wake of the fast-moving creatures. The other racing creatures had gone in a variety of directions-some behind the Hyatt, and others toward the lake. King suspected the creatures had no specific targets in mind, but instead just ran in a variety of directions and ripped into anything they encountered.
He saw Deep Blue rolling on the ground and picking up a fallen soldier’s M-16 rifle and leveling it at a creature that was returning. He fired a confident three-round burst, each round punching through the monster’s rounded forehead, widening the wound, shattering what looked like a clear skull and shredding the spongy white brain beneath.
King had seen a lot of people shot in the head, but had never witnessed the bullet’s progress after it entered the target. The explosive effect on the creature’s brain was…horrible, but in this case, a thing of beauty.
As the life went out of the creature, it crashed through the group and over Deep Blue’s head before slamming into the wooden sawhorse, sending a spray of wooden splinters and larger pieces of wood into the street beyond the small group.
“How the fuck-” King began.
Deep Blue tapped the faceplate of his helmet. “Targeting software.” He fired another sustained burst of rifle fire in a direction none of the other Guardsmen were targeting. Once again, a racing creature moved from a blur to white bulk sliding on the pavement and kicking up dust into the blowing wind. “King. The Humvee.”
King glanced around and saw a parked National Guard Humvee, an armored all-purpose military vehicle. He raced over to it and slipped behind its wheel. The remaining Guardsmen were firing M-203 grenade launchers at the creatures streaking through the park toward them. And King was about to drive through the maelstrom. Deep Blue took down another creature further up Michigan Ave., just as King crashed the Humvee through the one remaining wooden sawhorse. He cranked the wheel left and drove up onto the curb and into the small park that surrounded the castle-like 19 ^th — century Water Tower. One of the creatures tore around the corner of the structure, heading right for King’s vehicle.
King floored the accelerator pedal and hit the creature dead center. The impact jarred the vehicle as if it had been hit with an IED. The rear end of the Humvee tilted up and the vehicle spun, its back end slamming into the limestone monument, tearing out a small block of stone. The Humvee would still roll, but the monster was done. The corpse on the roll of steel cable attached to the snub hood of the vehicle was a mangled mess of white translucent flesh that reminded King of a jelly fish, if jelly fish had bones and muscles.
Up close, the thing was hideous. The misshapen head was blocky and curved down to its wide mouth, which was full of clear, sharp teeth, like jagged icicles. It’s not just the skin that’s clear, King realized, but the bones, too. The smooth curve of its dolphin-like forehead was marred by a pug nose and framed by two orb-like eyes positioned on either side of its head, giving it an insectoid look. The clear skin allowed King a view of the white veins, taut ligaments and coiled cables of bulging muscle beneath.
His Humvee impact had cut this creature in half at the waist, and only the head, torso and powerful arms were on the hood of the vehicle. King looked out the window for the other half. Even though the glowing energy sphere, which King decided was some kind of portal transporting these creatures from one place to another, provided abundant light, it was still the middle of the night and the park was crisscrossed by long shadows from the tower and the surrounding buildings.
King hit the gas and chased after the next creature he spotted. This one was retreating back toward the energy dome and King gave chase, moving the Humvee up to 50 mph before he felt he was pacing the beast. They were headed right for the wall of the dome. King decided that if it went through, he would follow it and mash the fucker into the road on the other side.
The dome loomed large before him, reaching a hundred feet above the road now, and it had stretched the width of the road and through most of the buildings that had been to either side of it. The sound of lightning began to crackle again. The kinetic white creature nearly reached the sizzling yellow energy, when the wall of light winked out, muting the crackling sound. The creature continued on directly ahead.
And then down.
The dome was gone, and in its place was a crater in the Earth that stretched almost 150 feet in diameter. The creature’s momentum carried it well past the lip of the crater and it arced down into the suddenly empty space.
King cranked hard on the wheel of the Humvee and slammed on the brakes. The vehicle turned an abrupt 90 degrees to the left, its thick tires screaming, but it was no use. The armored 5000-pound vehicle rolled in empty space as it plummeted down into the abyss of the ruined Chicago street and the cauterized clean edges of the crater below it.
EIGHTEEN
Shanghai, China
Shin Dae-jung cowered against the low concrete wall. His eyes squeezed tightly shut. His whole body shook with fear. He couldn’t bear to open his eyes even a slice, because he knew with the certainty of a gambler on a winning streak that if he opened his eyes, his vision would fill with the sight of his grandmother having her innards eaten by one of his best friends.
Knight shook his head. His thoughts made no sense. Why is it so dark? It was daylight. We were in a fight…
When Chess Team had first gone up against the malevolent genetics company Manifold, run by the twisted egomaniac Richard Ridley, the company’s security team captured Bishop and their scientists experimented on him. He had become what the team termed a “Regen”-one of Ridley’s twisted regenerating soldiers. But there had been a heavy price attached to regenerative healing and near-immortality. The regeneration process slowly ate the soldier’s mind, filling it with aggression, until he was nothing more than a raging, hulking terror. Bishop had been well on his way to becoming such a mindless beast of anger, and Knight was the only one that had fought the big Iranian American when he was in his full-on Regen state. But Bishop had been cured, Ridley was gone and Manifold was no more. Questions formed in Knight’s terrorstruck thoughts. Why was he certain Bishop had reverted to his Regen form? How had his ailing grandmother arrived in Shanghai? And why was the Regen Bishop trying to eat her?
Knight cracked his tightly clamped eyelids and daylight burst through them like stabbing skewers. He squinted and blinked a few times until his eyes adjusted to the glare. His head felt heavy and his limbs didn’t want to move yet. He was curled in a ball on the concrete floor of the balcony on the Customs House clock tower. He groggily sat up. A chill ran up his back. His body was soaked through with sweat. What the hell?
Knight stood and swayed. Things went out of focus and he thought he would fall, but then reality reasserted itself and the world around him slammed into focus again. He looked over the wall. He had dropped the EXACTO rifle. The glowing, pulsing sphere was still crackling down the street and throwing sharp, jagged bolts of lightning to strike the street, the buildings and the river. Debris or water pluming up with each strike.
The river! Bishop!
“Bishop! Can you hear me?”
Static was the only reply. He looked over the parapet wall again, expecting to see Bishop’s body on the ground with the few creatures they had managed to kill. But there were no bodies. Either the beasts had managed to get back up, or the surviving ones had pulled away the corpses of the dead.
Then a blur caught Knight’s eye. One last creature streaked out of the glowing energy dome and headed to the base of the clock tower where Knight watched from above. The thing stopped its hectic race across the pavement just shy of the base of the building and slowly craned its head sideways, so its chameleon-like eye was looking up the tower, directly at Knight. This can’t be good.
Knight was about to consider alternate means of escaping the Customs House building, but the creature didn’t enter the lobby. It continued to stare up at Knight for another few seconds. Knight didn’t know how its vision functioned. Maybe if he didn’t move at all, the thing wouldn’t spot him. The creature squatted low and lunged toward the stone base of the building. The leap carried it twenty feet into the air before its claws extended and the beast snagged the side of the building. It hung on in a crouch, its bizarre head still tilted like a dog listening to a faraway sound, its eye still glaring up the building at Knight. Then it began a galumping, leaping climb, straight up
