by A. J. Sikes
She took her time to reply, and when she did it was through tears she struggled to hold in.
“My sister. When—when this all started. She dated a guy. He said he used to be a SEAL, and we believed him. He was big enough for it. When the monsters came, he came for us. Said he’d protect us.”
“And?”
“And he didn’t. First time a monster showed up, he went all rabbit on us and my sister got killed. Right in front of me.”
“How’d you live?” Danitha asked.
“I shot the fucking thing,” Angie said. “And then I had to—”
Emily put a hand on Danitha’s arm, and motioned with her eyes to drop the subject. Angie didn’t need to be put through the misery of reliving horrors.
They drove on for what felt like miles. Overgrown pasture land gave way to more ruined neighborhoods that framed the roadway cutting around Houston. When they passed a road sign, Emily’s breath caught in her throat.
“That said Baytown. You told us you weren’t taking us to them!” She grabbed at the pistol in her lap, but Angie was faster and knocked it to the floor.
“I’m taking us around the militia camp. Don’t worry.”
“How can we trust you?” Danitha asked, anger again cutting through her voice.
“Because the Baytown Militia have a price on my head same as the Mont Belvieu one has a price on yours.”
“Baytown, Mont Belviue—How many are there?” Emily asked. “You said Lone Star first.”
“That’s the big group, the ones in Houston. They mostly control the city and let the other guys run their games in the suburbs and out here.”
“What’s Baytown want you for?” Danitha asked.
“For that POS who got my sister killed. He brought me there after it happened, and I thought we’d make it okay. They’re mostly good folk there. They were happy to have more hands to do the work. That man was big and strong, and said he used to be a SEAL. They believed him, too.”
“What happened, mija?” Emily asked.
“He told me I reminded him of my sister. Kept telling me until one night I figured out what he meant.”
Her hand went to the knife on her hip. Danitha made a sound like she approved. Emily tried to read her face, but Danitha turned to look out the window. They rode the next few minutes in silence except for the whine of the engine and the crunch of the tires over bits of debris in the roadway.
Finally, Angie pulled down an offramp to a frontage road that went between two stands of trees. To the south, it was just a single row of dying and overgrown trees. A forest shrouded the landscape on the other side of the road.
“We can hole up at a house down here,” Angie said. “Ain’t much of it left, but it’ll be shelter for the night.”
They traveled a little way and then Angie turned onto a lane that took them south, alongside a pasture, and ended in a wide drive in front of a long ranch house shrouded by tall trees. The windows were all broken and the walls were covered with graffiti.
“This place is safe?” Emily asked.
“Safe as can be,” Angie said. “Used to be my uncle’s place. We get inside, you’ll want to stay with me. Don’t go wandering off. I got traps all through it.”
She drove them around the house, and parked the truck under trees that hung over a backyard lawn. Most of it was overgrown and rangy, but Emily could see the manicured landscape that once lived beneath. The trees had provided good shelter against the hurricanes coming up from the coast. Storm debris mounded against the trunks, and hung in the branches. But the yard and house were fairly untouched. At least by natural events.
The windows were shattered, and the walls marked up with painted symbols, abbreviated Bible verses, and declarations about the end of the world.
“Folks around here didn’t like Uncle Floyd,” Angie said. “Thought he was weird because he was a rich man who liked to cook and wasn’t married. They didn’t even wait for the virus to do it. They just came here one night and killed him. I found him the next day and buried him over there, by his favorite tree.”
She pointed to the far side of the yard where Emily could just see a wooden cross made of two broken boards, planted beside a thick tree.
“I better go see if I can get us something to eat. Y’all can wait here in the truck.”
Emily and Danitha both nodded.
“I’ll try to be back quick. Keep the gun ready,” Angie said, reaching down to collect the pistol from the floor. She handed it to Emily, who took it and held it in her lap. Angie opened the door, lifted her rifle, and got out. She closed the door, waved at them and vanished into the growing darkness.
