Skull's Shadows (Plague Wars Series) Read online

  Tied to a pier extending out from the beach, the moonlight revealed the shape of a Brazilian-built twin-turboprop seaplane large enough to hold a dozen men. He raced toward it, seeing the faint glow of the cockpit instruments as he approached without stealth.

  A man stood outside the plane with a submachine gun.

  Markis.

  “Howdy, Skull. Long time no see,” said the voice.

  Not Daniel; his father David. A veteran combat pilot, which made more sense. With the Eden Plague’s rejuvenating effects they could be mistaken for brothers, especially in the dark.

  “Thanks for the pickup.”

  “Any time,” David said, shaking Skull’s hand with a smile that seemed genuine and looking off to the southwest toward the flickering glow. “Looks like you made a mess over there. We’d best be on our way.”

  “Aren’t we waiting for the team?”

  “What team?” David Markis seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Spooky told me he would be hitting the lab in about…” he checked his Patek. “Ninety-five minutes?”

  “Don’t know nothin’ about that. Alls he told me was, you’d trash the lab and I’d fly you away.”

  Skull chuckled ruefully. “Bastard.”

  “Now, now. Plenty of time for name-callin’ later.”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Skull, following the senior Markis into the plane and pulling the door shut.

  “Grab the copilot’s seat and strap in,” David told him climbing into the pilot's chair. The rest of the space was taken up by cardboard boxes secured to the floor and wall by cargo netting. “I’m going to push us out of here as fast and low as I can.”

  The plane moved forward into the sea and began accelerating at full throttle. The twin engines reached a high whine as the plane lifted off the water and made a sharp turn to the right before it started gaining altitude.

  The compass showed them heading south, and the lights of the coast off to Skull’s right fell farther behind as the minutes passed.

  “You look beat, son,” David said. “Put your head back. Nothin’ gonna happen for a couple of hours.”

  Skull did as Markis instructed, resolving to just take a cat nap. He was surprised when he woke up at least three hours later. The plane flew level and easy over open water, and the sun had risen above the wide Atlantic to the east, with hardly a cloud in the sky.

  “Morning,” said David. “Sleep good?”

  “Fair. Did we make a clean getaway?”

  “Clean as they get,” David answered. “If we hadn’t, the first we’d hear about it was an F-35 up our ass. This baby’s fast, but not that fast.” He patted the cockpit dash.

  Skull nodded. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We fly to a particular set of coordinates south of Puerto Rico. We set down on what I hope is a nice flat stretch of water and we meet Spooky. He’ll be in a speedboat and have a tanker with him to refuel the plane. You go with Spooky in the speedboat to Colombia and the boys and I go take these supplies to our people in Antigua.”

  “Antigua?”

  “Don’t ask. I already said too much. Need to know.”

  “Okay,” said Skull. “You happen to have a map of the area with you?”

  Markis pointed at a folded, laminated chart in a holder next to Skull.

  Looking over the chart for several minutes, Skull eventually put a finger on a small airstrip on the southeast tip of Cuba. Ever since Fidel’s death, Cuba had slowly begun to become the paradise its natural beauty promised. Skull knew that, and had long planned to visit.

  “There,” Skull told the pilot. “Put me down there.”

  David turned and looked at him like he was crazy. “Cuba? We got it all lined up for Puerto Rico. Don’t worry, it’s part of Spooky’s plan. It’s fine.”

  Skull nodded. Without hostility at David’s words he unbuckled, crawling backward out of the seat and into the cargo area. Several minutes later he returned wearing a parachute and carrying his gear, plus an inflatable life raft. He pulled one of his HK pistols and put it against David Markis’ head. “Okay, let’s try this again. You set me down where I want or I shoot you and bail out of the plane.”

  David turned his head toward Skull, ignoring the gun. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, son, and we both know it.”

  Skull pressed the muzzle hard into David’s temple.

