One Crazy Machine (Apocalypse Paused Book 9) Read online

  “How was it like this, then?” she said.

  He rubbed his stomach. “It makes me hungry.”

  “Right. So, Lieutenant…” Ava tried to peer through the approaching dust cloud but still saw no actual shapes and hence no real indication of numbers. “I haven’t faced these things personally, but they aren’t that bad, right? Although I’ve heard that they seem to know how to use their horns against man-made stuff. Will the wall be okay?”

  “It should be fine.” Cort glanced at the structure beneath their feet as if already checking for cracks. “They’ve destroyed many vehicles and a harassed a few firebases, but that was always closer to the Zoo. In a massed attack they can be troublesome, but their size means they’re less of a threat than some other creatures we encounter. They’re not armored, so guns—even your carbine—can dispatch them efficiently enough. And they have no cover here. Once they reach the bottom of the wall—”

  “It’ll be like punching fish in an aquarium.” The pilot nodded, reached stoically for his gun, and fumbled furiously with it, although it wasn’t clear what he hoped to achieve.

  “Right. Well, Manny, I’ll watch your back so you won’t have to watch mine,” Ava said and felt like the more competent person for the task for once. “Lieutenant, we’ll see you after we roast these chickens.”

  He nodded at them and jogged away toward the still-yelling Captain Taylor.

  “Damn it, Ava, what the fuck was that about?”

  “What?”

  “I told you I was hungry and you go and mention roast chicken? Not cool, mate.”

  “We’ll get you some chimera drumsticks when this is all over. Come on. I want to see if I can shoot one of these things from the gate.” She moved into her assigned post and earned a ferocious glare from Captain Taylor for dawdling.

  “Don’t hold your breath on that one. The damn things never come this way. They’re too busy trying to climb through the holes. Whoever thought swiss cheese was a good architectural model for humanity’s last defense against a bunch of freaky alien plants and animals obviously never met a rat.”

  “It’s not done yet,” Ava said, but her focus shifted from Manny’s babbling. She could now see the chimeras through the dust and there was a significant number of them. Already, she could make out at least ten through the swirling camouflage, but more shapes materialized with every second that passed. She stared at them, confused for a moment. They were large—much larger than she’d been given to believe—the height of ostriches but with thicker legs and small clawed arms like a T-Rex. Rounded horns framed their spikey, beaked faces. They resembled some hideous dinosaur with more modern features added for good measure. Chimera really was a fair name for the twisted amalgamation of creatures.

  She squinted into the dust once more. At least fifty chimeras were on a direct trajectory toward them.

  “So much for roast fucking chicken. What the fuck have those bastards eaten?” Manny demanded, his expression indignant.

  “What?” Ava looked blankly at him. He stared morosely at the approaching creatures like a kid who’d reached for a cookie and grabbed a dog turd instead.

  “Well, either they changed their diet to rapid-grow something or other, or they screwed a Goddamn dinosaur. Do you see the size of those bastards?”

  A few people nearby nodded agreement as if they’d noticed the metamorphosis as well. Ava frowned. “I’ve never actually seen one,” she admitted. “So these aren’t normal?”

  “Normal? Nothing’s fucking normal in the Zoo, Ava, but yeah. These are like the Goddamned Road Runner on steroids. Abnormally abnormal, that’s what I say.”

  Heads nodded again in confirmation, and she sighed. “Well, hopefully, they’re still not armored, as Cort said. And bigger means an easier target, right? These…uh, chimesaurus should be a lot harder to miss.”

  “All right, you pathetic excuse for soldiers. One thing we have plenty of is ammunition, so let’s make it rain lead on these abominations,” Captain Taylor bellowed and prevented further discussion. He seemed to enjoy verbally abusing the civilians who manned the gate.

  Ava raised her weapon, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. The shot missed and she scowled. She repeated the process and this time, her slug found a target. One of the chimesaurus screeched as her bullet pierced its breast. It tumbled clumsily and was promptly trampled by one of its kin before more sand kicked up and obscured it in the gloom.

