The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [128]
Then Ramirez bolted zigzag up the path through the frames of violet light. His weapon was angled low, practically to the ground. He was yelling, ‘Get the fuck away from me, you motherfuckers!’
Hazo leaned over the platform’s safety rail, trying to discern what he was shooting at. At first, he couldn’t spot the enemy.
Then the threat became all too clear.
An undulating black wave spilled out from the rear of the cave, curling, twisting, spreading fast over the ground, as if a colossal oil drum had been tipped over to flood the space. With it came unearthly squealing that filled the cave. In the darkness the pulsing crests twinkled with countless ruby specks that shimmered like sequins.
Screaming bloody murder, Ramirez kept firing indiscriminately at the swell, but the bullets did nothing to hinder its advance. As the marine’s light traced wide arcs over the mass, Hazo’s skin crawled at what he was seeing from the top of the platform: a churning sea of eyes protruding from wedge-shaped heads; whiskered snouts; slithering, fleshy tails; rubbery bodies covered in black hair. Layers upon layers of them, fighting to the top, swallowed beneath, rising again.
Rats.
Hazo gasped. Thousands upon thousands of black rats. Their incalculable numbers were increasing by the second.
Hazo had seen plenty of vermin scavenging the waste dumps on the outskirts of his hometown, but none as large or aggressive as these. These rats seemed to be attacking Ramirez - mobilizing against him like an army.
‘Up here!’ Hazo screamed down to him. ‘Come!’ He coughed up more blood. ‘There is a ladder!’ But his weak scream was lost to the brood’s high-pitched squealing.
In less than fifteen seconds, Ramirez’s ammo clip ran dry. Wasting no time with a pointless reload, he unclipped the light from the weapon’s muzzle and whipped the M-16 like a boomerang at the advancing horde. Then he broke into a sprint, whisked below Hazo, and headed for the entry tunnel. The determined rats weren’t far behind him. Hazo watched Ramirez’s light moving swiftly through the darkness. It looked as if Ramirez might outrun them.
More screams came from the rear of the cave. Hazo hunted the darkness with his flashlight and spotted Holt knee-deep in the squirming black mass.
74
LAS VEGAS
‘Stop snooping around,’ a gruff voice whispered over Brooke’s shoulder.
Caught red-handed, Brooke flinched. Her fingers lost their grip and the jar’s lid clattered back in place, fortunately not with enough force to cause any damage. Spinning around, she was face to face with Flaherty. He’d silently entered the room and was standing directly behind her.
‘Caught ya,’ he said, pointing a finger like a gun. ‘Hands up.’ He winked and flashed a mischievous smile.
‘Jesus, Tommy,’ she said, clutching her chest and letting out an anxious breath. She eyed his swollen nose, the bloodstains on his shirt collar. ‘You nearly scared me to death!’
‘You’re alone in a vault with a demon’s severed head, and I scare you?’
She bared her teeth and curled her fingers like talons. ‘Oh, you are such a—’
‘Whoa, slow down.’ He held up his hands in surrender, saying, ‘Just thought I’d tell you that we can’t leave here until the infectious-disease folks come and scrub us down, prep Stokes for transport. We’ll all need to be quarantined. Then the FBI drones will swing by and have their way with us. So best get comfy.’
‘Great.’ Rolling her eyes, she huffed and turned her attention back to the jar.
‘What are you looking at?’ he said, stepping up beside her.
‘This. It’s the jar Lilith was carrying just before she was executed. It’s supposed to have some kind of magical power.’
‘Spooky.’
‘I just thought I’d take a look … see what’s inside it,’ she confessed.
‘And?’
‘I haven’t gotten that far yet, thanks to you.’
‘So what are you waiting for? Let’s see if there’s a rabbit in the hat.’
She shook her head. ‘This isn’t tampering with evidence, right?’
‘I’d say it’s gone through plenty of tampering already. I’m sure it’ll be okay if we take a peek.’
‘All right.’ She rubbed her