  “On the other hand, I’m as flexible as the next man. Semper Gumby and all that. You ain’t gotta threaten me.” Markis reached for the chart. “What’s the name of the airfield again?”

  Several hours later they made an unauthorized landing on the Cuban coast. Two policemen approached the plane once it had finally stopped, with a couple of bemused beachcombers watching. Generous bribes smoothed everything over, and Skull put on his two packs containing his gear and got off the plane. At the bottom, he turned and looked back to see David peering at him. “Tell Daniel we’re even now.”

  “I’ll tell him.” David smiled a toothy grin. “But now you owe me, boy.”

  “Fuck off, old man,” Skull said with an answering grin and turned south.

  According to the map, a little beach resort town rested not far from there. A place where the locals were polite and discreet, Skull wagered. A place where they respected a man’s privacy and where he could disappear and relax for a while.

  Skull had always wanted to become truly fluent in Spanish, and he realized he could use a little time off near the ocean relaxing in the sun and breeze.

  But only for a time.

  Then, he’d get back to work.

  His kind of work.

  THE END of Skull's Shadows. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on your favorite book website.

  Page down for a preview of the next book in the Plague Wars chronology, The Demon Plagues.

  ***

  Alan “Skull” Denham put his eye to the sight of his venerable Barrett sniper rifle. Mexico City sprawled smoggy as ever; he could just barely see his target area. The fascist United Governments of North America hadn’t done any better than the old Mexican regime had in cleaning the place up. Annexation of Mexico and Canada by the former US had proven to be the proverbial anaconda swallowing the buffalo; the process seemed inevitable, but very, very slow.

  Skull was indigestion.

  The cold logic of insurgency dictated that he kill as many northerners as possible and spare the locals, sowing distrust between Latinos and gringos. When he did, government cracked down, locals protested and rioted and bombed.

  Skull loved it.

  This target was special: a Security Service Psycho officer, one of the tiny percentage of infected humanity that the Plague turned evil…or at least narcissistic. Most people considered the two the same.

  Like many low-level Psychos in the Unionist-Party-dominated UG, this one led an SS death squad, searching out the UGNA’s enemies, criminal or political, real or imagined.

  Crosshairs drifted downward to rest on the norteamericano. Skull inhaled, then let his breath out most of the way and paused naturally. His finger gently squeezed the trigger, surprising him with the sharp report. All well-aimed shots were unanticipated; that was a secret of the sniper, especially for shots like this at over eight hundred meters.

  He didn’t have to see the Psycho fall, didn’t have to observe his head explode like a ripe melon. Zen-like, as soon as the bullet left the barrel he had felt the shot was good. Skull was already moving from his position before the first sirens wailed and the SS airmobile reaction team spun into the air.

  He slid the weapon into the beat-up guitar case, barely large enough to contain the gun. A sombrero settled onto his head, completing his mariachi costume. With his dark eyes and deeply tanned face wrinkled from a lifetime of outdoor exposure, he became just another local musician heading to a concert. His Apache grandfather had bequeathed him the ability to tan darker than any ordinary white man, and he blended in among the South and Central Americans with ease. Down the stairs, off the roof
of the building and into the slums, in two minutes he had disappeared among the bars and cantinas and squalid apartments.

  Helicopters pummeled the air overhead, too late. The crowds on the dirty streets hid him, one among many, as he made his way to his dwelling.

  In his tiny rented room he searched his own face, dark eyes like pits in the cracked mirror. Over fifty now, he was resigned to the aging as long as he could keep the hate alive. He nursed it like a beloved child; the killing gave his life meaning. Perhaps someday the fear of age and infirmity would tempt him to accept the emasculating Eden Plague virus that had upended his world.

  But not today. Today he had filled his cup of death. Today he was whole.

  Water on his face, on his hands. In the fading light coming through the cheap curtains it turned to blood, but he ignored the sight by long practice. He reached for a bottle of mescal. “Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa ´dentro,” he murmured, and then drank a slug from the neck. The traditional toast of “up, down, center and in” seemed to make the smoky liquor taste better.

