“You’ll keep us safe.”
“I’d do my best, Specialist, but appearances to the contrary, I’m a sixteen-year-old sergeant in the New Hampshire National Guard, attached to the Army’s 26th Division. I ain’t Superman, and Thor certainly isn’t Superdog.”
“Then why not stay here?”
I finish off my sandwich, knowing I’m not that hungry, but believing food should never be taken for granted. It’s one of my mottoes, and I wrap up a sandwich and shove it in my pocket. “Because Captain Wallace needs me. I’m a platoon leader. They’re pretty thinned out as it is. If I leave with Thor, I’m putting them at risk…I can’t do it. I can’t.”
Serena says, “I don’t care about the platoon, or those soldiers, or the Air Force. Right now I don’t care much about people and this country, if people like Hoyt Cranston and General Scopes are running things. My mom is somewhere out West, doing work for the Department of Agriculture. I haven’t heard from her in months. She doesn’t know Dad is dead. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Serena, look—”
She rolls right over me without hesitation. “Dad found out what was happening. He helped us escape from the base. We were at a dirt access road of some kind, at a gate. Lights came on as we went through the gate. Me and Buddy ran and ran…there was shooting…Dad crumpled up.”
Tears are silently running down her cheeks. “I won’t help them. I won’t.”
I wipe my fingers on the cloth napkin—cloth!—and say, “Then help me. Help anyone else you know. And help your mom, wherever she is, by doing the very best to end this war.”
“Randy…”
“Specialist, follow your orders.”
She turns away, wipes again at Buddy’s chin, although there’s nothing there to see. There are voices out in the hallway, and I get up to see what’s what. Captain Wallace is there, along with her friend from the Air Force, Mark, the one with the white coat and captain’s bars, who used to work with computers before the war. Wallace goes into the office with Dad and Colonel Laughton, and Mark says something I can’t make out to Wallace, and turns to leave and goes down the corridor.
I follow him and call out, “Captain! Sir! Captain!”
He turns, smiling, and tilts his head. “Sorry, Sergeant, do I know you?”
“No, sir, you don’t,” I say. “But you know my C.O., Captain Wallace.”
“Kara…yes, Captain Wallace. We were neighbors once, back…back then.”
I press on, not wanting to have Wallace come out and see what I’m up to. “I just wanted to check on something, if I may, Captain.”
He glances at his watch. “If you make it quick, go ahead.”
“Captain Wallace. You were neighbors. Was she in the Army?”
He laughs. “Oh, hell, no. Her husband, David. He was the soldier in the family.”
I recall what I had overheard earlier. “Kabul, right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he says. “So sad. Things were falling apart in Afghanistan and his brigade was dispatched that August. Two months later the Creepers struck. And nobody’s heard a word from them since.”
“But Captain Wallace…If she wasn’t in the Army then, what did she do?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.”
He looks at his watch. “Damn, look at the time. Gotta run.”
The captain resumes his quick pace down the hallway and turns back. “Oh, yes. You asked what she did before the Creepers got here. She was a kindergarten teacher.”
* * *
I go back up the hallway, and Serena’s still in with Buddy, talking low to him, and the door to the other office is still open, with Dad, Wallace and Laughton. An airman comes out of the office, pushing by me, and his face is troubled. I hang out by the doorway. Laughton is reading a dispatch, and then tosses it on the small table before him.
“That’s that,” he says. “We got Creepers on the move, heading down Route 50, and coming along west on I-90 and Route 5.” He gets up from his chair and lets his finger slide along a wall map. “Never had them move in unison like this, but what’s clear, is they’re heading this way.”
Dad gets up, looks at the map as well. “Either they’re coming to Schenectady, or they’re coming for you, Phil.”
Laughton says, “I don’t think the Creepers mind trains. But they do mind us…if they know we’re here.” He turns to Wallace. “No offense, Captain, but you and your soldiers have tipped them off.”
“No offense taken,” she says. “We’ll saddle up and get the hell out, as quick as we can. Thanks for the grub and the fuel.”
