Page 3 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter two

O’Neill had just stepped out of the cafeteria when he noticed a utility cart hurtling toward him.

It was traveling far too fast, easily double the base speed limit.

He squinted and stepped forward, ready to stop the vehicle and give the driver hell, at least until he recognized the inhabitants.

Wolf was behind the wheel and his Javaanee rode the passenger seat.

Wolf was a Boy Scout. A follow-the-rules kind of warrior. He wouldn’t be driving like a bat out of hell unless something was wrong. When the vehicle swerved into one of the parking slots in front of the clinic, he knew he was right. Something had happened.

There were plenty of reasons Wolf, as the base commander, could have been summoned to the emergency room. An accident with one of the warriors or base staff was at the top of the list. So was Samuel, Wolf’s comatose second in command. Had he awoken? Had he died?

Both men vaulted out of the cart, but rather than the ER, they raced for the isolation building which was next door.

They converged on a tech with red hair and green scrubs.

The dude looked jittery as fuck. More proof that something had gone wrong.

But this summons wasn’t about Samuel. Wolf’s caetanee was not housed in the isolation wing. Only the infected were kept there .

O’Neill’s heart stuttered, while his muscles tensed. Someone new must be infected.

He started running. His heart launched into jackhammer mode.

His legs flushed with adrenaline and pushed him forward faster and faster.

He reached the entrance to the isolation center well after Wolf and his entourage disappeared behind the glass doors, but he knew where the individual units were.

He headed there at a dead run, the white walls and gray floor flashing past him in a blur.

His boots pounded the tile beneath his feet, each dull thud echoing in his ears.

Just before the final curve in the hallway, the red-haired tech bolted around the corner.

O’Neill dodged to the left, smacking his elbow against the cold wall, barely avoiding a collision.

The tech didn’t slow down. His face white, his hands and legs shaking, he fled down the corridor like the demons of hell were after him.

That couldn’t be good.

After a deep, steadying breath, he slowed to a walk.

He rounded the final corner and entered the room to find Wolf and Aiden at the very end of the viewing chamber.

Frozen in place, they were staring into the last isolation unit.

Dread mixed with confusion as O’Neill converged on them.

There was no dedicated morgue in the isolation building, so Wolf had placed the dead squids on gurneys and loaded them into the last unit.

He’d flooded the room with freezing temperatures to keep the corpses on ice.

Unless the newly infected were dead, they wouldn’t be housed in that last chamber.

Plus, there were plenty of empty isolation units in the building.

If someone new was infected, why would Wolf lock them in with the dead squids? He wouldn’t. Obviously.

Something else must be going on.

With each step forward, his muscles became tighter.

His legs cramped, resisting his brain’s insistence on moving forward.

Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to turn back.

To run...like the red-headed tech had earlier.

The fear was raw, instinctive, even though he had no clue what was causing it.

Maybe his reaction had something to do with the immobile, rigid lines of Aiden and Wolf’s spines, the frozen stillness of their bodies, the way their shoulders were pulling back from the window, like they were terrified of getting too close to the glass.

He forced himself to glance past them into the isolation chamber. And stopped dead.

No that couldn’t be right...

A wave of disbelief sucked the breath from his lungs and burned through his chest like an electrical shock.

Inside the isolation chamber, someone was standing in front of the glass—staring at Aiden with empty eye sockets.

Someone with dull, waxy skin and a stitched incision running the length of its abdomen and chest. O’Neill’s legs went weak.

No, not someone...more like something. Something naked...human-shaped, but with missing eyes and half its skull gone. Something O’Neill knew was dead. For fuck’s sake he’d watched the corpse being loaded into the Thunderbird three weeks ago.

Yet there the dead squid stood, front and center, behind the glass, like some fucked up museum display.

Day 24 Shadow Mountain Base, Alaska

As Aiden stood frozen, watching the Squirrel-thing open its mouth, the rest of his dead teammates shambled up to the window, forming a grotesque line of dead flesh and missing skull fragments. Like Squirrel, to their left, their mouths stretched wide, at least those that still had jaws.