  Opening the guitar case, he gently removed his exquisite rifle. Before he stripped it down and cleaned it, he took out a knife and made a thin hash mark at the end of the row on the stock.

  His fingertips touched the four hundred and fifty-five tiny indentations, one for each kill with the weapon. The first ninety-six had been the enemies of his country, back when he had a country, back when the United States was something to believe in. He’d killed in Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and countless other places.

  The rest of the marks…those were personal. Payback for his old commander Zeke, payback for hacker Vinny, payback for the innocents in the death camps and for the other millions murdered by the chickenshit jackbooted thugs of the Unionist Party and the United Governments, those that had corrupted his flag, stole his Constitution, and murdered all he held sacred.

  Who needs sex, he thought, when killing is so much more satisfying.

  Closing the knife, he began to lovingly service his weapon.

  THE END of The Demon Plagues excerpt.

  Read on for an excerpt from Ryan King's post-apocalyptic novel Glimmer of Hope.

  The icy wind whipped dirty grey snow into Nathan’s face. It was always cold and overcast now. He wondered if warmth would ever again come to this dreary world. His extremities were long past numb and his joints felt as if they were frozen in place. He looked at his family lying in the dingy ash-like mush beside him. Bethany shivered and burned with fever and Nathan feared she wouldn’t make it through another night outdoors. His watch told him it was three o’clock in the afternoon, but the overcast sky looked like dusk. Days were shorter now.

  Nathan turned back to the little clapboard shack silhouetted in the fading light. At one corner of the structure white smoke billowed from a rusty sheet metal pipe promising warmth.

  There is no easy way to do this. I hope I don’t get us all killed, he thought. Even if things go well, there will likely be blood. Nathan lowered his head onto his arm and closed his eyes. Choices were falling away from him like the leaves on the dying trees towering over them. Keeping his family alive. That was the only thing that mattered now.

  He looked at his sons and gave them a nod as he stood. Joshua and David rose and followed their father slowly. Nathan put his hand on Bethany as they passed, her fever so bad she was oblivious to everything around her. He thought about conferring with the boys again, but that would only be stalling. They had talked it all over before and besides, there was nothing complicated in what they were about to do. With sudden determination, Nathan ran the last ten feet and kicked in the flimsy door. He was momentarily blinded by the light and warmth.

  Nathan moved along the right wall and felt the boys come in behind him. His eyes adjusted and he saw three men and one woman. They were staring back at him in shock. The dirty unkempt man nearest the stove stood slowly with a cunning look on his face. He eased a hatchet from the nearby woodpile. Nathan aimed his assault rifle at the man and tightened his finger on the trigger. The man froze, but glowered at Nathan with tangible malice. Time stopped and Nathan almost reconsidered.

  “So what are you going to do?” snarled the angry man in front of him. “You can’t make us leave and you’re sure as hell not staying here with us! This is our place. Find your own!”

  Nathan shot the man in the face without thinking. Before he could turn he heard David fire the shotgun to his left. David's shot hit both the man sitting at the table and the scrawny woman in his lap. They both fell to the floor in a bloody heap.

  The man closest to the entrance bolted out of his chair towards the door and Joshua hesitated, nearly letting him go. Nathan knew what the boy was thinking…he’s running, isn’t a threat, but he’s headed out the door towards where Mother is waiting sick in the snow. The boy deliberately stepped forward into the wind gusting through the silhouette of the door and shot the man in the center of the back with his .45 automatic pistol.

  Joshua stared at the crumpled body outside the door and looked sick. David simply began going through pockets looking for valuables. Nathan wondered again how his two sons could be so different, and not just in appearance. Joshua was blond and light-skinned like Nathan. He was also the oldest by a year and the thinker. David was dark-haired like his mother and not terribly reflective. Nathan suspected David spent little time on regret or second-guessing.

