Convulsive Box Set

by Marcus Martin

  For containment purposes they were to target one of the smaller species the captain had recorded, and kill any of the larger ones that approached. They knew there was a small pack of four local to the area, and fingers weren’t straying far from triggers.

  In addition to the semi-automatic rifles, which used powder-tipped bullets, the task force all carried back-up revolvers with regular ammo inside. The sniper tower was briefed to intervene should any beast get within a ten-yard radius of the vehicle.

  The jeep sat still in the darkness, all of its lights off, its occupants relying solely on night vision and the tower’s support for visuals as they scanned the fields for signs of movement.

  Nothing.

  Beads of sweat trickled down Lucy’s forehead as they prepared to initiate the riskiest component of the mission: the luring. Unlike her previous efforts with traps and woodland bait, they didn’t have days to wait. They needed a short cut.

  The radio crackled back into life. “Commencing luring phase in three, two, one …”

  A small explosive packed with blood detonated approximately two hundred yards ahead of their position.

  “Phase two successful, over,” reported the major from the front. “Prepare for – oh shit!”

  Lucy’s eyes whipped around to the front and stared in horror as she realized what Major Lopez was seeing. Faint droplets began to shower the windscreen of the jeep.

  “Major, we need to back up, now!” cried Rangecroft.

  Lopez threw the vehicle into reverse, speeding backwards up the bumpy terrain and throwing Lucy off balance. The fall knocked her goggles askew, plunging her into the night’s darkness. For a millisecond the sky flashed bright white as a sniper bullet sped past the jeep, implanting into the body of a beast just yards away with a supersonic crack, felling the creature mid-pounce. The beast disappeared immediately, swallowed up by the darkness as the jeep screamed backwards.

  “Get your asses back here! Jesus Christ, there’s dozens of them!” cried Whitaker’s voice over the radio.

  Lucy fumbled in a panic, wrestling her goggles back onto her face just in time, sliding on the lightly bloodied metal floor. Three large figures were closing in on her side. She grabbed her rifle and pointed over the side of the truck, struggling to aim steadily as the jeep bounced. She squeezed the trigger hard, sending an array of rubber bullets into the night. One of the creatures fell away, but the other two continued to advance, rapidly closing in. Lucy fired again, trying to spread her bullets between the two. But the beasts diverged, forcing her to pick a target. She took aim at the biggest one and fired again, round after round, nothing!

  Suddenly Rangecroft appeared at her side.

  “Keep shooting!” he cried, as the two of them concentrated their fire on the closest beast, eventually bringing it to the ground. Lucy turned to her left – the third beast was launching into a final sprint, but another supersonic crack from the sniper brought it down in the nick of time.

  “Major Lopez, sir, we need to go faster!” shouted Rangecroft, returning to cover his own side and firing into the night.

  “Everybody hold on!” screamed Lopez.

  Lucy grabbed the sides of the jeep for stability. The major slammed on the handbrake and brought them skidding around one hundred and eighty degrees, immediately crunching the vehicle back into first gear and lurching forwards again, this time building speed.

  “Jesus Christ, tell them to open the ga–” cried Rangecroft, as they sped towards the sealed camp, but his voice cut off suddenly. Lucy looked around and he was gone.

  A trio of sniper bullets rang out in quick succession, disappearing into the darkness where the captain had fallen.

  “Stop the truck!” cried Lucy, as the radio crackled back into life at the exact same moment.

  “Task force, you’re a man down, repeat, man down!”

  An alarm sounded from the base and the gates began to open.

  “Fucking Christ!” shouted Lopez, spinning the vehicle around once again as more sniper fire picked out targets in the darkness.

  He threw on the jeep’s headlights and thrust the vehicle towards Rangecroft’s body, which lay strewn across the grassy roadside. Lucy pulled off her night-vision goggles as she prepared to jump. Without thinking, she leapt from the jeep as they pulled level, Jackson jumping out too. Grabbing the captain’s bloodied body they dragged him to the lip of the jeep, heaving with all their combined strength to get him on board as sniper bullets whizzed past either side of them, colliding with unseen targets.

  A second jeep roared out of the camp and onto the field, sending a barrage of rounds into the darkness as Lucy and Jackson climbed back aboard. The major spun the jeep around, pushing the pedal to the floor. They raced up the terrain towards the open entrance as the supporting vehicle provided covering fire, aided by additional snipers scrambled to the towers.

  Lucy tried to hold steady as she knelt in the back of the truck, pressing hard against the deep wound on the captain’s shoulder. Blood seeped up through long perforations in his flesh, soaking his uniform and covering Lucy’s hands. Each jolt of the vehicle caused more life to spill out from his open veins as they careered onto the concrete causeway.

  The gates closed behind them as a line of troops covered the two returning vehicles. A clean-up team was already rushing to attend to the trailing blood while snipers continued to pick off advancing creatures.

  “Keep pressing down!” yelled Jackson, as she cut the captain’s uniform open, tearing it into strips. She tied them tightly around the wound, throttling his hemorrhaging blood supply. The camp medic greeted them at the fire escape as four marines bundled Rangecroft’s body onto a stretcher, rushing him inside.