“Where will you go?” Laughton asks.
She steps around him and peers at the map. “If your intelligence is right, then we still can’t get back to Battalion. We’ll have to go east, maybe loop around, head up to the Adirondack parks, maybe go to ground until the Creepers get bored.”
I say, “They’re not bored. They’re after the company, Captain Wallace.”
“Maybe so,” she says, stepping back from the map, picking up her helmet. “But we’re going to give them a run. Unless you want us to stay, put up a fight here.”
Laughton shakes his head. “Captain, this installation. We have a lot going on. A lot of important work.”
“I know,” she says.
“We can’t afford to resist. We’ve survived so far because the Creepers don’t know we exist. But if you stay and fight, that will all change. The bugs are used to fighting underground. They’ll break in and scorch us all.”
“I heard you twice, Colonel Laughton. We’ll be going.”
“Captain Wallace, if I may,” I ask.
“What is it, Knox?”
“With all due respect to Colonel Laughton, this base may already have been compromised. We should take Specialist Coulson and her brother with us, bring them to someplace more safe, even if it’s the Adirondacks, or Battalion headquarters.”
Dad says, “Phil?”
He slowly nods. “I don’t like it. I really don’t like it. I’d love to keep you, Serena and her brother here. We could make a lot of progress over the next few months, all of us…but not if this base gets scorched, inside and out.”
A knock on the side of the door, and another airman steps in, passes along a light yellow message flimsy. Laughton gives it a glance, barks out a short laugh. “Well, Henry, I think this settles it. A message from the Acting Secretary of Defense, to units in this military district, to place you, your son, and the Coulson sister and brother immediately under arrest.”
A long cold pause in the office. Laughton crumples up the message flimsy, tosses it in a wastebasket, where it bounces off the rim and drops right in.
Laughton says, “Get the hell out, all of you.”
Dad steps forward, shakes his hand, grabs a shoulder. “You be safe.”
Laughton smiles. “Damn aliens think they’ve had the Air Force beat for ten years. Time for them to get ready for a nice big fucking surprise.”
* * *
By the time we ride up in the elevator and step out, there’s the grumble of diesel engines in the damaged hangar, and the stench of exhaust. Serena and Buddy follow Wallace and Dad to the command Humvee, and she gives me a look and I quickly take her into my arms, give her a kiss, and then run across the concrete. Probably broke about a half-dozen regulations and I don’t give a shit.
My platoon is in the truck, and Thor puts his front paws on the side, starts barking. Now I know why he had been scraping at the concrete floor earlier. Damn fine boy, he knew there was a Creeper in the vicinity. He just knew. I’m helped up on the rear of the truck and meet up with my guys and girls. They have fresh uniforms, bright and freshly washed faces, and Balatnic says, “No offense, Sergeant, you stink.”
I grab my M-10, make sure my battlepack is under my feet. “Glad you guys had a chance to shower up. Guess I ran out of time.”
Bronson says, “Looks like you had time for something else,” and there’s some laug
hter with that, and I don’t care.
The truck starts to back up. De Los Santos comes back to me, holding something wrapped in paper. “We heard you got us showers, Sergeant. A couple of guys did some snooping in this base and got this for you.”
I tear at the paper, revealing a translucent plastic bag. I carefully tear open the bag and bring the object out.
A brand new Firebiter vest, still in its original packaging from the surviving DuPont plant in Cooper River, South Carolina. My platoon is grinning at me, including the normally sour-looking Sergeant Bronson. I undo the Velcro straps and buckles, take off the old and worn protective vest, slide it on. The old vest I dump on the floor of the truck, and I plan to give it back to the Quartermaster as soon as I can.
The vest feels good, but more importantly, it smells good.
“Thanks guys,” I say. “I hope it stays nice and clean for a long time to come.”
A couple of hoots about that, and our truck grumbles out onto the shattered remains of this air base, where a steady rain is falling, and just as quick as that, we’re back in the war.
