Clickers III by Brian Keene, J. F. Gonzalez Read Free Book Online Page A

stepping around the bubbling piles of flesh that had once been human bodies. Armed with tridents, nets fashioned from a peculiar, flexible metal, and weapons salvaged from various shipwrecks, the lizard-men joined the fray, slaughtering any researchers unlucky enough to have escaped the Clickers unscathed.
    Clouds passed over the moon, plunging the beach into merciful darkness.
    The screams continued.

Clark Arroyo set the rake inside the condominium’s utility shed and cast a backward glance at Tony Genova’s unit. He had a clear view of the front door, but the dense shrubs that he’d maintained over the past few days provided good cover from his vantage point. There was no way he could be seen by the three government agents who’d just showed up—not under the cover of darkness.
    Despite the weeks of preparation for this day, he hadn’t anticipated a visit from Tony’s FBI handlers, especially so soon. Clark had been keeping track of them; they usually checked in on Tony in person once a month, and every week by phone or email. The last time they’d visited Tony in person was a week-and-half ago.
    So why were they visiting him again so soon?
    Clark watched out of the corner of his eye as one of the agents touched the side of Tony’s neck and the former crime-figure slumped to the floor. Half of him lay inside the apartment. The other half lay on the stoop.
    The agents moved quickly, but Clark was quicker. He dipped behind the utility shed, counted to five, then risked a peek through the vegetation.
    Whoever these guys were, they were good. They’d moved Tony inside and shut the front door.
    Clark took a breath and wondered what his next move should be. The fact that the agents had knocked Tony out on his ass only meant one thing—they weren’t his usual handlers, which meant they represented something else. Something more sinister. Someone with an old score to settle? Possibly, but Clark doubted it. Clark had been trained on how to read people. In his previous line of work, Presidents and other important figures had lived and died on how well Clark and his fellow agents could scan a crowd and figure people out. You couldn’t protect someone unless you’d assessed the potential threats; in Clark’s case, he could glance at someone and guess within thirty seconds what they did for a living, know approximately how much they made per year, their marital status, and most importantly, whether they represented a threat or not. The only other individuals that Clark had ever met who had this innate ability were salespeople.
    Genova’s assailants were unmarried. None of them wore wedding bands, nor was there a white circle on the skin of their fingers denoting where a ring had been. They were neat and well groomed. Dressed casually, but not sloppy. They had an air of self-assuredness. More importantly, their demeanor and body-language denoted them as professionals. Professional what, was the question.
    Not criminals. They didn’t fit the type, not even for the ailing and aging Mafia wiseguys who Tony Genova had once worked for. And not FBI. And probably not any of the government’s other alphabet soup agencies, either. So who were they? Black Lodge? When he’d worked as a Secret Service Agent, Clark had heard rumors about such an organization. Back then he’d chalked what he’d heard up to nothing more than conspiracy theories and the paranoid ravings of internet madmen who couldn’t cope with their everyday reality. But since the Clickers and Dark Ones invasion four years ago, which had sent Clark Arroyo’s life into an unending spiral of turmoil, he’d come to the conclusion that perhaps some of what he’d heard wasn’t all conspiracy theory bullshit.
    The Clickers had been real. So had the Dark Ones. And if they were real, why not Black Lodge?
    And if that was the case?
    Clark felt a pit of fear settle over him as he closed the door to the utility shed. He’d arrived at the condominium complex wearing the