by A. J. Sikes
“No, Sergeant.”
“Well start doing that. Once we’re at our guard posts, make checks with them on our freq. If we hear from them, we’ll link up as soon as we can. If not, we can link up with Radout once we’re out of here.”
He let that settle in, and was relieved to see his people coming around, standing straighter, more alert and engaged with their surroundings. But Garza still needed some convincing.
“Look, I don’t trust these Navy guys to have our back unless the shit really starts to go down. But they’re in a jam just like us. Nobody they can call for support or direction. Mercer’s decided he’s the be-all, end-all, and these sailors are marking time to his beat because they don’t have anyone else to follow. That means I need all y’all to be on point while we’re here. Eyes out, on the ball. No dick-dancing. Parsons, Mehta, y’all ain’t boots after this. This is y’all’s first deployment.”
Jed was glad to see the others nod their approval. He needed his squad at their best for whatever would come. With a final nod, he moved out to the supply point. It turned out to be a bunch of shelving crammed into a suburban two-car garage. The space was stacked full of wet-weather gear, work lights, boxes of nails, hand tools, and bags of concrete. Cases of MREs and jugs of water lined the back wall, with some medical supplies tucked in here and there. A corpsman’s bag hung from a coat rack by the door leading into the house.
A lone sailor in fatigues, and wearing his cap backwards, stood in the middle of it all, pushing a stack of blankets onto a shelf above his head.
“Yeah?” he asked as Jed approached.
It was the same guy who had unlocked the gate and made eyes at Keoh.
“You wanna fix that cover, Petty?” Jed asked. He waited while the guy rotated his cap around to face front. His attitude stuck out from under it, but Jed wasn’t going to waste any more breath on the idiot.
“Commander Mercer said we’d get radios here. We’re on the north perimeter.”
“Didn’t hear anything about this, but you’re inside the wire and still strapped, so I guess that’s good enough.”
Garza spit on the ground, then said, “Sure as fuck hope it’s good enough. We’re not part of your shitshow, but that old man seems to think he owns us for now, so here we are.”
Mercer may have been the sailor’s chain of command, but he wasn’t in the room. Jed was happy to let Garza blow off a little steam at the dirtbag supply clerk.
When the sailor didn’t budge to help them, Jed reminded him.
“Petty Officer Early, my name is Sergeant Welch. We need three radios. Green gear if you got it.”
The sailor turned and moved to a shelf. He gave Garza a hard look as he dug around and came up with three radios. They were older than anything Jed had ever seen.
“Old Gulf War gear,” he said, handing them over. “They still work, but aren’t good for much. Batteries haven’t been made since before 9-11. I have a few around here, so if you run out of juice, send a runner back.”
“Can’t give us spares to take with us? Save us the hump?” Jed asked.
The guy shook his head and looked at his feet.
Jed didn’t bother arguing. He took the radios and gave them to Parsons, Keoh, and McKitrick. The supply clerk raised his eyes to stare at Keoh again, and Jed had to step between them to break his concentration.
“What’s the freq?”
“Huh?”
“The freq, dipshit. For radio checks.”
“Oh, yeah. Gate and perimeter are on channel three. Towers use four.”
Without a second glance at the guy, Jed turned and led the squad to their duty for the day, hoping the next eight hours would pass without incident.
“Never thought I’d feel homesick for Galveston, but this shit is ridiculous,” Keoh said. “We really gonna do this, Sergeant? Eight hours standing post with nothing but some squid’s word this is legit?”
“We play it straight and get gone as soon as we can. Just another stop on the trail.”
“Kinda makes me miss going fishing,” Parsons said as they trudged down the empty suburban street toward the fence line at the end.
“Fishing for the dead,” McKitrick said. “I never thought I’d be happy to hear those words.”
Two of Mercer’s guards walked across the street up ahead, pausing to look at Jed and his squad. One of the guards said something into his shoulder mic. They continued on their path a moment later, disappearing into the neighborhood.
Jed turned at the next street, heading north. They passed between more houses lining narrow streets. The yards were clean, mostly, with only a few piles of debris or trash visible. These were all heaped at the curb, like they’d be collected by a trash truck. As they passed one, the stench of rotten food hit Jed’s nose.
“Guess the garbage man ain’t coming,” Keoh said.
Curtains flicked aside in every home they passed, and Jed caught a few stares before the curtains fell back in place.
The longer he spent in the neighborhood, the less it felt like a bunch of homes and the more it looked like a prison camp. They passed a small park that had been replanted with new trees recently. Saplings stood out amidst patches of reedy grass and mud. Playground equipment rusted and leaned over like it might fall any minute.
The north fence line was straight ahead now, one block along their path.
“If this place is legit, they’ve really got their work cut out for them,” McKitrick said.
They were almost at the fence when Jed paused in front of a half-burned house.
“Let’s check this out,” he said, waving his squad up behind him.
The front door swung on broken hinges. The deadbolt had been kicked in, too. Jed slowly pushed the door open with the muzzle of his weapon. He went inside, checked his corner and took a position along the front wall. Garza and the others filed in behind him with weapons up, but they all relaxed soon enough.
