They’re looking at the other end of the room.
I’m smelling cinnamon.
Strong.
The other end of the room has thick glass, waist high, going up to the concrete and steel ceiling, and behind the glass, a shape is moving, unwinding, stretching, now turning and looking at us—
I think Serena screams.
I know I do.
I want to run, I want to hide in the corner, I want those two Air Force men to start shooting—now!—for behind the thick glass is a Creeper, out of its exoskeleton, alive in all of its horrible shape and colors, and the twin eyestalks seem to be staring right at me.
An Excerpt from the Journal of Randall Knox
Funny story, I know, but it’s true that it took a number of years before I saw a live Creeper out in the open, on the move. In fact, most civilians have never seen a Creeper, unless they’re in an area where they operate, or happen to have the bad luck to be in a place that gets a Creeper’s attention, like a wheat field, or some group trying to start up an unshielded electrical generator, or flying in a restored civilian aircraft.
But millions had died because of what the Creepers had done in the first weeks of the war, and they became the Fifth Horsemen of the Apocalypse, skittering along the landscape, burning or lasing anything in their path or that caught their attention. For me as a young boy, the first few years after the war started, I thought of them as some terrible species of monster that had killed my mom and sister, made everything cold and wet, kept me hungry most of the time, and also made Dad cry (and only when he thought I didn’t see him).
A year after the war I joined the Cub Scouts. When I was ten, I joined the Boy Scouts, and left them at twelve to join the Army, or the N.H. National Guard, which was of course attached to the regular Army. Basic was at an old Boy Scout camp near the White Mountains, and the truth was, I loved it. We were relatively well-fed, our instructors were tough but fair, and it was like an extended Boy Scout Jamboree, except for the classes on military science, weaponry, and the Creepers. There were lots of photos of Creepers, and about then is when the classification of the aliens was becoming known. All of them were armed but they had some differences. Battle Creepers were always the shock troops that led an assault. The Research Creeper was one that spent time examining the battlefield, our weapons, our housing, and humans, both dead and alive. (Rumors of what happened to prisoners were popular stories in the barracks at night, like ghost stories of old around the campfire). And there were the Transport Creepers, which had a large bin-like structure in which they’d dump stuff for later examination, like old computers, books, bones, and whatever.
There were plenty of photos of Creepers in action, as well as some old motion pictures in black and white of them in battle, mostly winning.
When I was done with Basic, I was sent to the First Battalion of the N.H. National Guard, “Bulldog” Company, which was a mix of regular Army, reserve Army and the National Guard. At the time we were still losing, and losing badly, but we were still fighting. The M-10 and its deadly gas cartridge were still a couple of years from being developed and reaching the battlefield.
After some more training, I was assigned to the First Platoon, and was coupled with a Corporal Belinda Garcia, a chubby woman in her forties who had rejoined the Army after that October 10th—10/10, NEVER AGAIN was painted on walls and vehicles everywhere—and she helped guide me through the training and use of the M-4, still the standard infantry rifle.
But the training would eventually end, and one early Sunday morning, it did. We were woken up by bells ringing, were dumped into the backs of horse-drawn wagons, and taken out to a rural town to the west called Warner, which was near the practically abandoned Interstate 89. A Research Creeper had been spotted coming down the highway, and we were going to do our best to stop it.
We were set up in foxholes, stretching from one side of the highway to the other, and the Captain swore and got our wagons to work, dragging off abandoned cars and trucks still in the middle of the road, stopped dead in their tracks six years earlier when the NUDETs had struck, wanting to open up clear fields of fire.
Then I was with Corporal Garcia, both of us breathing hard, M-4s in our hands. We looked to the northwest, where the Creeper was supposedly coming from. A blue flare rocketed up into the cloudy sky, beyond the trees and low hills.
“Here it comes,” Garcia whispered.
“Okay.”
And as she did a lot during our time together, she gently slapped the top of my helmet. “Hang in there, sport. You’ll do fine. Just follow my lead, all right?”