  As they took him away Lucy spotted a puncture mark at the top of the captain’s neck, and the last of her hope vanished.

  ***

  She stood beside the captain’s bed in the makeshift infirmary on the first floor, a heart-rate monitor denoting the faint flicker of life left in him. The room was a crudely adapted office into which a hospital bed and some minimal equipment had been placed. Property of General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital was stamped on the side of the bed trolley.

  Rangecroft had lost a huge amount of blood, and it wasn’t something they kept a supply of on the base. Lucy had only been allowed to visit him after she’d been thoroughly decontaminated of blood traces and her uniform had been burned. The entire base had been scrambled to assist with the urgent clean-up mission.

  The medic had cauterized Rangecroft’s wounds to stop further bleeding. It had left him just about alive but horribly scarred. Gone were the handsome, youthful features. Burned flesh now covered the great lacerations across his face, neck, and torso. Staccato gunfire sounded from outside as the sniper tower continued to repel yet more beasts being drawn to the last few droplets.

  “Are we just gonna leave him here?” asked Lucy, sensing Jackson appear next to her.

  “Nothin’ else to do,” replied Jackson, picking dirt out from under her short nails.

  Lucy nodded, and they stared at the helpless man in silence.

  “I need your help,” said Jackson, after a moment.

  “Me? How?”

  Jackson lifted up her sleeve and revealed a small puncture mark on her forearm. Lucy gasped.

  “The thing must’ve got me when we grabbed the captain,” said Jackson. “I think it was the same one that got him.” She rolled her sleeve back down without emotion. “You know about this stuff. Do something.”

  Lucy considered, fully aware that Rangecroft’s life hung by a thread because of her last untested idea.

  “Hey! Quit dicking around,” snapped Jackson. “I’m either fucked or I’m not, so do whatever. But hurry up ’cos we gotta go.”

  Lucy nodded. There was only one thing she could think of.

  “Come with me,” she replied.

  She led Jackson to Rangecroft’s cluttered office and retrieved her tub of white powder – what was left of it
, at least, after they’d coated the bullets.

  “Give me your arm,” instructed Lucy.

  Jackson held out her arm and rolled up the sleeve. The surrounding skin was already starting to look grey. Lucy took the powder and sprinkled it into the puncture until the small void was filled, then sealed over it with medical tape she’d taken from the infirmary.

  “Alright. Let’s hope that works,” said Jackson, heading for the door. “We move out in an hour. Be ready.”

  ***

  Feb 20th (est.) – It’s early evening and we’ve been on the road for almost twelve hours now. We left Cpt. Rangecroft to die. The general refused to bring him. “Too much of a risk, for too little hope,” is how he put it. I rubbed some white powder and green paste into Rangecroft’s wounds. I doubt it will work – even if it did, he’s lost so much blood I don’t think he stands a chance. We left him a loaded gun, in case he wakes up.

  General Whitaker made me Rangecroft’s replacement, which is insane, given that I’ve never served in my life and I’m neither a qualified scientist nor a medic. I just hope I don’t get more people killed. Weather’s turning. I think there’s a storm coming.

  ***

  “You gotta be shitting me,” growled Major Lopez as the thick cloud above them suddenly burst with a crack of thunder. A strong upturn in the wind sent it lashing down onto the convoy at a near-horizontal angle. “This better not be an omen,” he grumbled, flicking on the windscreen wipers at their highest setting.

  Lucy stared out of the side of the truck, absent-mindedly fondling the newly attached captain insignia on the chest of her combat uniform. The general had been adamant; with so few personnel left, she was the nearest thing to Rangecroft in terms of knowledge of the beasts. The appointment was non-optional.

  Staring out into the night’s torrential rain, she hugged her backpack and reflected on Rangecroft’s notes. He’d identified a gland within the torso that he thought secreted the D4 “enzyme” (as he’d cautiously termed it). He’d also created a table recording the correlation between the diameter of the puncture mark and the speed of the victim’s decay, along with countless sketches of body parts and different subspecies of beast.

  As the truck rumbled through the night, eighteen hours into the long journey, Lucy couldn’t sleep. They’d only stopped twice, in daylight, to resupply the vehicles using the fuel tanker. The route had been eerily quiet, and as they drove through the night, Lucy yearned for nothing more than the first streaks of dawn.

  “All stop. Repeat, all stop,” came the general’s voice on the radio.

  Lucy’s truck ground to a halt between the general’s Humvee ahead and the troop carrier behind. Theirs was second in the line of around twenty vehicles carrying troops and recently conscripted civilians to the capital. They numbered around two hundred in all and were well armed; the base had held munitions for ten times that number.

  Lucy leaned forwards to get a view of the hold-up, which was illuminated by the convoy’s headlights. They’d made it to Camp Oscar.

  But there was no welcoming committee.

  The watchtower’s spotlights shone onto the camp approach asymmetrically, throwing the torrential rain into sharp relief. The falling bands of water tracked from side to side in waves, battered by the wind.

  The radio crackled in once again.

  “Alright, listen up,” came Whitaker’s voice. “I want Humvees two, five, and six to follow me. We’re going to explore the camp. All other units are to hold their position until further notice. Be vigilant. We are in a state of maximum alert.”