  “There’s a ton of them,” she shouted to Manny.

  “That makes for more targets,” he responded and fired wildly at the approaching creatures.

  The other civilians now fired as well, but many looked uncomfortable. They’d come to this station above the gate during an attack four days before and Ava recognized many of the same faces. That time, however, had been different. They’d all twiddled their thumbs while soldiers a mile away defended a part of the wall that still had holes in it only ten feet up. That damage had since been patched and she wondered if that was why more of the attack seemed to be focused on the main gate.

  The civilians, despite their nervousness, behaved as they’d been trained to during their drills. They aimed, tracked, and fired. More of the chimesaurus crashed to the ground. Although Ava, with her scant week of practice, was a better shot than many, they were a large civilian group and Captain Taylor had said not to be stingy with the bullets. The resultant barrage of firepower was enthusiastic, but at a conservative estimate, not even a tenth of shots fired were actually effective.

  Ava sighted another ram-headed dinosaur that hurtled toward the wall directly below her post. She aimed, exhaled, and shot it between the eyes. Its forehead exploded with an impressive spray of blood.

  Manny whooped. “Now that’s what I call target practice. Hot damn, you didn’t even ruin its breast. That’ll be good eating.”

  She didn’t pause to celebrate, though. Despite the fact that many of the chimesaurus were eliminated, some made it to the wall. There were simply too many of them, and the civilians’ nerves made their accuracy far worse than usual.

  The first of the enemy rammed its horns into the gate. Despite being over fifty feet above the place of impact, she still felt the blow shudder through the structure. More careened into the gate, and the rattles and clangs of the assault added ominously to the din of gunfire and people shouting.

  “Focus on the ones at your feet, you numb-nutted bastards!” Captain Taylor bellowed and the civilians immediately obeyed. Ava leaned out over the battlements and fired at the massed creatures at the gate, but it was an awkward angle, and the chimesaurus no longer moved in straight and easily anticipated lines.

  One of the monsters took a few steps back and cocked its head to the side. It seemed to look directly at the people who fired from the top of the wall.

  “Look at the ugly chicken.” Manny glared at it. “He thinks he’s a smart one, I’ll bet. Shoot him in the face, Ava. Shoot him in his smug, monstrous face.”

  She took aim, but when she raised her gun, the chimesaurus sprinted forward, crouched, and leapt almost halfway up the wall. It smashed its hooked beak into the metal and scratched at the wall with its stubby T-rex arms. Ava aimed her rifle at another of the attackers. She assumed that the one that had jumped would simply tumble off but somehow, it managed to cling to the structure.

  “Holy hell, that thing’s climbing,” Manny shouted and pointed at it like he was tattling to a teacher.

  “Bring it down. For the sake of your mothers at home watching daytime TV, bring that fucker down!” Captain Taylor shouted.

  A dozen civilians all trained their weapons on the chimesaurus and fired almost simultaneously. Red, bloody bullet holes blossomed, a vivid contrast to the blue feathers, and the creature pitched to the desert sand below, but not before its fellows had noticed its efforts.

  More of them backed away to launch themselves at the structure. They used their back legs to lever themselves up the vertical barrier and their strange hooked beaks to dig in the sli
ck surface. In a moment of horror, Ava thought of salmon swimming impossibly up waterfalls before Manny slapped her on the back. She drew a ragged breath, aimed at one below her, and filled it full of lead.

  “I want companies two and six to the main gate,” the captain yelled into a radio, “Everyone else, prepare to move. I can’t believe I’m saying this but you grunts must’ve done your job too well. These damn chimeras have converged here and I need some fucking soldiers.”

  “Chimesaurus,” Manny corrected him, and the officer simply scowled and shrugged.

  Ava shot another of the monsters that crawled closer to her, but a scream came from her right and broke her focus. A chimesaurus crawled over the top, snatched a man with its beak, and hurled him over the side and into the chaos below. The beast pulled itself onto the wall.