“Yes, Corporal,” I said.
The Captain, keeping low, ran from foxhole to foxhole, checking us out, and then a white flare came up.
“Real close now!” the Captain yelled. “Fire on my command, and not a moment earlier!”
The Captain went back to where two pickup trucks—a Ford and a Chevy—had been overturned, and which he was using as his CP.
A slap to the head.
“Eyes forward, sport. Not to the CP.”
“Yes, Corporal.”
My mouth was dry and my hands were shaking, but I felt good, being next to Corporal Garcia. She was from Lowell in Massachusetts and I said, “Corporal?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you do in the Army…I mean, before you reupped?”
She smiled. “Oh, I was real important, sport. Real important. I was in the Finance Corps, making sure everybody got paid on time. Army wouldn’t run except for me and my buds.”
A shout from the other side of the empty highway. “Here it comes!”
A bright red flare shot up, so close I could see the sparks flying out, and then the Creeper appeared from behind a stalled tractor trailer truck. Some brave soul tossed a smoke grenade in its direction, and there was a billowing cloud of orange, a flare of laser fire from the Creeper’s right segmented arm—probably torching the soldier who had tossed the grenade—and another yell, “Incoming!”
Garcia tugged me down and I curled up in the bottom of the foxhole, as the sound of incoming rounds whistled overhead. There were three quick explosions—81 mm mortar fire from a squad up on one of the near hills, firing at the orange smoke—and then we came back up.
A bullhorn up to the mouth of the Captain, and “Fire, fire, fire!”
Our M-4s fired, single shots, all aiming as best as we could to the approaching Creeper, which had emerged from the haze and smoke from the mortar rounds. Three mortar rounds were all that we could spare, and there was no expectation that it was going to kill or hurt the Creeper. Our only hope was to slow it down, and slow it down we did.
The Creeper fired back, using flames from its two arms, lighting some of the cars and trucks.
I should have been scared, terrified, or frozen in fear as the Creeper approached, but I felt powerful, energized.
Pow.
Pow.
Pow.
Each shot from my M-4 echoed out, the recoil jolting my shoulder some, and I knew I was aiming right at the center arthropod, and I knew each round was bouncing off its armor, but I felt great.
I was fighting back.
I was avenging my dead mother, my dead sister, the millions of others, the drowned cities, the dead power lines, dead computers, and everything else.
I emptied my magazine, popped it out, inserted a new one, snapped the action back, kept up the fire. So did Garcia. So did everyone else in our depleted company.
But the Creeper kept on moving, right towards our line of foxholes.
I clenched my teeth, recalled my training, and kept on firing, even though my legs were shaking and part of me felt like dropping my M-4 and running into the woods.
The Creeper got larger in my view. The stench of cinnamon was strong, and the air was hot where the fire poured out of its claws.
Click-click, click-click, click-click noises became louder as the Creeper got closer and closer.
A heavier, deeper POW!
> Followed by another shot.
And another shot.
The Creeper halted, paused.
Our outgoing fire dribbled off, even though no one had ordered us to do so.
We waited.
The Creeper was stock-still, not moving.
The wind shifted, and an incredible stench came our way, and there were hoots, hollers and some applause. From a near foxhole a two-person sniper crew emerged, a brother and sister team, the brother being the spotter, the sister being the shooter. She had long blonde hair, and waved, and made an exaggerated bow, her bolt-action rifle with telescopic sight in one hand. More cheers. She was an accomplished youth shooter training for an upcoming (and of course cancelled) Olympic games, and was using the only offensive weapon we had at the time: shooters with perfect aim, rock-steady nerves, and firing a depleted uranium round that could penetrate the segmented armor and kill the Creeper inside.
I took a deep breath. Garcia tapped the top of my helmet.
“Your first engagement, sport,” she said. “What do you think?”
I waited, and then said, “I loved it. I want to kill them all.”