Were they trying to speak?

Multiple rounds from M4A1 Carbines had taken out their throats, faces and brains. They no longer had tongues. Probably no larynxes either. Both of which were required for speech. So was a healthy amount of gray matter between the ears. All of which they were missing.

They should not be capable of speech…could not be capable of speech.

Yet, the same could be said of walking and standing. And damn if he hadn’t watched these five zombified husks stumble their way across the isolation chamber. And now they were standing in front of him, staring through the glass with dead, cloudy eyes. Or some, like Squirrel, with no eyes at all.

Aiden shivered, the cold from the isolation unit penetrating down to his marrow.

Christ…this couldn’t be happening.

Am I dreaming?

He’d just escaped the clinic the day before, was this a hallucination? An after effect of his earlier sickness? But the doctors had given him a clean bill of health. Hell, they’d kicked him out of the ER.

This was really happening. Even if it felt unbelievable.

The shredded mouths, with their shattered jaws, opened even further, stretching impossibly wide, like they’d watched too many reruns of The Mummy.

And then, just like in that damn movie, a dense hoard of insects burst from their gaping mouths.

He stumbled back, his heart pounding like a motherfucker.

The thick cloud of black bugs was inches from the window.

Aiden’s breath caught in his aching lungs. Could the damn things penetrate glass? Could they reach him? He flinched, bracing for impact as they hit the window, only to watch them vanish.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

He spun, scanning the room. The tech guy was gone, but O’Neill stood at the back of the chamber.

Frozen. Rigid. Staring with wide, haunted eyes and a gaping mouth.

Aiden spun again, eyes frantically searching the room.

No bugs. No dense, black cloud of horror.

Not out here. He pivoted to scan the isolation unit behind the protective glass, his gaze skipping from zombified teammate to zombified teammate.

Their mouths were still wide open, but the bugs were missing.

Where the fuck had they gone?

Had they hit him? Had they disappeared inside him? He scanned his body, searching for bloody holes or shredded clothing. Nothing.

Had he imagined the whole thing? Experienced a nightmare during the day?

Suddenly, a thick, black cloud shot back into the room from the window.

One minute there was nothing...and the next a flying army of bugs.

They swept over the heads and between the bodies of his dead teammates and converged in the middle of the isolation unit.

From there they wheeled back toward the window in a synchronized murmuration of black.

He squinted. Where the hell had they come from?

Fuck, what the hell were they? He squinted harder, watching them fly straight for him.

Their glistening, elongated bodies shimmered with metallic radiance.

Flies? No, too big for flies, and flies didn’t have stingers.

Wasps? Black metallic wasps, with enlarged, wickedly curved stingers.

They swept around his zombified teammates and hit the window, only to disappear. Again.

Aiden turned again, searching for the damn things.

O’Neill still stood there, mouth agape. But there was no sign of the metallic wasps.

A heartbeat later, maybe two, and the black insects were back.

Streaming out of the window and past his dead teammates.

They congregated at the very back of the isolation unit before wheeling and shooting for the window again.

They were moving faster this time...so fast he couldn’t differentiate the individual insects. They were just a wave of gritty black.

What the hell? Were they trying to use speed to penetrate the glass?

Could they be that aware? That intelligent?

Once again, they hit the window and disappeared.

Seconds later they returned, streaming back into the room.

Only this time they slowed and flew back into the open mouths of his zombified teammates.

Frozen in place, Aiden simply stared, watching as the line of dead SEALs, at least those that still had jaws, worked their mouths shut, sealing the wasps inside.

“What the hell just happened?” Aiden asked, without turning his head.

“What happened is Faith. Her shield saved us from infection.” Wolf’s voice was a gritty rasp of its normal, smooth baritone.

A hoarse thank Christ came from behind him. Sounded like O’Neill’s voice. But more hoarse and less sarcastic.

“Faith?” Aiden finally turned to look at Wolf.

“Her shield,” Wolf clarified. “She created another. One like The Neighborhood’s. Only this one locks …things…into a place, rather than out of it.”

