Ceaseless (12 page)

Allan immediately grabbed the rifle and stepped out of the jeep, into the pouring rain. He ignored it, shutting the door behind him and stalking towards the entrance of the building. He didn't give a shit if the killer saw him. This was going to end, here and now. Allan moved across the desolate cityscape to the front entrance of the hospital.

It was open, as though someone was expecting him.

He had no illusions as he stepped into the abandoned lobby. He was probably going to die here. But going down fighting was a lot better than anything else. Better than hiding on some isolated colony world where the jobs were easy and the risk was low. Better than slowly going insane. Better than thinking about the past and about failed relationships all the time. About dead friends. Yeah, going down swinging was probably the best option right now.

Allan stalked across the lobby, gun in hand, butt of it tucked tight into his shoulder. He knew the elevator would be dead, so he made for the stairwell. The lobby was dark and dreary, but his visor had a light-enhancement feature that cut through the gloom, throwing all the urban decay into sharp detail. For a second, he found himself wondering why this colony had failed, and how many other like it dotted the landscapes of all the colony worlds?

He hit the stairwell and began ascending. All his thoughts turned outward as he went higher, everything turning towards the killer. This one, singular goal encompassed him. He didn't think about the dead, not about Carpenter, probably sending someone to find him, not about his growing reliance on his suit of armor.

Just the killer.

He went up two stories and hit a block, as the next stairwell had been caved in, blocking his passage. Stepping out into a ruined corridor, Allan began looking around, hunting for another method up. There were five stories, the killer was on the top and he was on the third. Allan began making his way down the corridor.

Most of the doors that led to patient rooms were open. He glanced into them as he passed them by, finding nothing but gutted shells of what they once were. No furniture, no supplies, no humanity left. There were outlines on the ground of where the furniture had once been. Ghosts of the past. Allan stopped as he spied another open door that led to a stairwell, this one intact. He began to move through it, then hesitated.

There was something on the wall. He frowned as he stared closely at it. At first it had seemed like more decay, or perhaps graffiti, but it was something more. Something recent. Something meant directly for him.

I'm waiting

It had been
carved
into the metal with something blunt and somewhat broad. After a long moment, Allan was startled to realize what the killer had used to carve the message into the wall: his finger. Prefab metal was weaker than most metals, to be sure, but not
that
weak. Even with his own strength-enhancing armor, he couldn't do something like this. So the killer was waiting for him. Allan didn't let it bother him.

He went through the door and continued climbing the steps, eager to face whatever events played out at the top of the forsaken hospital. As he stepped out onto the fifth story, Allan stopped as his radio crackled to life. Had Carpenter found some way to override it? Had he accidentally turned it on somehow?

“Hello.”

Allan felt a chill of raw, real fear puncture his desire for confrontation as he instantly recognized the situation for what it was. He'd turned off his long-range radio, but his short-range was still functional. And the killer was talking to him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Allan asked, slowly moving down the corridor, keeping his voice low.

“To talk to you.”
The killer's voice was incredibly unsettling. It was incredibly deep, held a slight echo and was tinged with a metallic edge.

“About what? I'm coming for you, you fuck.”

“Oh, I know. It makes me glad. I was waiting for you.”

Allan hesitated again, the fear threatening to overwhelm him. “Why?”

“You're one of the old ones who's come into contact with me and lived. Instead of doing the smart thing and leaving, you're pursuing me. It's stupid. You're going to die. But you'll die either way, so it doesn't really matter.”

“You've killed a lot of people.”

The killer laughed, a hauntingly chilling sound.
“Dozens? Perhaps a hundred. Well, probably more now.”
He paused, and when he spoke again, real venom entered his voice.
“It is
nothing
compared to the storm that is to come.”

Allan stopped by an open door as he caught sight of a figure standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. A massive one, with what might have been its back to him. Allan raised his rifle and stepped into the room.

He took aim and squeezed the trigger.

When the killer moved, it was almost too fast to see. In a spray of glass, he leaped out of the window. Allan cursed as his round went wide, completely missing the hulking figure. He ran forward and came to the broken window just in time to see the killer land. Directly on his jeep. Allan snapped out another curse as he took aim again.

There likely wasn't another working vehicle around for dozens, if not hundreds, of miles. From the smoke and wreckage, the killer stood, apparently unscathed, and began walking at a brisk pace across the square. Allan fired. Missed. Fired twice more, missed twice more. He fired one last time, but the killer disappeared from sight. Allan lowered the rifle and took a quick look around. The light was gone now, the sun having disappeared beyond the horizon and the clouds, but he could see well enough to know where the killer was going.

The mining camp beyond the city.

Fine then. So it had been delayed for a little bit.

Allan turned and began running, eager for the kill.

Chapter 10

–
Abandon
–

Allan reached the base of the hospital and readied himself, heading back out into the rainy darkness of the forsaken colony. He took a quick look at his vehicle, marveling briefly at how thorough ruined it was and how apparently unscathed the killer had been. Of course, after that stint with the power plant, well...

He was beginning to suspect that something was seriously wrong here. His rational mind still clung to the notion that it was a psychotic killer in a suit of grade-A military power armor...or maybe that was his irrational mind. Because as far as he knew, there was no such thing as a suit of armor that could withstand a direct blast from a critically overloaded power plant at ground fucking zero. It was jut wasn't possible.

So then who, or what, the fuck was this?