Chapter Twenty-One
We exit the air base in small, manageable groups, trying to puzzle whatever killer stealth satellites might be going overhead. Two groups of Humvees and a lead Stryker race down the cracked and disused runway, and our platoon truck—joined by an up-armored Humvee—goes back the way we came, through the main gate, and we circle around. The rain is coming down harder and most civilians have gone under shelter. As we roll, to the south is Schenectady and its smokestacks, belching out thick black clouds of smoke as the city goes back to its roots of building railroad engines and cars. There’s a heavy jolt and Sully, the older soldier, bumps into me and says, “Sorry about that, Sarge.”
“No worries.”
He peers through the rain, notes the city back there, and says, “When I was younger, I belonged to all those fancy environmental groups, you know? Greenpeace. The Nature Conservancy. World Wildlife Fund.”
I truly don’t know those names but I just grunt in acknowledgment, and Sully says, “Back in the day, those smokestacks would have drawn thousands of protesters, to stop the pollution, stop destroying the planet. Now, there are thousands hoping to get a job in those stinking, polluting and dangerous factories, so they can make money to feed their families. Funny thing about those damn bugs, once they got here, they put a lot of things into focus.”
“They sure did.”
I don’t know where we’re going—just a general idea of getting ahead of the maneuvering Creepers and heading up to the mountains and forests of the Adirondacks—but it’s rough traveling. States like New York and others, barely recovering ten years into the war, only have funds, equipment and personnel to do some maintenance work on the major federal and state highways. Since we know there are three sets of Creepers coming this way along those highways, it means we’re on city or state roads, which by now have broken up into jagged chunks of asphalt, or stretches of dirt and gravel, with lots and lots of bridges.
It’s rough, muddy, and slow, and the rain is heavier as we proceed to the northwest, going along two-lane roads where the trees brush by the side. Having gone ten years without being trimmed, they whip and snap against the side of our truck. Without canvas overhead, it’s wet indeed, but all of us know there are Creepers out there, and having a canvas roof might keep us dry, dry enough for us to quickly burst into flames if we’re ambushed.
Not a good trade.
After an hour of heavy and muddy traveling, we take a break at an old Walmart Supercenter on Route 30, just north of Amsterdam. The store had been looted and emptied years ago, but the roof is still in pretty good shape, and we maneuver through the shattered store entrance, bringing our vehicles under cover, passing a fluttering strand of yellow tape. Two other trucks and a Stryker are parked in the store as well. It’s good to get out of the rain and meet up with other soldiers of the company, and stoves are lit off. I get down off the truck with Thor, M-10 over my shoulder. It’s dark and gloomy in the store, with empty spaces stretching out in every direction, wires and cables dangling from the crumbling ceiling tiles.
I walk across broken glass to the wide entrance, note the yellow tape that had just been broken by our entrance. It’s bright yellow with black letters: NO TRESPASSING.
There are also two signs hanging from the tape, and I pick one up, and in the gloom, manage to puzzle out the lettering:
THIS PROPERTY STILL UNDER THE OWNERSHIP OF
THE WALMART CORPORATION BENTONVILLE AR.
NO TRESPASSING. POLICE TAKE NOTICE.
I drop the sign to the dirty tile floor. If and when the police do show up, I’m sure Captain Wallace will apologize.
* * *
Fortified by a cup of coffee, I see Wallace at the other end of the store, and First Sergeant Hesketh catches my attention. I go over, past some destroyed cash registers, followed by Thor, and Wallace goes into an open door, followed by Hesketh and the other two platoon leaders. It’s a narrow corridor with a dead electrical sign overhead that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. It’s clammy and cool inside, and then there’s a concrete and metal staircase, going up. I follow the clanging noises of everyone’s footfall, and a door opens up and we’re on the roof of the building.
It’s still raining, but the clouds are high enough to give us a good 360-degree view. All around us are the dead stores of a past life, a past world. Hannaford and Price Chopper supermarkets. Home Depot and Lowe’s. Target and Panera. All just empty shells now, looted and burned and ransacked. Nine or ten years ago, places like this weren’t calm anywhere in the country, not at all. I imagine what it must have been like here. The power’s been out for days. What radio stations that are on the air are talking about…aliens? For real? Tidal waves and nuclear bombs in the upper atmosphere? Familiar roads are filled with refugees from cities hundreds of miles away, talking about the terrible things they’ve seen, but they’re stripping local stores of gasoline, food, bottled water, medicine.