His brother’s face looked pale beneath his olive skin tone. His dark eyes were wide. Hell, his knees shook slightly too. Like those freaky wasps had knocked his legs out from beneath him. Good to know...at least Aiden wasn’t the only one trying to remain upright with spaghetti legs.

“And you couldn’t tell me that?” Aiden snapped. His heart rate was finally slowing, and his lungs were starting to work again.

“You never asked.” Wolf’s voice had already returned to its normal neutrality.

“Asshole,” Aiden said, but without much intensity.

His lungs were still too winded to inject strength into his voice.

He turned back to the window. The Squirrel suit was still standing there, doing that eyeless staring thing, his head cocked in that oddly birdlike way.

“Tell me Faith erected the same kind of forcefield around the nanobot lab.”

“She did,” Wolf acknowledged.

Aiden relaxed. Faith’s shield had sure kept them safe during those three terrifying flights of the wasps. Maybe they had an actual shot of containing the bots if they got out.

“Those ...wasps…they look metallic to you?” He glanced over at Wolf in time to see his thoughtful nod. “Nanobots, you think?”

“It would seem likely.” Wolf shifted uneasily, his boots scraping against the flooring.

“Makes sense,” Aiden suppressed a shudder. “The nanobots are probably why Squirrel and the others are mobile again.” If the fuckers could reanimate a corpse, they could create nanobot insects too. “And those stingers...hell, they can transfer a lot more nanobots than a mere touch.”

Wolf simply nodded. Aiden turned his attention back to the window. The Squirrel-thing on the other side cocked its head and the coiled rattler on its neck flashed, which launched a memory.

Worn boots planted on a coffee table…a copper and black tattoo flashing every time Squirrel dug his hand into the stainless-steel bowl of popcorn. Aiden could almost smell the buttery, popcorn smell. See the movie scrolling across the huge television screen.

“You ever see The Mummy?” he asked, absently.

“The movie?” Wolf’s question seemed to come from a distance.

“Yeah. The one with Brendan Fraser. Squirrel loved that movie. Never got tired of it. Swear to God, he could watch it multiple times a day. Like a kid or something.” Wolf was silent for a moment. Aiden could almost hear him connecting the dots.

“The open mouth—” Wolf said slowly, his boots scraping against the tile.

“And bugs flying out.” Aiden nodded.

Wolf tilted his head, staring through the glass. “You believe it has your dead friend’s memories? That it recreated that scene in the movie with nanobot wasps instead of flies?”

“I don’t know. Just find it interesting, that’s all.” Aiden ran his fingers through his hair, all the while staring through the glass.

He was afraid to take his eyes off the room, off the creatures occupying it. Afraid they’d somehow force their way through the forcefield and then the window. He knew how to fight terrorists, cultists, soldiers, but how the fuck did he unalive the already dead?

“One big problem with that theory.” O’Neill broke the tense silence and stepped up to the glass, shoulder to shoulder with Aiden.

“It wasn’t just your buddy who released the wasps.

They all did. And the rest of these reanimated squids wouldn’t have your buddy’s memories.

Or his...appreciation...for that movie.”

“True.” Wolf’s voice was thoughtful. He glanced toward Aiden, then back to the window.

“And there’s one other thing.” O’Neill’s voice was thoughtful.

“Did either of you notice how Squirrel was the first one off the table and to the window? He was also the first to open his mouth.” He squinted, his gaze shifting between the five things lined up behind the window.

“But the rest of these dead squids...” He frowned and shook his head.

“Not only did they head to the window later, they did it in unison, all at the exact same time.”

“Also true,” Wolf said, his voice and face neutral. “We would do well to figure out what that means.”

“Sure. I’ll hop right on that.” Aiden forced sarcasm in his voice, as his gaze lingered on Squirrel’s broken face.

Amid the gaping eye sockets, thin filaments of white were visible. Barely, but they were there. Some kind of spiderwebbing or cottony fibers. Not human tissue, but something other. Something creepy. Something fucking weird.

Another horrifying detail, acerbating this morning from hell.