Free Arisen : Nemesis by Michael Stephen Fuchs

better generate some SA if she intended to survive even the next few minutes of whatever the hell was happening. She scanned from side to side, then extended her focus of vision out ahead – and she immediately saw a jihadi coming for them, diagonally from one of the gaps between structures. He was obviously an invader, from the pajamas and black hood – but he carried no weapon.
    She scanned frantically for the bulge of a suicide vest, but in fact his top was hanging open, revealing rolls of flesh beneath. He was running at them with arms extended. Attacking them literally barehanded.
    What the fuck?
    Before she could get a sight picture, Elijah knocked the man down with four quick shots to the center of mass, and they were both running past him.
    Now Kate realized her reflexes had also better tune up – and right now . Shots were still being fired, but if there were any geometry to this battle, it totally eluded her. She remembered the old rule that the number-one trick to surviving combat was figuring out what the hell was going on. She grimaced at that, and tried to manage her breathing.
    Elijah turned a corner on the left at a dead run and Kate followed, skidding on the rubber matting. As they emerged into an open area, the first thing she saw resolving from the darkness was a soldier in tan ACUs – tackling another one, identically dressed.
    Seriously – what the FUCK?! This made zero sense. She shouted ahead. “Elijah, what the fuck is going on?”
    “It’s the sick people, man,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Keep moving!”
    “What does that mean ?” She racked her brain. Was it like rabies, or psychosis – or was it some kind of chemical or biological warfare agent they’d been hit with, and that was making people wig out? She knew al-Shabaab had a history of trying to acquire chem-bio weapons. But she had neither the wind nor the attention to have this or any discussion with Elijah right now. Instead she focu—
    A body slammed into her from a tiny dark alley she hadn’t even seen. She bounced off it and reacted by giving him a mighty shove with her weapon and the figure stumbled back into the darkness from which it came. She started to bring her weapon up to fire, but thought better of it and just kept moving.
    Her Under Armor shirt, beneath her LBE, was soaked with sweat now – and bits of loose hair floated out from under her ARMY cap. Everything was still thoroughly kaleidoscopic and she didn’t feel like she was getting any more of a grip. Rather, she felt like the odds were tipping against her.
    And if the camp was going down… would she go down with it?
    No , she decided. No, I’m fucking not.
    And she remembered another principle: the people who survived catastrophes, riots, natural disasters, ambushes… were the ones who absolutely resolved themselves to.
    Elijah darted down another row and they came back out against the wire, with something solid on one side of them again at least. He turned right and took off, and Kate accelerated to follow – and immediately felt another body crashing into her again, from the right side now, out of another gap. She pivoted, and used his own body weight to throw him to the ground.
    It was an American serviceman.
    The man writhed on the ground and scrabbled at her boots.
    She kicked him away hard, rolling his body up the narrow alley.
    Looking over the wriggling body, she could see Elijah disappearing into the darkness up ahead. He didn’t know she had stopped – that she’d been cut off. The soldier thrashed on the ground between them.
    Kate backed away and brought her rifle to her shoulder as the whacked-out soldier lurched to his feet, instantly moving toward her again. His head was down so she couldn’t see his face, but from the way he moved the dude was not in a good way.
    She had absolutely no idea what to do now.
    “Shoot him!” she heard. It was Elijah, who had turned around finally and seen her. He was now quick-walking back.
    She