Hell Gate by Josh Matthews

Author:Josh Matthews [Matthews, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Burning Willow Press, LLC
Published: 2016-10-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Neal came running up. Jason stood and walked over to Sook-kyoung and Antoine. Sasha followed him.

“Were there any other casualties?” Jason asked Sook-kyoung.

She stared at Petra lying on the ground.

“Sook-kyoung!”

She snapped her attention to Jason. “What?”

“Were there any other casualties?”

“Not on the left flank.”

“Good. Go check on Ray, and stay with him until I figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Yes, sir.” Sook-kyoung raced off.

Sir? Jason would have laughed if he could have found anything humorous about the situation. He stepped over to Antoine.

“I don’t want to be surprised again. Take up position to the south in case there are any more of those things lurking around.”

The Moroccan nodded and walked off.

Slava appeared out of the darkness and approached the campfire. “Who screamed?”

“Petra,” said Jason. “One of the soul vampires vomited on her.”

“How bad?”

“Most of her left arm and half her face are burned.”

“Shit.”

“Did you guys suffer any casualties?”

The Russian shook his head. “Only three soul vampires attacked us, and we took them out easily enough. It sounded like all the fighting came from the north.”

Jason had not heard from Haneef’s team yet. He was about to send Slava to check when he saw Haneef and Josh approaching.

“How did you make out?” asked Jason.

“No one was hurt. I used up all my ammo, though.” Haneef unstrapped his backpack as he spoke and slid it off his shoulders.

“How many came after you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Christ,” said Slava. “That means almost thirty of them attacked us.”

“We’ve never seen them travel in such numbers before,” added Sasha.

“They didn’t sneak up on us like they usually do.” Haneef rotated his shoulders to work out the kinks. “They started their charge about three hundred feet out. I heard them before I saw them. Thank Allah, otherwise, we would have been overrun.”

“Why are they behaving this way?” Jason asked almost to himself.

“Because they’re starving.” The answer came from Doc. Only then did Jason realize the doctor had joined them, leaving Neal to dress Petra’s wounds. “They abandoned their pack mentality and went feral, putting aside cooperation and stealth out of desperation to get food. One of them even went after the horses, which we’ve never seen them do before. I bet they haven’t eaten in weeks.”

“Which means…?” Slava’s question trailed off.

Sasha answered. “There’s no more food in the area.”

“Which means there are no humans in the area,” added Jason.

No one wanted to speculate what that meant for their chances of survival.

Jason changed the subject. “What’s going to happen to Petra?”

“She’s not going to make it.” Doc lowered his gaze.

“Are you sure?”

“If I could get her proper medical care, she might have a chance.”

“Then we have to head back to Mont St. Michel,” demanded Sasha.

“That won’t do any good. It’s a three-day journey, and the ride would kill her. Besides, her wounds are so bad that within forty-eight hours they’ll become infected. Within a week her body will go septic and she’ll die.”

“Don’t you have any antibiotics to give her?” Sasha pleaded.

“Not enough to stave off the infection that she’s going to develop.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.