The Last Mission of the Living (The Last Bastion Book 2) by Rhiannon Frater

There was a loud grunt as the Abscrag collided with his body. Torran’s weapon slammed into the face of his pursuer, knocking the Abscrag back. Pivoting about, Torran used his weapon as a shield to knock the his attacker completely away before firing at the head of a man he’d once had drinks with in an illegal pub. The creature fell at his feet.
    Three more Abscrags closed in and Torran took a deep breath, aimed, and fired rapidly at the exposed faces of all three. More were coming and there was no time to strip the weapons or ammunition off the bodies if he were to keep ahead of them.
    With nowhere else to go, he ran toward the subway station.
     
     

 

    Chapter 5
     
    The maintenance cart zoomed along the track and through the endless blackness. Lindsey fought against the suffocating fear the absolute dark inspired within her. It was far too easy to imagine the Inferi Scourge hiding in the murk, ready to seize her as she passed and drag her into the rough ground to infect her, but the sensors on her helmet only revealed the track unspooling through a long tunnel.
    The dread twisting her insides made it difficult to not be overly imaginative. She didn’t seem to be the only one disquieted by the surroundings. The others with her had lapsed into nervous silence too.
    Opening the comm to Petra, Lindsey queried, “What’s his status?”
    Though Lindsey didn’t want to ponder the survival chances of the lone survivor outside the wall, she couldn’t help but do exactly that. To open the doors was a huge risk, not only to her small squad, but possibly the city.
    “They’re leaving him to die,” Petra answered. She sounded like she was gritting her teeth. “All the SWD forces are concentrated on the areas visible to the news feeds. They’re putting on their big show. Vaja says there is a lot of concern about the squad wiping because of something they’re calling the Aberrations. SWD command is working on an idea to deal with the threat, but they’re calling the squad a loss.”
    “So he ran into some of those Anomalies that Dr. Curran was talking about.”
    “The soldier’s calling them Abscrags.”
    Lindsey exhaled. Obviously the squad had known about the Inferi Boon that had gone bad and nicknamed them Abscrags. The word fit. “What are the commandant’s orders?”
    “Vanguard, this is your call,” Commandant Pierce answered over the comm, surprising Lindsey. “You have a better read on the situation than I do.”
    “Let me see his location.”
    Vaja had already hacked The Bastion security grid to mask Lindsey and her squads’ whereabouts. It would be easy for him to locate the soldier on the run.
    A new map fed onto her faceplate and showed the location of the soldier’s wristlet signal. His name glowed in green lettering over a glowing yellow dot: Master Seeker Torran MacDonald. The Abscrags also showed up on the screen as small red dots. The sight sent a chill down Lindsey’s spine. Red indicated a dead citizen. It was how The Bastion made sure to remove civilian corpses immediately after death for fear of the Inferi Scourge Virus becoming airborne and creating a new outbreak. Yet on her visual the red dots were in clear pursuit of the living person. The risen dead seeking to infect the living.
    She shuddered.
    Glancing toward the small screen on the console of the maintenance car, Lindsey saw that it was swiftly approaching the subway station. Calculating the distance to the station and the progress of MacDonald, she extrapolated that they could possibly make it out of the station and close the blast doors behind them before he reached the outer steps.
    “We’ll help him,” Lindsey decided.
    “You can’t bring him inside The Bastion, Vanguard. We can’t risk a possible infiltration by the Scrags,” Commandant Pierce replied.
    “But we can kill the Scrags after him and give him a chance to find shelter.”
    There was a pause. Then Pierce said, “Agreed.”
    “What if he tells the SWD