The house was like every other Jed had been into since the virus hit, only something worse had happened here. Blood splatter decorated the walls and ceiling. Tracks through the debris and gore marked where the bodies had been dragged. They led to the back rooms, which had suffered the most damage from the fire.
People had been killed in this house, and whoever did it tried to burn the place down, hoping to cover their crime.
Jed walked through the rooms that hadn’t been destroyed. Each was a tangle of overturned furniture, clothing, family photos, and personal possessions. Scratches and claw marks stood out on the walls like angry scars. But if monsters did it, why was the door kicked in? And why burn the place? The Variants were intelligent predators, but they didn’t care about covering their tracks.
The squad made a thorough search of the place, and Jed had to continually choke back his rage. Pieces of the family’s life lay everywhere like the aftermath of a tornado.
The bodies were in the back bedroom, or what was left of it. That’s where the fire had done the most damage. Jed felt like he should check them out, see if he could tell how they’d been killed, but looking at the remains he gave it up as a hopeless effort.
Like he’d been forced to do in New York, Jed clamped down on the urge to yell at the sky, curse God, curse anyone and everything responsible for what had happened to the world. He’d never got the full story about where the virus came from, who started it. But the result was undeniable. Humanity’s days were numbered.
We did this to ourselves.
He led his squad out of the house and to the fence line for their day of guard duty. As they were preparing to separate into teams, a skinny, shaggy-looking white man wearing aviator shades came down the street. He waved to Jed.
“Hey, you’re the other Marines. Right?”
The guy smiled, and the skin of his face pulled tight against his bones. His teeth were stained and cracked. The T-shirt he wore was ripped under both arms, and was really more of a rag than a shirt.
Jed nodded. “What do you mean ‘other Marines’?
And who’s asking?”
“I ain’t giving my name.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Just… Look, it’s cool here. Like, things are okay. Nothing bad’s happening. Like the other guys said. Semper Fi, right?” He backed away, waving his hands as if denying everything he’d just said.
“You know what happened in there?” Jed asked, nodding his head at the burned house.
“Aw, that? Nah. Just an accident. People shouldn’t smoke in bed I guess.”
“The fuck do you know about it?” Garza asked.
The guy flipped a finger at Garza, then spun around and stalked back to a house at the end of the block.
“Go on smoke some more, fucking crackhead,” Garza called after him. “Let me light him up, Sergeant.”
“We got bigger problems than crackheads yanking our chain, Garza. Let’s just play Mercer’s game so he lets us go without any trouble. Sooner we can forget about this place, the better.”
But Jed knew he wouldn’t be forgetting anything he’d seen today. Not for a long time.
From what he’d seen in the burned house, Jed could no longer deny that the monsters were back. Which meant Mercer was full of shit.
It was only a matter of time before they would spend every second of every day fighting for their lives again. But where were the monsters, and how had they stayed hidden for so long?
— 11 —
Emily fell against Danitha as Angie swerved their course hard to the left. The thing that had leaped at them crashed against the front fender with a screech of claws raking down metal. It hung on, scrambling to get a grip and climb onto the hood. Danitha pushed upright and nearly climbed onto Emily’s lap once Angie had them straightened out. She had to shove them both over to maintain control of the truck.
“Y’all stay off!” she hollered at them as they raced between oil tanks and piping.
The monster tumbled away with a final rake of its claws down the side of the truck, and a shriek that pierced Emily’s ears. Mounds of storm debris covered the ground ahead, and she worried more of the things would come out of the shadows at any seconds.
“The hell was that?” Angie yelled as she tore a path through the refinery, bumping them over ruts and divots in the dirt.
“One of them monsters,” Danitha said. “That’s what it was. One of them monsters. Dog one. I saw it. You believe us now, Little Miss Attitude?”
Angie didn’t answer. She just kept driving them around the wreckages of the oil refinery, and Emily was glad to see the girl avoiding areas with lots of high structures. She wove them back and forth across the rough ground, around piles of split tree trunks and broken cars, trash, and the ruins of buildings. They were surrounded by all the debris that a superstorm leaves in its wake. And Emily knew the monsters were lurking inside or behind it.
Danitha slapped a hand on Emily’s arm and tugged. Emily turned to see Danitha pointing off to their right, at the towering structures of the refinery. Small shadowy shapes hopped from tower to tower, and crawled along pipes.
“Angie, get us away from here. Fast!” Emily shouted.
“I’m trying!” she yelled back. “Ain’t been into this place yet and I don’t know the paths like I do at the one up the road. What are those things?”
“They the damn monsters, girl!” Danitha said. “We told you they back, but here you come with your gun knowing everything about everything.”
“Dani!” Emily shouted as she pulled her away from the passenger door. A dog monster leaped at the truck from a mound of debris and smashed into the glass, snarling and scrambling as Angie sped them along.
The monster had one clawed foreleg grabbing around the windshield, and Emily got a close look at the creature’s body. It was shaped very like a dog, with a hollowed abdomen and tight ribcage. It’s claws even looked more canine than the monsters she had seen when the virus first came.