He moved past the destroyed jeep and broke into a jog, heading for the mining camp, following in the footsteps of the killer. Allan kept focused. The plan hadn't changed. Death was still imminent. He kept up his pace, weaving in between derelict buildings, down rain-slicked alleyways, guided by the light-enhancement feature built into his helmet. For a moment, he felt an almost irresistible urge to take off his helmet and enjoy the rain.

He ignored it, not taking the time to examine the reason he was having the urge. It was all too likely that he would die soon. Before long, Allan emerged from the complex of narrow alleyways and came onto a short, ruined road that led to the mining complex in the distance. It was built into the side of a mountain that loomed very close by. He hunted for the dark, looming figure of the killer, but could see nothing.

Allan kept up the pace. He reached the end of the road without incident, continually scanning for any sign of attack. As he reached the abandoned mining camp, which was little more than a cluster of one-and-two story buildings that sat in the shadow of the mountain, he hesitated for a moment. What the fuck was he doing?

For a few seconds, the rational part of his mind, the one that wanted to live, tried to make him see reason. He was alone. He had no back up. He had
knowingly
defied orders and personally witnessed this guy...or thing...kill dozens of people, his own team included. All he had was a gun and the slim hope of a shaky plan that relied very, very heavily on luck. He had every reason, every opportunity to walk away.

So just what the hell was he doing, stalking through the pitch-black rain?

Allan supposed he should face the truth. Even if he could go back, face up to whatever he's done, somehow get out of it without being locked up or blacklisted...what was the point? When his team had died, something had broken in him, something important and fundamental. Could it be fixed? Even if it could, did he want to go through the long, arduous process of fixing it? If he was being honest with himself, no, he didn't want to.

So he marched on in between the buildings, hunting for the killer. It was obvious that the mining installation had run for a little while, at least enough to get a decent-sized camp built. All the structures he came to were just like those in the colony: empty husks of their former glory. No furniture, broken windows, unlit, dead. As Allan continued hunting, he felt like he was missing something, some key place that the killer would likely go.

Suddenly, his radio crackle to life. He braced himself for another string of words from that dead, almost-mechanical voice of the killer.

Instead, someone else came on.

“Sergeant Gray, can you hear me?”

He had no idea who the woman was and hesitated for a long moment, standing half-in, half-out of a doorway, hunting the rainy darkness.

“Sergeant Gray, do you copy?”

“...yes. Who is this?”
he replied.

“My name is Sergeant Major Montgomery. I understand your interested in tracking down our target and have been after him for a while now.”

Allan retreated into the door, rifle raised, crouching. The men in dark suits and armor...had they come for him?

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Don't worry, Gray. We're not here to stop you or kidnap you. I apologize for Blackwell. The guy's an asshole. Suffice to say that Blackwell and his black-armored cronies are...intelligence, while I and my boys are Spec Ops. We're the good guys, we're trying to kill this asshole and we'd definitely like your help, as you're presently the one with the most experience.”

It could be a trap, but something in Allan said it wasn't. He felt himself relax at Montgomery's words. She sounded calm, competent and even friendly. He'd heard of Special Operations and knew that they were the elite. The best of the best.

“Where are you? What's the situation?” he asked.

“Glad to see you're joining the team. I've got a couple dozen men in the area. We've tracked you and the killer via satellite to the abandoned mining camp. There's a complex of small caves and tunnels beneath the mountain. You aren't far from an entrance. It'll be to the right of the main entrance to the mining complex, it's small and out-of-the-way with a few support beams around the entrance. That's where the killer went. I've got my boys going in through all the other known entrances and exits. Head in through that entryway and link up with my men. They're wearing black-and-silver armor. They know you're coming,”
Montgomery explained.

“Do you know about the electrical darts? Regular bullets and armor-piercers don't work on this psycho fuck,” Allan said as he immediately began making in that direction.

“Yes. We recovered research from Obsidian Station. We are armed with the appropriate arsenal of weaponry.”

“Affirmative. I've found the entrance. I'm going silent for now. Out.”

“Affirmative. Out.”

The link was cut.

Allan plunged into the darkness.

* * * * *

It was ominous in the tunnels.

Everything had an undeveloped, ancient look to it. Allan felt as though he'd been cast back into a primeval labyrinth of rock and darkness, and he got to share it with one of the deadliest things of all time. Was he hunting it or was it hunting him? Did it matter? Either way, he wasn't leaving until one of them was dead.

Allan tried to get into tune with his environment. The walls were cast in rock and earth, broken occasionally by a support beam and long-dead illumination strips. It wasn't long before he came to a fork in the path and went right at random. After another few minutes in the darkness, he froze, certain that he had heard something. There was a bend just up ahead, a sharp one, and he couldn't see around it. There could be anything there.

Cautiously, he edged up to it, getting as close as he could, rifle at ready. Allan took a breath, held it, then looked around the corner. He nearly screamed as he spied a face peering back at him from behind a glass pane. The man seemed just as surprised. Allan nearly shot him, but forced his finger back that crucial centimeter off the trigger. He took another deep, shuddering breath and laughed, regaining his composure.

“You're with Montgomery?” he asked.

The man nodded. “You must be Gray. I'm Sergeant Sanders. Come on, we're tracking the target right now.”

Allan followed the man deeper into the network with two others. They were all indeed wearing black armor trimmed with silver. It was top-of-the-line gear, he could tell just by looking at it. As they moved deeper into the cave system, Allan couldn't hold back his questions. Despite his earlier feelings, it
did
feel good to be in the presence of others.