Read The Tide: Deadrise for Free Online

okay?”
    She nodded and pulled a strand of hair from her eyes. “Yeah, I think so. You?”
    “No scratches here.”
    The other Hunters rounded up their packs and slowly assembled amid the carnage. They each reported good health but depleted ammunition. They would be hard-pressed to survive another close encounter, but they had no other choice but to go forward into whatever dangers lurked. Meredith knew there would be no sitting and resting, no regrouping with Dom at the helm. He had a family to find and a ship to take back.
    The occasional Skull met them as they cleared the remainder of the lengthy tunnel. The single creatures were nowhere near as frightening or dangerous as the swarm had been. Still, Meredith vowed not to let her guard down. Even a lone Skull could spell death.
    “Let’s go up to the fifth or sixth floor,” Dom said as they reached the southernmost stairwell leading up from the tunnel. “I want to get a better view of what we’re heading into next.”
    Their boots clacked on the steps as they hurried up the stairs and landings of what had once been an office building. But as they made it to the top, they soon realized there was no fifth or sixth floor. Rather, there had once been a fifth floor. Also a sixth and seventh and eighth based on the placards Meredith had seen along the stairwell. She was the first to set foot on what remained of the fourth floor. She opened the door onto a wide expanse of charred rubble and naked scaffolding. Piles of crumbling brick and broken pipes lay across the burned carpeting. There were no intact windows. At best, a few shards of glass hung around gaping holes in the side of the building. The winds shifted. Soot poured from an enormous crater in the center of the room that led all the way to the first floor. Entire columns had collapsed.
    Meredith climbed over a jumble of struts and beams. The sky was already darkening. Tiny pinpricks of stars had started to show in the enveloping blackness, easily visible now that the ceiling and upper floors had been demolished. She trudged to the edge of the building and poked her head out of a gaping hole.
    Dom stood beside her. “Holy hell,” he muttered.
    All around the building lay a wasteland of toppled buildings, husks of vehicles, and deep craters. It looked like the pictures of European cities leveled during World War II or maybe war-torn Syria. This couldn’t be America.
    “This is what it’s come to,” she said.
    Dom reached for her hand. He interlaced her fingers in his. “I guess so.”
    The remains of Skulls and humans alike were strewn over the battleground. Someone had thought indiscriminate firepower would be the solution to an engineered disease. Meredith knew that wasn’t the answer.
    Science and medicine, real research. That was the only way to stop the Oni Agent.

-4-
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    Unknown Location on the Potomac River
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    A run-down store stood on the edge of the forested path. Commander Jacob Shepherd weighed the stone in his hand. He threw it at the window in the store’s door. Glass shattered and rained down onto the gravel pathway below. He pulled the long sleeves of his jacket over his hand and brushed away the remaining jagged shards. With all the deftness of a first-time thief, he reached through the busted window and clumsily unlocked the door. It swung open, creaking on its rusted hinges.
    “Inside,” Shepherd said, ushering the two midshipmen who’d joined him on his escape into the confines of the small space. He went in after. Each played their guns around the meager shelves and the couple of wooden tables. Atop the tables stood stacks of camping supplies: kerosene lamps and fuel, dusty flashlights, and cast iron skillets.
    Shepherd unboxed a lantern and lit it. The flickering light cast a series of dancing shadows across the store. Then he nodded to the hiking packs on a display.
    “Grab those first,” he said. “Fill them with food and water.