Garcia’s smile got even wider. “Welcome to the war, Private.”
I would be thirteen in four months.
Chapter Nineteen
With the Creeper full in my view, I fall back against the closed armored door, my hand going to my holstered Beretta, and part of me thinks, that won’t work against a Creeper, and another part of me thinks louder, the damn thing is unarmored. It’s out in the open! It should be easy to kill!
Dad’s voice cuts through the chatter. “Randy! Stand down! Randy! Stand down! It’s all under control.”
I shudder, take a breath, feel like throwing up. Serena’s twisted to the right, and she’s not feeling like puking, she’s actually doing it. Buddy stands and stares at the thick glass, looking fascinated.
“Randy!”
I take a deep breath, not wanting to smell cinnamon, not wanting to smell what’s just come out of Serena, who’s shaking next to me. I put my arm around her, pull her in tight. “Right here, Colonel.”
Dad says, “There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing. That Creeper is out of its exoskeleton, it’s behind this armored glass, and it can’t hurt you, or anyone else here.”
Serena coughs. “Bullshit. It’s evil. It…Randy, kill it. Can you kill it?”
Laughton says, “Shut up. Do you know how few prisoners we have, after ten years of this goddamn war?”
It sounds childish but having Dad standing nearby, not panicking, looking calm and collected, well, it helps. I squeeze Serena’s shoulder again. “It’s all right. I’m right here. It’s all right.”
Paternoster mutters and goes to a metal cabinet, comes out with a bucket and rags, and cleans up Serena’s mess. The Special Forces guys don’t pay any attention to us. They keep their eyes forward, on the Creeper. They’re sitting in comfortable chairs, with small desk and a Thermos jug in front of them, and their own modified Colt M-10s.
It looks like comfortable duty, being out of the rain and wind and snow, their sole job being to kill this Creeper if something goes wrong, and despite all that I wouldn’t be them for anything, for they have to spend a shift, being in the close company of…this thing.
I’ve seen plenty of after-action photos, drawings, and a couple of jerky movie films that show the Creepers once they’ve been dragged out of a damaged exoskeleton. After they die, they usually decompose quickly in a stomach-churning process that leaves a puddle of slime behind. It’s rare to capture a Creeper. So very rare.
And here’s one, right in front of me.
Paternoster is still cleaning and I clench my teeth, take a step forward. Dad is talking to Laughton, and I catch parts of their conversation as I force myself to stare at the imprisoned Creeper.
“…this one looks bigger than Harriet…”
“…that’s because she is. This one is Margaret…”
Dad says, “What the hell happened to Harriet?”
“…died. Don’t know why…”
“…where did Margaret come from?”
Laughton says, “…up near Churchill, around Hudson Bay. Canadian Special Operations Regiment grabbed her and transported her to us…”
I stand there and stare, even though somewhere in the reptile part of my brain, I so want to look away, or take my pistol out and start firing, or try to get the hell out of this room.
Even out of its exoskeleton, the Creeper maintains the same kind of shape, with an articulated body, six limbs, and a main head that has two eyestalks, and it looks like the eyes can move about, giving it a 360-degree field of vision. The four lower limbs serve as legs—which I’ve learned both in my regular classroom and the Army’s classroom—and its two upper limbs have a complex arrangement of claws.
It’s resting on some sort of plant growth, mixed in with blankets or something similar. The blankets and pillows in one area have been shredded, to make some sort of nest.
The eyes rotate, blink, seem to stare at me.
“Can…can it see me?” I ask.
Paternoster gets up from his cleaning. “Barely. The armor glass is mostly one way. It can make out shapes, and that’s about it.”
I step closer. The eyes have wide dilation, and the light behind the glass is dim. Something happens and a wet mist descends upon the scene, and then it’s gone. The Creeper stretches and moves, like it needed that little burst of moisture.
“What does it eat?”
