Chapter 97: The Last Five Hours

By the time Lin Yan reached the top of the slope, the man with the binoculars was already waiting.

He stood straight, hands at his sides, a perfectly practiced smile on his face.

"Boss."

The word came out smoothly. A moment later, he dropped to his knees.

"We didn’t mean any harm. We’re here to investigate the communications blackout. We didn’t know who you were, so I had my partner take a closer look."

He had knelt without warning, but neither his smile nor his voice wavered.

"We overstepped. I hope you’ll forgive us."

His partner clearly hadn’t seen this coming.

He’d expected them to talk things out. For half a second, he stared at the man kneeling beside him. Then he caught on and hurriedly followed suit.

"That was me. I shouldn’t have done it. Please let it slide."

Lin Yan had been about to ask why they were hiding up here watching him. Instead, they’d dropped to their knees and apologized before he could get a word out.

For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.

"...Get up."

"Thank you."

The man with the binoculars stood immediately and helped his partner up. His smile came a little more easily now.

"I’m Matthew. This is Eli. What should we call you?"

"Lin Yan."

...

A small ember glowed inside a machine-gun emplacement on the airfield perimeter.

Evan leaned against the sandbags and took a careful drag. It pulled at his swollen cheek, making him wince, but he kept the cigarette at his lips.

He was still alive.

All four veterans were dead, and the man in black armor had let the rest of them go. He’d had no idea how he was supposed to survive seven days here. Now there were only a few hours left.

It still didn’t feel real.

The other rookies were talking quietly nearby. None of them felt like sleeping. One kept opening the mission notification and reading it again, as though he might have got something wrong. Others were discussing what they would do when they got back.

"Meat. I want meat. Hot, straight out of the pot."

"Take a shower first. You fucking stink."

"Like you smell any better."

They laughed. Evan joined in, then quickly stopped when his cheek protested.

The bloodstained wrench still lay beside his feet. Ever since Lin Yan had clapped him on the shoulder and spared the others after hearing him out, the remaining rookies had begun looking to Evan to take charge. When the ammunition delivery arrived, he’d been the one called over to check it.

He’d never been responsible for anything like that before. Fortunately, there wasn’t much to it: count the ammunition boxes and belts, then check them against the list.

The night breeze carried the smoke away from the position. Evan tilted his head back and noticed how many stars were out. Moonlight lay across the open ground, bright enough to pick out the distant wire.

It might have been the first time since arriving here that he’d had the leisure to look at the sky.

Once he got back to Paradise, he’d have a proper meal. Then sleep until he couldn’t sleep anymore.

He took another drag and nudged the man beside him.

"Hey. What time is it?"

"Seven."

Five hours to go.

Evan pushed himself up from the sandbags. Sitting around only made time crawl. He might as well check whether the belt was loaded on the next machine gun.

He had just turned when something moved at the edge of his vision.

Out beyond the perimeter, a dark shape was approaching fast beside the old road. It disappeared into a dip in the ground, then emerged on the far side.

"Is that a vehicle?"

The man beside him stood and looked where he was pointing.

"Where?"

"Over there. No lights."

As they watched, the shape cleared a rise beside the road.

...

"So, going by what you’re saying, the ones with bone blades are Hunter-class, and those three-meter lumps of muscle are Slaughter-class?"

Matthew nodded.

"Right. Ordinary soldiers can handle a Hunter if they’re armed and ready for it. A Slaughter takes concentrated fire, preferably heavy weapons. Let one get close, and it can tear a position open."

Lin Yan considered that. It sounded about right, based on the ones he’d fought.

"What about Calamity-class?"

...

"See it?"

"Yeah." His companion squinted into the distance. "That’s a vehicle?"

"What else moves that fast?"

"What kind of vehicle is that tall and skinny?"

Evan took a drag. At this distance, all he could make out was a vague outline. It did look unusually tall.

"Maybe it’s carrying something."

"Driving without lights. He’ll end up in a ditch."

They kept watching. The shape never turned onto the old road. It came straight across the open ground toward the airfield.

"Driver knows a shortcut."

Evan chuckled and passed the cigarette over.

The other man took it, but before he could bring it to his mouth, he leaned forward.

"Isn’t there a trench up ahead?"

The shape didn’t slow. At the edge of the trench, its narrow silhouette suddenly unfolded and sprang across.

Neither man spoke.

In the moonlight, an impossibly long arm reached out and planted itself on the ground. Bent legs gathered beneath the body, then launched it toward them again.

Evan’s smile froze. His fingers tightened against the sandbag.

"Monster!"

The conversation behind him stopped. Heads lifted, following his stare.

"There’s a monster coming! Move! Get on the guns!"

His voice cracked as he turned and ran for the gun mount. The others scrambled to their feet. One man hadn’t even spotted the creature before someone grabbed his clothes and hauled him toward a machine gun.

...

"Calamity-class? One of those things can wipe out an entire military unit," Matthew said. "The fast ones are especially bad. You can see them. You just can’t hit them. Best you can hope for is a lucky shell hit that stops them moving."

...

"Left! Swing left—!"

All four machine guns thundered. Tracers chased the shape across the open ground, kicking up strings of dust. Evan hauled his gun to the left, but he couldn’t bring it around fast enough. The creature dropped low and darted sideways, almost scraping the sand. He swung after it. His rounds still struck empty ground behind it.

And it kept getting closer.

Then it cleared the wire and came straight into the emplacement.

Evan let go and ran, stumbling into the communication trench.

A single shot cracked behind him.

He glanced back. The man he’d been sharing the cigarette with slammed into a wooden post and dropped motionless to the ground.

Evan’s knees nearly gave way. He caught himself against the trench wall and staggered around the bend. A few ammunition boxes were stacked there. He squeezed into the gap between them and the wall, then crouched down.

Everything outside dissolved into chaos.

Someone came running down the trench, footsteps pounding. Evan peered around the edge of a box just as the man jerked backward. A long, thin hand had closed around the back of his neck and lifted him off his feet.

A scream broke into a wet crunch.

Blood splashed across the trench wall.

Evan pulled back and clamped both hands over his mouth. More screams followed, punctuated by a few scattered shots.

Then they stopped.

He didn’t dare move.

Footsteps turned into his stretch of trench.

Keeping his head down, he peered through a gap beneath the boxes. A pair of long, narrow feet approached slowly and stopped beside the stack.

Evan pressed himself against the wall and held his breath.

A faint scrape came from overhead.

Long fingers curled over the edge of a box.

Then a head slowly leaned over the stack and down toward him.