  “About fucking time,” Manny said, drew an enormous knife, and barreled at the interloper. It lowered its head and its horns met his chest to stop his charge. He reeled back. “Fuck mate, I wasn’t ready,” he groaned.

  She pulled herself away from the next target that crawled up the wall and fired at the one that now tried to claw the pilot’s guts out. Strangely, she was a worse shot up close and most of the bullets went wide, but she did manage to wing the creature.

  It squawked a challenge, the sound somewhere between a parrot and a goat, and lunged forward. Ava fired once more. The slug slammed home, but the attack didn’t slow. The momentum alone would knock her to oblivion if it didn’t manage to snag her with the massive horns first.

  Manny dove between them, caught her firmly in his arms, and shoved the chimesaurus off the top of the wall with his legs. The two landed in a tangled sprawl of limbs.

  Ava looked around wildly, certain that the defenses must be crawling with the attackers by now. Thankfully, no others seem to have managed the climb.

  She pushed to her feet and shuffled forward to look over the edge. The chimesaurus practically swarmed the gate, but they hadn’t broken through. Surprisingly, none except that first one had actually reached the battlements.

  “Something’s not right with these birds, ya ken me, mate?” Manny said and gestured at the flock of creatures down below. He had a curious look on his face. She recognized the expression. It never meant good things, especially when directed at Zoo creatures. His expression suggested intense thought.

  “I know they’re not supposed to be that smart.” She fired another burst with her rifle and dispatched another would-be climber to join the others. “But still, the reports say they have enough brain power to focus on a JLTV’s engine, but they’re simply throwing themselves at the gate. Why?”

  “We need reinforcements—now! I want companies three and five here, and I want them yesterday,” Captain Taylor hollered into the radio.

  “So far, they’ve only attacked the gate,” Ava said. Her mind racing and she cursed herself for not trying to outthink a dinosaur-chicken-ram sooner. “But the dust cloud is way wider than this part of the wall—”

  An explosion boomed, perhaps a mile farther on.

  “Isn’t that the station that doesn’t have mounted artillery yet?” she asked, and dread grew in her stomach faster than the pile of dead creatures at the gate.

  “Station six is where Gunnar and Peppy are covering,” Manny said. His gaze locked on a ball of fire that rose into the air and gave way to smoke. “And captain numb-nuts ordered all the soldiers to abandon it and come over here. Only a moron would order a station abandoned in an attack like this.”

  “The only thing dumber would be to disobey orders, stay behind, and try to defend it yourself.”

  “Holy shit,” he muttered, his eyes wide, “Peppy and Gunnar will probably try to out-stupid us. We gotta go.”

  Chapter Three

  Manny didn’t hesitate. He raced to a four-wheeler used to move building materials across the top of the wall, kicked a pile of scaffolding off it, and started it.

  “Goddamnit, Jack Mann, if you abandon your post, I will have your fucking balls.”

  “Gotta catch me first!” the pilot shouted in response and winked at Ava.

  She glanced quickly at Captain Taylor, who attempted to murder her with his ferocious glare, before she scrambled onto the back behind Manny. “You know this is profoundly stupid, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Not only are we abandoning post to drive across an unfinished wall, but we’re driving toward an explosion. It’s stupid on so many levels that it’s like a wedding cake of stupid. Now, hold on.”

  She grabbed his waist as he twisted the accelerator and the vehicle roared into motion.

  It took her about twelve seconds to realize how profoundly dumb it had been to get on the four-wheeler with Manny and race off toward danger. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help her friends, but she didn’t want to have to do it on a machine designed to haul bags of concrete through the backwoods.

  “Hot damn, look at them two by fours.” He steered them slightly to the left and up a pair of boards that didn’t look nearly strong enough to support them. They careened off the top and were airborne long enough for her stomach to curse her for joining this mad flight. The vehicle crashed back onto the wall in time for him to swerve around an unfinished walkway that opened into a fifty-foot drop through the wall’s innards.

  “Will you be careful?” Ava screamed.

  “I always am!” Manny shouted and gunned the throttle to maximum. They plunged even faster into the dust storm.