Paternoster is next to me. “Good question, kid. We’ve removed what we think are ration packages from destroyed exoskeletons and pass it through an airlock. But we try to be careful. About four years ago, when we first captured a couple of Creepers, we gave one of them something we thought was a food package. Turned out to be a hand weapon. Destroyed half the base before it got killed.”
“Major?” I ask.
“Yes?” he replies.
I step closer again. “I’m no goddamn kid. I’m a sergeant in the United States Army. Please remember that.”
He steps away and now my vision is full of the Creeper, and while my heart is thumping along and my palms are sweaty, and sometimes I take a quick look to make sure the Air Force Special Ops guys are still looking this way, I’m so very proud that I can stand here, so close, without losing it.
The Creeper moves again, like it’s adjusting itself for comfort.
And I blurt out, “Why are you here?”
Nobody and nothing answers, of course, and I step even closer, raise my voice. “Why are you here?”
Then, ashamed, I do lose it.
I’m pounding on the glass with my right first, thinking of Mom, my sister Melissa, all the dead from all the years, all the drowned cities, all of my buddies burned, crippled or killed, and even my own close calls.
“Why are you here? Hunh? Answer me, damn it, why the goddamn hell are you here!”
Dad is by me, murmuring something, and I shrug him off, keep at it, hitting the glass with a fist with each shouted sentence. “You assholes! You fuckers! Why the hell are you here? What did we ever do to you? Why do you torture us, year after year? You’ve got the technology, why the hell didn’t you kill us all, right from the start?”
Dad grabs me with his two hands, pulls me back. “She can’t hear you, Randy, honest. She can’t. And we’ve tried talking to them before, with those very same questions, and we’ve never been able to understand what they’re saying. It’s like they’re answering in puzzles…in poems.”
I whirl around, point to Buddy. “Then let’s use him! That’s why you brought us here, right? None of this crap about feeding or fueling up Kara’s Killers. You wanted us here so you could use Buddy to talk to the Creeper.”
Dad doesn’t hesitate. “That’s right. After the raid on the barn, after that PsyOps Humvee broadcasted the wrong message, I wanted to see if…if we could still talk to the Creepers.” He points to the thick glass. “But…this isn’t the o
ne we’ve spoken to in the past. This one is different.”
“So what?”
Dad says, “We don’t know why…it may be because of their class, or caste system, or something else we can’t figure out, but sometimes when we communicate with a Creeper, we think we’re talking to a representative from the entire invasion force. And sometimes, it’s just a foot soldier.”
I walk back and grab Buddy’s hand. “Then let’s do it. Right now. Let’s find out what Margaret is all about.”
Buddy walks back with me and Serena joins in, and there’s a babble of conversation among Dad, Laughton, and Paternoster, about what the hell I’m doing, this is not following the protocol, this isn’t the way things should be done.
I stop before the glass, let out a whistle, and say, “Not following protocol? Really? Where is it in your precious protocol that says this war should have happened, that guys and girls my age are in the front lines, getting scorched and barbecued, and for what?”
Laughton says, “Sergeant, you are way out of line, and I’m getting you out of here, now.”
I put my hand on my holster. “Sorry, I kind of like it here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Paternoster says, “Don’t be dumb, kid. There are two airmen in here that’ll tear you to pieces if they have to. Get the hell out.”
I put my arm around Buddy. Not fair, but I don’t care. “Go ahead. Try it. And tell me if you’re going to risk injuring your only chance to talk to the Creepers in the process. How’s that for protocol? And if you call me kid one more time, I swear to God I’ll shoot you. Just try me.”
Laughton turns to Dad. “Colonel Knox! Get your son under control. We can’t have a circus here. We have to proceed in a logical, scientific and measured response so that we can—”
“So that we can do what?” Dad says, going to a corner of the room, near one of the Airman Special Ops desks. There’s a cabinet there with a combination lock and Dad starts spinning the dial. “Putter around here and try to build up a grammar that makes sense, while waiting until the Creeper we’re communicating with eventually dies?”
Red Vengeance Page 20