— 12 —
Jed and his squad stood together on Mercer’s northern perimeter. The Navy man had hardened things up front, but back here he’d only set in a single line of fence and with no razor wire on top. A thick tree line, full of shadows and debris, marked the end of the neighborhood just outside the fence. Jed got a chill watching the trees sway in the slight breeze blowing up from the coast. He wanted to believe they were safe, that the monsters were really gone. But it never failed that a flicking leaf or jostled branch would make him do a double take. It was the wind, and he knew it. But after three years of worrying when the next shadow he saw would be the monster that killed him, Jed had to fight the urge to see danger in everything.
“Not much cover around here, Sergeant,” Garza said.
Lance Corporals. Always got something to say.
“I see that, Garza,” he said, staring into the trees beyond the fence. “Ain’t like there’s anyone shooting at us either. At least not yet.”
He put Garza and Parsons up in the tower with binos. The tower was just a platform set back about five yards from the fence. It had been made of old pallets mounted in a grid and supported by posts sunk into the ground. A partially extended aluminum ladder leaned against the platform.
Parsons coughed in disgust. “The towers up front had proper cover, and roofs. The fuck is this hillbilly shit?”
“Mercer put his resources where they’d do the most good for him,” Jed said. “He wants people showing up at his front door to think he’s hardened the whole place. He’s not expecting any threats from this side. Typical warlord mentality. Or maybe he just ran out of fence.”
McKitrick and Mehta walked the line from the tower, heading around the neighborhood to the east. Jed and Keoh walked in the other direction, following the fence around the suburban homes. Some were occupied, but most sat empty, half ruined, or completely destroyed. Jed spotted at least two more that had been burned but, without going into them, he couldn’t tell if the fires had been deliberate or just one more result of the world ending.
At the corner of the neighborhood, another pair of guards sat on a platform just like the one Garza and Parsons occupied. Jed waved to them, but they didn’t return the greeting. One of them spoke into a mic, then went back to watching the trees. Jed could play that game, too, but it wasn’t worth the effort.
All they had to do was suffer Mercer’s command for a day or so, and then they’d be free to look for Kipler or Jordan’s squads. Or, more likely, catch up with Radout. Maybe they could find that hippie, find out what had happened on Galveston, and get back there to help.
If there’s anything or anyone left who needs help.
They passed the afternoon in relative silence, with only radio checks and updates to Mercer breaking the monotony. Parsons tried to raise Kipler and Jordan every hour, but got nothing. If Jed had known the apocalypse was going to be so much like the war in Iraq, he might have stuck it out instead of forcing his leaders to chapter him for bad conduct.
Keoh’s radio stopped working around 1730, and her leg started bothering her around the same time.
“Haven’t been on my feet this long since Crucible,” she said.
“I can get the battery. You stay here with Garza and them.”
Keoh wasn’t having it. She’d never been one to let her injury result in specia
l treatment, and she wasn’t about to start now.
“I’ll race you, Sergeant,” she said, moving out at a slow jog.
Jed joined her, enjoying the momentary challenge after the shit day they’d had. They got the battery and were back on the fence line just as daylight faded into dusk. The forest now had extra shadows, and Jed had to force himself to stare into the growing dark to convince himself nothing would happen.
“Almost done, y’all,” Jed called to his people as all three teams met near the tower. They had maybe five minutes before their shift ended, and he’d already seen Mercer’s relief teams coming up the street. They’d just passed the burned house with the Jamaican flag.
A gunshot split the air behind him and Jed whirled around to see Garza slapping Parsons’s shoulder, then grabbing his body armor and hauling him around.
“Fucking boot! What’re you shooting at? There’s nothing out there!”
“Garza!” Jed hollered. “Chill out. Parsons, what the fuck? Did you see something? Unless it’s about to kill you, get confirmation before you shoot.”
“Oorah, Sergeant. Thought it was a sucker face. In that tree there.”
