Page 52 of Monsters within Men
One of the types clawed at Frankie’s stomach. It wore a ripped, red Coca-Cola t-shirt.Just like the one ten years ago.
Zeke was no longer in the outskirts of London. He was twelve again, frozen in fear on a road in the town he grew up in, Zaya unconscious at his feet, a type coming closer, closer, closer and him doingnothing, nothing nothing.
“Bates! Zeke! Shoot them!” Noah’s voice commanded him.
But Zeke remained motionless; his body stone-still.
They were almost at the treeline. They clawed at Frankie’s helmet—trying to remove it? Adrenaline coursed through him, but it only rooted him further to the spot.
“What the actual fuck, Zeke?” said Habib. His voice was too loud. Why was his voice so loud?
Someone barrelled past him, knocking him to the ground. He sat there, continuing to stare straight ahead. The type on Frankie’s left snapped its jaw open, revealing long, infinite lines of sharp fangs.
The last thing he heard before Frankie’s body disappeared out of view was the most soul-sickening scream of despair he’d ever heard.
seventeen
Noah
“SandersandWalker,staywith Bates. Everyone else, follow me.”
Noah watched as his squad followed his command instantaneously: Aoife and Savannah leapt into position guarding Zeke, while the rest slipped into formation beside Noah.
He wasted no time diving through the bushes in the general direction the types had dragged Frankie. Thorns caught on the fabric of his suit, slowing him down as he charged forwards, entering a thicket of trees and ferns twice the size of him.
“Two o’clock!” shouted Splat, who’d within the utter carnage somehow fixed the drone. It raced off to the right. “Follow it!”
Dashing through the ferns as quickly as they could muster, they used their rifles to push back particularly aggravating foliage. Noah, not able to see or hear Frankie now, felt sick to his stomach. The types only had a few seconds’ head start, so it shouldn’t have been this hard to catch them up. The bird’s-eye view of the drone cam showed Frankie still being dragged, at breakneck speed, through the undergrowth, her head whacking against foliage as they went.
“Faster! King, are you able to line up the drone gun?”
“Nada. Too risky,” replied Splat. “They’re about to bang into an old ten-foot wire mesh fence, though. There’s our chance.”
Noah watched the types slow as they spotted the fence. For a brief second, the pair on either side of Frankie seemed to argue, pulling her in two different directions. The hesitation slowed them, and he finally saw them with his own eyes. Sliding under a particularly prickly fern, he unsheathed his dagger and charged towards the nearest type.
“King, back me up. Everyone else, take down the other one.”
Now that they’d caught up with their prey, the dispatch of the two mutants was effortless. Noah slid his dagger through the type’s neck like putty, and it instantly released its grip on Frankie. He pushed its forehead backwards to ensure its mouth was secure before sliding the dagger the rest of the way around, severing the neck’s connection to the spinal cord. By the time he’d turned around, the other type lay equally motionless on the ground. Luo leered over it with his bionic arm plunged through its stomach, while Vitt conducted a full-body assessment of Frankie.
“Fleming, status report,” Noah said.
Frankie was shaking. “I think… I think I’m fine?”
“I’m sure you’re far from fine.” The look on Habib’s face was one Noah recognised as hisI’m not going to let this goexpression.
“No visible suit breaches,” reported Vitt, after she finished running her hands over every inch of Frankie’s body. “I’ll take her vitals every five minutes for the hour.”
“My head hurts,” Frankie said.
She made to take the helmet off, but Vitt caught her arm. “Let’s get you back.”
“Is Zeke okay?” Frankie asked.
Habib made a noise of disgust. “He won’t be by the time I’m through with him.”
“Habib,” Noah warned.
“Are you kidding? The idiot just almost cost Frankie her life.”
