chinese General Staff and civilian leadership have survived and we can't tell them that we come in peace? One submarine versus the Chinese North Sea Fleet? Get the picture?" Although Rex couldn't see Commie's eyes behind his goggles and mask, he could tell by the body language that Commie understood.

After taking a Geiger reading, Rex gave everyone the option to remove his protective hood before laying out the plan. "This is how it's gonna happen. We're moving up just enough to start taking shots at the ones that are active. Then we'll start picking off the sleepers. No one shoots unless in self-defense or until I shoot first. These carbines are going to be loud in this tunnel, suppressed or not. Be ready for that, Commie."

Commie nodded at Rex.

"Okay, let's move."

The four advanced down the tunnel until Rex held up his fist to stop the group. Rex readied his gun and took the first shot, signaling everyone else to start dropping the undead.

They began with the active creatures first, missing some; the shots sparked off the concrete walls, jolting the sleepers. The entire barricade area buzzed with movement, making the follow-up shots more difficult. The tunnel distorted the sounds, sending the creatures in all directions. Some of the undead walked at the group, but were quickly destroyed. The team managed to drop all of them except for a few stragglers on the other side of the barricade.

The radio crackled: "Guys, things are degrading fast back here," Griff said, as the others were taking care of the creatures on the other side of the barrier. "Virginia says that they're ma.s.sing at the front of the cave and I believe it. The doors are buckling."

"Hold the f.u.c.king line!" Rex radioed to Griff.

The four jumped the barricade, gunning down two more creatures before advancing on the turnstiles ahead. Without power, the badges were useless for accessing the secure areas of the cave.

Rex thought he could hear the suppressed action of Griff's carbine a quarter mile down the tunnel-it sounded like a real gun-fight. Rex pushed Griff's problems out of his head and pulled out his pick set for the side handicapped access that bypa.s.sed the electrically dependent turnstiles. Without graphite lube to spray into the lock, he knew it might give him some trouble.

A suppressed shot rang out five meters away.

"What the f.u.c.k, Rico?!" Rex exclaimed, dropping the pick on the floor.

"One of them was still moving, man, crawling! I had to dust it before it crawled over here and bit your a.s.s!"

Rex nodded his thanks in response, felt for his lock pick, and went back to work on the lock. He used the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife, bending them into a torsion wrench, and began to rake the pins. He worked the lock for five minutes; drops of concentration sweat hit the floor as he struggled. The lock finally gave and Rex wondered if he had bested it or actually stripped out the internal pins. He pushed the door open and moved a nearby corpse in place to prop it open, careful to avoid the creature's slack mouth.

They were now technically inside the secure area of the cave.

Rex herded everyone in and keyed his radio. "Griff, we're in! All tangos down. Move your a.s.s!"

There was no answer on the other end. Rex repeated his broadcast down the tunnel.

"Maybe we should go back and check?" Commie suggested.

"It's too risky," Rex snapped. "Once I shut that G.o.dd.a.m.ned gate, we're secure inside here. A lot can happen on the half-mile round trip getting down to the door and back. I saw a lot of maintenance access doors on the way here. There could be dozens of them inside those unsecured rooms. Not all of them were closed." Rex was shaken at being forced to leave Griff to his own fate. This was not something acceptable in the special-operations community.

The gate shut with a metallic clank and the four men waited. Ten minutes pa.s.sed before the radio keyed again.

"They broke through and I'm nearly out of ammo," came Griff's voice. "If I don't go out there and close those doors we're all dead. Now or never, man, about to be too many outside to reach the crank. Good luck . . . out."

Rex stood for a few seconds frozen in shock at what Griff had just said. He was sacrificing himself to save the rest of them. "Griff, thanks. SAR dot bravo, twenty-four hours, IR strobes. Make it if you can. Good luck."

There was no response.

Onboard Virginia, Kil focused intensely on the Scan Eagle UAV feed. He'd transmitted warnings in the minutes leading up to Griff's decision to leave the cave and secure the door by way of manual hand crank. He'd heard Griff's radio message to Rex a minute before and watched the IR signature of his carbine shooting out the large steel doors.

The UAV cameras detected something small fly out of the open steel doors and into the ma.s.s of undead that congregated nearby. About four seconds later an explosion, likely a frag grenade, rocked the gaggle of creatures, sending them in all directions. Chunks of flesh flew against the steel doors and the guard shack in black splats. Immediately following the explosion, Griff sprinted through the opening and to the manual control crank to close the ma.s.sive steel doors. Kil panned the UAV camera out a bit and noted the creatures' reactions to the explosion. The parking lot below the stairs was teeming with undead activity, polarized like iron on a magnet, all converging on Griff. Panning back to Griff's immediate area, Kil called in the SITREP.