He pointed at a thick tree with gnarled limbs sprawling and twisting in every direction, like some wild tentacle beast standing in the middle of the woods.
Jed climbed onto the platform and got between Garza and Parsons. “Let me see,” he said, lifting the binos they’d been using. He scanned the woods, checking every shadow, every shape, until he was certain nothing was out there. He gave the binos to Parsons and was about to remind the kid to maintain better weapon discipline when the forest erupted with birds taking flight. Hundreds of them, small and large, burst from the trees and scattered, cawing and chirping like mad.
A low growling came from the tree line. Jed checked his people. They’d all heard it.
“Back to the street. Move back,” he ordered, pushing Parsons toward the ladder. He let the private get down first, then followed, jumping down the last few feet to the ground.
Jed thought about calling in to Mercer, but he didn’t have a visual to report. If it turned out to be an animal, he’d be killing their chances at getting released from duty in the neighborhood. Even with just a few minutes in the guy’s presence, Jed knew that Mercer was the kind of officer who’d pile on the work for even the smallest fuck up. Still, if he was right about the threat…
“Somebody, let Mercer know what’s up. Tell him we got possible contacts out here.”
“On it,” Mehta said. He relayed the message, then said, “Relief team’s coming up the street, Sergeant.”
Jed forced himself to look away from the fence line and glanced over his shoulder. Mercer’s teams were at the end of the street now, watching Jed’s squad and talking together. One of them stepped forward and called out to Jed.
“Does your guy need some remedial? What’s up with the ND we heard?”
The other guards laughed and Jed was about to flip them the finger when Keoh’s startled voice stopped him dead.
“Sergeant Welch!”
He spun to see her taking aim at something. She hadn’t fired yet. McKitrick and Mehta had their weapons up a few paces away and were scanning the forest for movement. Even Parsons was squared away this time. Garza stepped forward, to be in line with Keoh. Jed joined them and they each covered a zone of fire beyond the wire. They all stood about ten yards from the fence but, in the gathering dark, the forest kept its secrets wrapped up tight.
“Anybody got movement?” Jed asked. Nobody confirmed, so he ordered them all to fall back and make room for their relief.
“False alarm?” one of Mercer’s guards said as the teams approached.
Jed didn’t answer, just gave the guy an eye full of attitude for his trouble.
Something slammed into the fence and rebounded into the tree line. Parsons was jittery as fuck, shaking where he stood. Jed put a hand on the kid’s shoulder.
“Easy, Parsons. Eyes on your zone, and wait for contact before you fire.”
“R—rah, Sergeant.”
Keoh shouted again, and fired. Garza opened up with a burst, too.
“You got contact?” Jed yelled at them. “What’re you shooting at?”
He could hear Mercer’s guards readying their weapons behind him. Soon enough they were in line with Jed’s squad, moving out to either side in two-man teams. Altogether they had a dozen weapons aimed at the tree line.
One of Mercer’s men stepped forward, closer to the ladder for the guard tower.
“I see something moving out there,” he said.
Another of Mercer’s people moved up to join the first man.
The forest exploded with movement. Dark shapes flung themselves forward, crashing into the fence. Others launched from the lower branches of trees, and came streaking into the safety of the wire. Everyone fired, sending rounds into the onrushing horde, but Jed saw the futility of trying to hold their ground.
“Fall back! Back! Everyone move!” he yelled as he fired at the forms emerging from the woods in a steady flood. Small crumpled bodies mounded on the soil beside the guard tower and at the base of the fence. But even more got through, and Mercer’s men near the tower disappeared under a swarm of snarling, spitting beasts.
Jed’s squad back-pedaled fast, firing as they moved. Garza and Mehta had joined two of Mercer’s men and moved in tandem, running and covering as they went.
They reached the street, and Jed counted his people as the bullets flew down range.