  Ava glanced over the wall and her stomach flipped at the height. For one brief, crazy moment, she wondered how in the world a ride on a four-wheeler atop a man-made structure could feel more terrifying than a ride in a helicopter. The thought was swept aside when he made another jump, this one from the walkway they were on down ten feet to a hallway that would one day be enclosed. Now, she understood why this was worse. There weren’t normally obstacles in the air.

  “Jesus, Manny, be careful,” she yelled and wished she had something more constructive to add. Unfortunately, most of her brain power was used to identify and dodge hanging electrical wires and pray that the pilot didn’t crash into any of the ladders, boxes of fluorescent lights, or pipes stacked haphazardly in the area.

  That proved to be too much to ask for. Manny whooped, lowered his head, told Ava to close her eyes, and careened through one of the boxes of fluorescent lights. She fortunately managed to squeeze her eyes shut in time and grimaced at the dusting of shattered glass against her skin amidst the pop of the pressurized tubes imploding as they shattered.

  “I thought this place was a modern marvel. Shouldn’t they have LEDs or some shit?” he yelled and, blessedly, slowed the four-wheeler down.

  “Oh, thank God. let me get off.”

  “I’m only slowing for the hairpin turns. We’re barely halfway to Gunnar and Peppy.”

  He steered toward a piece of scaffolding used to cart materials to the higher level. Its frame was made of metal, thank God, but the ramp surface was definitely plywood. Ava considered getting off, but the mention of her friends compelled her to stay.

  Ignoring her instincts, she did what any sane person would do when driving through a construction-site-turned-war-zone way too fast on a machine designed to haul materials. She simply held on tighter.

  By some twist of fate—cruel or kind, she couldn’t decide until this was all over—they fit on the ramp. Manny accelerated up the first incline, slowed, then up the next and the one following until they reached the top. Ava forced herself to rethink the dangers of driving up a piece of plywood on a four-wheeler carrying two adults when Manny gunned it up the last ramp and the structure fell apart behind them.

  “It’s like a Hollywood movie set.” He looked over his shoulder as he said this, eager to see the small-scale destruction he’d caused. “Did I ever tell you I worked as a stunt-double out there in California?”

  “Focus, Manny.”

  “That’s what the director used to say too.” Thankfully, he returned his attention to
the path ahead of them in time to see a half-finished walkway. To the left were the fortifications that faced the Zoo and about three feet of walkway, and to the right was another drop into the innards of the wall.

  “Just like Hollywood,” Manny shouted and gunned the four-wheeler toward a ramp on their right that would one day house one of the defensive cannons. Ava prepared herself for another jump, even though the far side of the narrow walkway seemed much too wide for their vehicle to clear it. Surprisingly, he steered only the wheels on the right side onto the ramp.

  “Lean with me!” he shouted as the four-wheeler pitched at an angle and he drove them across the gap on two wheels.

  They made it across, leaning closer to the fortifications than the pit below them—which would, of course, still cause a nasty spill if they crashed. He yelled at her to lean the other way and they plopped back down onto four wheels.

  “If you hadn’t told me you’d learned that in Hollywood, I think I’d have to kill you.”

  “I never did that in Hollywood although I tried to a bunch of times. The old two-wheeling’s a classic trick, but every time I did it, I smashed the car to pieces. I couldn’t help but roll.”

  “And you tried it right now because?”

  “It’s important for a man to push himself—or in this case, a chimesaurus.”

  “What?” Ava peered around his shoulder. Gunnar and Peppy stood back to back in a blackened section of the wall that was perhaps twenty feet below the part they were on. Beyond them yawned a huge hole. A box of grenades must have exploded. Three of the creatures were between the new arrivals and their friends. Gunnar blasted holes in one of them while Peppy watched his back and fired at others that climbed over this much lower section of wall.

  “We’re here,” Manny announced in a cheerful, sing-song voice. “If you’d kindly collect your carry-ons, including any firearms you may have jabbed into the pilot’s back for the duration of the flight, we’ll be on our way to meet our next connection.”