“Will one of you shoot that fucking thing!” Angie yelled, slapping the pistol into Emily’s lap.
Danitha was still pressed up tight against her, but Emily managed to get the gun up and around her.
“Cover your ears, Dani,” she said, and Dani reached one hand up to shield her left ear. She kept her head pressed tight against the seat.
“Just fucking shoot it!” Angie screamed again, and swerved them around another pile of splintered tree limbs. More snarling and whining sounds echoed throughout the refinery area and Emily stared in horror as the shadowy figures on the piping and towers all dropped out of sight, heading down, toward ground level.
She looked at the one on the truck. Its face was hidden from view, but it was climbing onto the top of the cab. Emily pulled the trigger and felt an intense pressure in her ears, then a violent ringing. Angie’s muffled voice only just cut through the noise.
“You hit it; it’s gone! Now let me drive!” she said, pushing her shoulder against Emily’s back.
Emily stared at the hole in the window beside Danitha. Bits of glass fell into the truck until they hit a bump and the whole window collapsed in little chips. Emily helped Danitha sit up straight, but kept one arm around her, holding her away from the wind blowing into the cab. The monster’s claws had left deep gouges in the dry mud caked around the windshield.
“Told you they was back,” Danitha said. “We told you.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what you shot, but I know it wasn’t no monster. Not like the ones the virus made.”
“It was,” Emily said. “A new animal type.”
“How the hell you know that?”
“I’m a field biologist. I used to study viruses that affected bats and their ecology. We’ve seen bat Variants already, and a domesticated canine variety, too. That one looked like a wild canine. The monsters are back.”
Angie sniffed and shook her head, like she didn’t believe a word Emily had just spoken.
“I am not lying to you, Angie.”
“Never said you were, but I’m not sure you ain’t lying to yourself about what you saw.”
“Dammit girl,” Danitha said. “We know what we saw.”
“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Whatever it was, I ain’t sticking around to do a meet and greet. They still chasing us?” Angie asked.
Emily checked the truck’s mirrors as best she could as they bounced and rattled through the refinery. Small shapes flitted in and around the structures behind them, but nothing was outright chasing them. At least not that she could see.
“I think we got away,” she said. “They don’t look like they’re following us.”
“I’m getting back on the road,” Angie said, yanking the wheel hard to the right. They swerved around another debris pile, then went over a berm and were on pavement again. Grass stuck up on either side of the roadway, and in the middle. Cars and trucks sat skewed along the shoulder, most of them smashed up like they’d been pushed off the road by something bigger. Some appeared to be drivable, assuming they had fuel in the tank.
Their path was clear enough for Angie to put her foot down, and she did. Soon enough they were racing away from the refinery, heading south, with the fading afternoon sun lighting their way.
Shadows slanted across the road as they passed telephone poles that had survived the storms. Emily stared at each one as they approached, fighting against the urge to see every shadow, and every dark object, as a monster lying in wait. She kept worrying they’d be swarmed by a pack of them, even as Angie relaxed her grip and tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel with her fingertips.
Emily realized she still held Angie’s gun. She wanted to put it down, but worried about it going off.
“Please, take it back,” she said to Angie, but the girl would hear none of it.
“No way. You got a kill with it, and your first time, too. That means it’s yours. How it works now.”
“How what works?” Emily asked, placing the gun in her lap.
“Rules of the Aftermath,” Angie said. She continued, explaining how the survivors
in this part of Texas had started out as a collective. Everyone doing their share to put things right. Rebuilding, reclaiming, salvaging, and scavenging.
“Somebody called it that, the Aftermath, and pretty soon everyone was saying it. I learned a lot from those folks. How to hunt game, clean it and cook it, and how to stay alive.”
“Why are you alone then? What happened?”
“Militia happened.”
“You were there, when they came?”
“They didn’t come. They were there from the beginning. It was just a bunch of yahoos when it started. Guys who had stockpiled. You know the ones. Always talking about the End Times like it would be a good thing. Then it happened and they weren’t so sure. Didn’t want other people taking their stuff. So, they set out to be the big fish, so they could say who got what and when.”
“Sound a lot like gangbangers,” Danitha said. “You know, the ones they was always saying we should be afraid of?”
“Pretty much like that, yeah,” Angie said. “They just took over small neighborhoods at first, then bigger ones until they were the only show in town. Army came in finally. A lot of us thought that’d be the end of it. But nope, not for the Lone Star Militia. They didn’t even bother asking what the Army was doing here. Just started shooting.”
Angie looked off to the left as she spoke, then turned her eyes back to the road ahead. The air blowing in the shattered window chilled the hand Emily had wrapped around Danitha’s shoulder. She pulled her closer, away from the chill.
“Y’all lost anybody in this?” Angie asked.
“My parents,” Emily said.
“And you?” Angie asked, motioning with her chin toward Danitha.
“Whole damn family. Brothers, sister, my mom. They all got sick with that virus. I didn’t have to see it though, and I thank God every night for that mercy.”
“What about your father?” Emily asked.
“He was a cop, so he went out to help when it all started. I never saw him again.”
Emily turned to Angie. “And you? Did you lose someone?”
