David Golemon - Ripper

Will changed magazines, but before he could bring up the Beretta to fire, Everett shot past him and with knife poised to strike, sank his K-Bar deep into the forearm of Guzman. The large knife sank deep until it hit bone, and Carl cursed as he felt the hardened steel of the knife glance off the bone and then break off. His momentum sent him to the running, muddy water on the bottom of the culvert. Mendenhall helped him to his feet as Jack and Farbeaux ran past.

“You okay?” Mendenhall shouted as he dodged the bleeding, massive arm that swiped the empty air.

“Yeah, but I’m out of knives and bullets, so I suggest we get the hell out of here!”

As they covered the last mile to the river, Sarah managed to make her way to the front of the straggling line of girls, making each one scream as she ran past them. She knew exactly how they all felt as she was close to panic herself. Finally Sarah could see moonlight ahead of her. It was distant like the small rabbit hole Alice had fallen through on her journey to Wonderland, only Sarah knew they weren’t escaping from that magical place, but from one that had quickly become an underground hell. As the girls started to bunch up behind her, Sarah held out her arm to stop the stampede toward freedom. She had seen a shadow cross the opening, momentarily blocking the light cast by the moon.

“What’s the holdup? Let’s get them out of here,” Will said breathlessly as he caught up to the front of the pack.

“Whatever that thing was back there I think it’s ahead of us,” she said as she bent at the waist and rested.

Will was about to break for the opening to clear a way for the girls when suddenly the culvert exploded inward from above, showering the retreating party with broken chunks of concrete and mud. Then to everyone’s complete and utter horror, the thing that was once Juan Guzman crashed through the hole he had just punched to land directly in front of the screaming women. Will didn’t take long to empty the nine millimeter into the torso of the hulking figure ahead of them. In the dark he was lucky to see it at all. The monstrosity bent over as the rounds entered its muscled chest and abdomen. But in the filtered moonlight Mendenhall saw it slowly start to straighten. It was so much larger than it had been just thirty minutes before that it had to bend at the waist to accommodate its size. Will frantically reached into his belt for another clip of nine-millimeter ammunition and then realized when his finger searched the empty pouch that he had just expended everything he had.

“Oh, shit,” Mendenhall said as he pulled Sarah back into the bunched-up women behind him. He quickly dropped the useless weapon and then pulled out his own knife.

The women screamed again as Everett crashed through their ranks and then slid to a stop when he saw Mendenhall ahead of him, and to his front, dwarfing the lieutenant, was Juan Guzman. The beastly apparition was standing there, taking deep breaths as it studied the small men and women cowering before it. In the bleached moonlight cascading through the new opening it had just made, Everett could swear he saw the creature smile.

“Damn!” Collins said as he pushed his way through the crowded culvert. He handed Farbeaux off to Sarah and one of the older girls and then slowly stepped to the front in between Everett and Mendenhall.

“It seems I am in possession of something that may become very beneficial to my operations,” the beast said as it raised its left arm. It examined the change that had come to it and with tilted head closed its fist.

Collins looked at the man standing before him. Then he saw a strange thing — the creature winced in pain. In the moonlight Jack could see that Guzman’s skin color as seen in the firelight back in the laboratory had diminished as the creature had exerted itself. The tough hide that had become its skin was now a sickly looking gray color and seemed to be flaking off in large chunks. It was as if the beast were starting to wilt before his eyes. Collins’s eyes followed a long tuft of hair, bunched together with water, mud, and sweat, fall from the side of Guzman’s head. Then even more black hair fell in the moonlight.

“It seems maybe you inhaled a little too much of that miracle drug, Anaconda. Feeling a little weaker than you were a moment before?” Jack said, buying as much time as he could.

Everett saw this and then grabbed the first girl he could reach and brought her to his side as he spied one of the first holes in the large culvert they had come across inside the long and dark tunnel. He was just about to lift her up when the beast suddenly turned to face its rear. Something or someone had come up from behind it.

“Rescue team, hit the deck!”

Jack heard the shouted command just as Guzman reacted and charged the new threat that had come upon it from behind. He turned and threw his body into several screaming girls, sending them crashing into the muddy, running water. Everett, Sarah, Mendenhall, and even the Frenchman did likewise. Just as the last girl hit the water, a cacophony of noise erupted in the confines of the culvert. As Jack raised his head he saw Guzman take the first volley of the automatic weapons’ fire from the rear. Its body shook and the awful-sounding scream started from deep inside the Anaconda’s chest. Then even more fire erupted in the darkness and Collins could see tracers as they hit the beast. More than a hundred rounds slammed home, but Guzman still came forward one faltering step at a time. Jack winced as a ricochet slammed into his hand. He saw tracer fire as it rebounded off wet concrete and he prayed that it didn’t find any of the poor women behind him.

Guzman bellowed in anger and then three bullets finally hit the vital part of his malformed head and changed body. Its skull jerked back and Guzman spun around. With its wide eyes staring at Collins, it went to its knees. The right arm came up and then Jack saw a large man in black Nomex, its shiny material gleaming in the moonlight, step up to the back of the Anaconda and then fire two more rounds from a Walther automatic into the back of the large skull. Guzman, with one last wince of his tortured eyes, went face down into the running water.

The man who had placed the bullets into Guzman’s head holstered his weapon and stared down at the thing he had just killed. He raised a set of goggles not unlike the ones Jack and his small team had had earlier. The man looked from the giant creature that was once called the Anaconda and then saw Jack lying a few feet away. The stranger was soon joined by six others who took up station behind the first. Collins slowly started to pick himself up in the near darkness.

“The way is clear. May I suggest you get these people out of here?” the man in the lead said as he gestured for his men to assist the girls.

Collins cradled his wounded hand and then stepped up to the rescuer who had undoubtedly saved their lives.

“Thanks, it was a little dicey there at the end,” Collins said as he looked the man over. His eyes roamed to the left shoulder where the American flag would have been hidden under a Velcro patch, but there was none. Jack searched but could find no U.S.-issued equipment of any kind. As he studied the man, the girls were pulled and prodded by men dressed exactly the same. All kept their goggles and their black nylon masks in place. The leader before him looked from Collins to the body lying at his boots.

“What in the hell is this thing?” the large man said as he went to his knees to study the unmoving corpse of Juan Guzman. “It took at least fifty rounds to bring it down.”

“What is your command?” Jack asked as the man raised Guzman’s head up by its hair. Then the sickening sound of the long black strands tearing free from its scalp was heard and the head fell unceremoniously back into the murky running water. The man stood and looked down at Collins.