The stores, running on generators, are crowded. There are fistfights. Shouts. A gunshot or two.
Then these stores and this way of life instantly get kicked back to the life of hundreds of years ago, when the strong and well-armed took what they wanted.
I get the oddest feeling that has struck me in the past, of despair of today’s world, and a melancholy sadness about the world left behind. A funny thought comes to mind. If anybody was still out there giving symbolic names—Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, the Millenials—I guess me and everyone else about my age would be called the Straddlers, straddling two ways of life, two battered civilizations.
I rub Thor’s head. “Some things are still constant, right?” and my boy licks my hand, and I walk over to join Wallace, Hesketh, and Lieutenants Morneau and Jackson.
* * *
Everyone’s looking to the south, and Wallace has a pair of binoculars up to her face. I huddle up and look at the roads below us. A few horses, a number of bicycles, three horse-drawn wagons, and two pickup trucks and a red four-door car, all with precomputer engines.
A flicker of light catches my eye. There. Off to the south again. Flickers of light, illuminating and reflecting the bottom of the rainclouds.
“First Sergeant,” Wallace says. “Compass and map, if you please.”
He silently hands the items over. She works the compass and map, and I note she’s trying to determine where the flashes of light are coming from. They seem to grow in intensity, and then she looks up and says quietly, “Well, that tears it. The Creepers have changed their approach since we left the air base. It looks like they’re coming up Route 30, right there…and it looks like they’ve reversed direction on Route 5.”
“The chase is on,” Lieutenant Morneau murmurs.
She brings up her binoculars again and once more says, “What is it with you bugs? All these years fighting you and now you’re pissed off and dogging me? What, you didn’t like that eat shit insult back there? S
till holding a grudge?”
The chase, I think. There’s more than just a chase going on out there. With every flash of light we see, it means the Creepers are burning and lasing whatever’s in their way. People are being scorched, buildings are being destroyed, all while the Creepers continue their hunt for Kara’s Killers.
Lieutenant Jackson says one simple yet very heavy word: “Reinforcements?”
“Dispatch riders have been sent out,” Wallace says, binoculars still up to her eyes. “If they can get to Battalion, if they can avoid being barbecued, a lot of ifs, then maybe we’ll get some help. Lots of ifs there, don’t you think?”
With his gravelly voice, Hesketh says, “Beggin’ the Captain’s pardon, I’d give my left nut for two operable SINCGARS systems right now, one for us, one for Battalion, so we can instantly talk to each other.”
She lowers the binoculars, and with a wry smile says, “Considering how many times you’ve said that, First Sergeant, I’m amazed you have any nuts left to sacrifice.”
Some tight smiles but no laughs. The rain is steady and so are the flickering lights down there to the south. Until I hooked up with this company, most of my experiences with Creepers were going out on raids to kill them or track them, but when those missions were done, I always had the luxury of going back to the relative safety of Fort St. Paul to rest, regroup, and just unwind, and to get ready for the next mission.
No relaxation time here, that’s for damn sure.
“Captain Wallace?” I ask.
“Go ahead Knox.”
“Ma’am, I’m sure you know the importance of my…er, Colonel Knox, along with Specialist Coulson and her brother.”
“Yes, the brother who sometimes can speak bug. The crew, including you, that I should arrest and turn over to the nearest provost marshal, if I could ever find one.”
I say, “True enough, ma’am. But their value…for the war effort, I mean. I request permission to remove them and get them out of here, to a place of safety.”
Wallace says, “Look around, Sergeant Knox. Not many places of safety out there. And it won’t do for you to be out there without protection. And if I send troops along to guard you, I’m hollowing out my already pretty damn thin company. Nope. Everyone stays along for the ride.”
Red Vengeance Page 22