  Nathan let out a deep breath and closed the door before the precious heat could escape. He grabbed Joshua’s arm, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Like you said, if we don’t get Mom out of the cold she is going to die and this is the only warm shelter we’ve seen for days.” Joshua lowered his head, “I just wish there was another way.”

  “There is no other way, and you know it,” said David casually from the floor where he was trying on the hat of the still dying man. “They wouldn’t let us stay in their filthy, lousy shack and even if they did, we’d have our throats cut before morning or worse.” David did not even bother to look around at them, now preoccupied with examining a small knife from the woman’s jacket pocket. She kept putting her hand on David’s arm as blood pooled out of her neck and he shook it off absentmindedly each time.

  Joshua tensed up and started towards his brother, but Nathan stepped in front putting his hand on his son’s chest. “Go bring your mother in from the cold and lay her down over by the stove, we’ll get these…” Nathan gestured at the three men and woman on the floor, “…out of here.”

  “I’ll help you bury them,” said Joshua resolutely. Nathan started to answer him, but David stood and turned around incredulous, “Why? They would have skinned you alive and raped Mom for days, and you want to give them a proper burial?”

  “You don’t know that,” insisted Joshua, “they could have been folks just like us.”

  “I’m sure they were folks just like us,” answered Nathan slowly, “just trying to survive, but they would have killed us nevertheless, either directly or by not letting us in from the cold.”

  David turned away from the conversation, clearly already bored, and moved to a pistol thrown into the corner during the commotion. None of them had even seen it in the short fight.

  Nathan slid close to Joshua and said quietly, “Son, that ground is frozen, we don’t have tools, and we frankly don’t have any energy to spare. Maybe tomorrow after we rest and eat, but not today. Especially not with night coming on.”

  “But Dad, won’t they attract the dogs?”

  This actually gave Nathan pause. His son was right. Despite the deep cold and driving snow, those roving packs of once domesticated, but now murderous, wild dogs would come to them, drawn by the smell of fresh blood.

  “Son, we have no choice!” hissed Nathan. “We can’t bury them without tools, and we can’t spare the gas to burn them. Also, before you say it, I’m not going to let your mother spend the night in this small shack with four corpses! We’ll drag them as far away as we can and hope for the b
est.”

  “But Dad, those two look like they’re still alive,” pleaded Joshua pointing to the man and woman David had shot.

  “They’re not. They’re only dying slow. We couldn’t save them even if we wanted to, now no more talk. Bring your mother in here and try not to let her see any more of the death than she has to. You know it upsets her.”

  Joshua moved off and Nathan scanned the area mentally making an inventory of the room. It had probably been a seasonal hunting cabin at one point. There was a small stove in the corner putting out enough heat to keep the tiny shack blessedly warm. There were also three thin pallets with blankets near the stove, and a table with two wobbly chairs. A small egg crate in the corner appeared to contain some canned goods and a bag of dried beans. The walls were thin and drafty, but coming across this shack was fortunate. Nathan had fought to keep the thought just below the surface that his family might die slowly before his very eyes. Now he knew death was at least another day away.

  David walked back across the small room carrying several pairs of boots under one arm and a bag of loot in the other. “Looks like we got an old .38 revolver with fifteen shells, three pairs of boots we might be able to use down the road, a backpack that could still have some life in it, a lighter half full of fluid, that hatchet and the food in the crate there.”

  “Good,” said Nathan. “Let’s drag these poor souls out of here before the blood gets all over the place.”

  They took the two dying ones out first, dragging them down the hill out of sight, and hopefully downwind from the shack. At the bottom David asked Nathan if he wanted to finish them off with the shotgun. Nathan told him he needed to put them out of their misery, but didn’t want to use a gun. Ammunition was just too scarce. Nathan deliberately drew his large hunting knife and knelt down beside the man.

  “I can do it,” said David emotionlessly.