Keoh and McKitrick had teamed up. Jed had Parsons with him; Garza and Mehta were still with Mercer’s guys. He couldn’t see the other sailors, but he heard their screams from near the fence line.
As one, Jed’s squad and the remains of Mercer’s watch teams made a retreat into the neighborhood, passing the burned house, then the house with the crackhead standing out front, still wearing his sunglasses and leaning against the wall like he was watching a parade.
“I told you. It’s cool here,” he said. Jed couldn’t believe it. The guy lifted a hand to his mouth and popped something in, like a piece of candy.
“Get inside! Shelter in place!” Jed yelled. If the junkie heard him, he didn’t show it. He just stood there grinning like an idiot. A small dark shape separated from the entrance to the house and moved toward him. Jed pivoted to shoot, but the shape turned out to be a dog that sat behind the guy in the shadows. He leaned down and said something to the animal, then they both went back into the house. Jed watched them go, trying to get a better look at the dog. It moved with a weird hop, like it was missing a leg.
Gunfire erupted from behind them and off to both sides, and Jed gave up on the crackhead to lay down covering fire with Garza. Keoh led the other members of the squad, bounding from cover to cover and putting more distance between them and the skittering monsters that darted around the street.
Shouting mixed with the rattle and pop of small arms in every direction. Screams filled the air, and the two men from Mercer’s guard turned and ran.
Jed yelled for his people as he turned to follow. “Hellhounds, rally at the supply point!”
Dark shapes sprang up on rooftops to his left. They crawled forward in groups of four or five.
“Rooftops! Take ’em down!” he yelled.
They fired in teams, focusing on their zones to cover their retreat. One by one, the small creatures slid off the roofs in lifeless heaps. But more shadowy figures appeared right behind them, only to spring down to the ground and stalk forward like a pack of hunting wolves.
The things weren’t any bigger than dogs, but Jed couldn’t get a good look at them to tell exactly what they were. The screams that echoed around the neighborhood told him enough, though.
Keoh had been right. The Variants had returned, and they’d evolved again.
Jed and his squad ran in two-person teams, shooting down clusters of the small monsters as they leaped from rooftops or sprang around the side of houses. The squad leapfrogged to tr
ash and debris piles, moving fast and only pausing to provide covering fire. They reached the corner and saw Mercer’s guards up ahead, firing at shadowy figures that had climbed on top of a house. They kept shooting even as a small swarm of the monsters crawled onto a roof across the street. Jed yelled for the men to turn around.
He fired at the monsters, but the dim light and their speed made it impossible to hit them at this distance. By the time the sailors noticed them, the monsters were already on their backs and bringing them to the ground. The men screamed and thrashed, and then went still as the beasts fed on them.
“The fuck are those things?” Mehta shrieked as he shot at them.
“Variants!” Keoh said. She fired at a cluster of them charging across a lawn in her direction. “I knew it! They’re back!”
Jed ordered them all to keep moving. The supply point was at the end of the next block. He had no idea what kind of munitions Mercer had there, but the house and garage were intact. They would provide shelter and equipment.
He and Parsons directed their fire at groups of the monsters coming at them. Garza and McKitrick took out another bunch when they were still a few yards away. Jed couldn’t see any other movement after that, but screams and gunfire continued to echo around them. In just a few minutes, the whole neighborhood had gone hot. The things had to be coming in from every direction.
We may not have a way out of this.
The sun lowered to the bottom of the sky, and darkness crept in around them.
A vicious howl and guttural snarl froze them all in their tracks. The rooftops around them sprouted more dark shapes, crouched and stalking toward the eaves.
A larger shape emerged from the shadows behind them, at the corner they’d just turned. It separated from a pack of the smaller monsters and pushed its way through the growing ranks of the beasts on the street. Jed didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. It was a Variant, a human one with a sucker face, claws, and clicking joints. The monster wore the tattered shreds of a tee-shirt. Jed couldn’t see much more in the near darkness around them.