  “Roger, Humvee one,” chimed Major Lopez into the radio, clicking off as the other two requested units confirmed their attendance. “Wake up, folks, everyone awake back there? It’s go time.”

  Brooks, the woman next to Lucy in the back, groaned loudly, rubbing her eyes. Lucy shivered as she peered out of the window; the storm outside was dark, and deeply uninviting.

  They pulled forwards again, slowly this time, following the general’s vehicle as it passed the unmanned towers.

  The heavy metal gate lay in a crumpled heap on the wet tar. The general’s Humvee rocked unevenly as it traversed the crushed gate, Lucy’s truck following cautiously in its wake.

  “General, I don’t like it,” said Lopez, radioing the lead truck as they advanced into the camp.

  “All units be advised,” said the general, “if this expeditionary force is attacked or compromised, you are to proceed to the DC rendezvous immediately. I repeat, do not assist, your duty will be to get to DC. We’ll catch you up if things go south. Stand by.”

  The four armored expeditionary vehicles pulled onto the forecourt one after another.

  “This isn’t right,” said Lopez, gripping the wheel. He shuffled in his seat as they passed the first darkened building, continuing further into the campus.

  “The trucks are still here,” commented Lucy, eyeing up the dozens of troop carriers and other Humvees parked in loading formation. Their own Humvee’s headlights illuminated the rippling green canvas shells of the idle, storm-battered vehicles.

  The road forked and the general’s vehicle hooked left towards a cluster of buildings. Lopez stayed close on him as they lost sight of the main convoy. The general’s vehicle slowed and the radio crackled in.

  “Hold up, we need a closer look,” came Whitaker’s voice. “Major Lopez, check it out.”

  “Son of a bitch,” cursed Lopez, unfastening his belt. “Roger,” he replied, tucking the portable radio into his breast pocket. “Coleman, take the wheel.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the stumpy, balding officer next to him, pushing his glasses decisively back up the bridge of his nose.

  “Young, Brooks, on me!” shouted Lopez, throwing his armored door open and leaping out into the rain. Coleman quickly slid sideways across and filled the seat.

  Lucy swung her backpack over her shoulders and jumped out into the freezing downpour. The pelting rain drummed loudly on her metal helmet while water seeped into her uniform. Brooks appeared at her shoulder, water droplets rolling off her dark cheeks. The two exchanged equally concerned looks before following the major.

  The three of them approached the darkened building, their rifle-mounted flashlights streaking across the ground as they moved.

  Lopez reached the window first and shone his light in. “Oh god.”

  Lucy and Brooks caught up, their lights further illuminating the hall. Body after body lay piled up in the middle of the room, with pools of blood congealing on the floor beneath.

  “General!” shouted Lopez into the radio. “They’re all dead. There’s been a massacre – they’re piled up in the hall.”

  “What do you mean ‘piled up’?” responded Whitaker.

  “I mean piled up, sir – the bodies have been dragged on top of each other. There are smears across the floor. The pile’s gotta be at least eight feet high.”

  “Blood smears?” said Whitaker. “You mean they’ve not deteriorated yet?”

  “No, sir, the injuries look …” Lopez trailed off as he realized what he was saying.

  “Convoy, move out!” cried the general into the radio. “Convoy? Convoy, respond! Jesus Christ, Major, get back to your vehicle, let’s go!”

  Whitaker’s Humvee spun around while Lucy, Lopez, and Brooks threw themselves back into their vehicle. Coleman wasted no time swinging in behind trucks five and six as they raced after the general.

  “Expedition, prepare to engage!” came the general’s voice on the radio, as they tore back across the campus. Lucy looked through the windshield up ahead – the watchtower’s spotlights had gone out, leaving only the horizontal beams from the convoy’s headlights. Stuttering patterns of gunfire flashed across the unfolding nightmare.

  Her eyes widened as the full scene came into view. Screams, rifle fire, and snarls blended cacophonously as a flood of beasts overran the convoy. The creatures swept through the vehicles, tearing off roofs and doors alike, and plucking out the hu
mans like dumplings.

  “Split up!” ordered the general, prompting the expeditionary unit to scatter.

  For every creature that was shot down, two more took its place. They surged forward from the woodlands onto what remained of the static convoy.

  Lucy watched as one of the drivers tried desperately to maneuver through the carnage. There was no way out; the trucks at the front had been overturned, trapping the rest of the convoy. Uniformed bodies spilled across the roadside as beasts tossed them like ragdolls.

  As the expeditionary force hurtled towards the fray, the dwindling soldiers in the six trapped vehicles tried desperately to fight back, firing in all directions. Their numbers were plummeting.

  “Expedition, all lights off! Switch to night vision!” cried the general. “Fire on si–”

  His voice was cut off by a series of crashes; Lucy watched in horror as the general’s Humvee tumbled violently across their path. The vehicle barrel-rolled twice before landing on its roof and skidding across the slippery tar. The general’s neck was broken, pressing his wrinkled face into the windshield. His immaculate uniform lay creased beneath the young driver’s twisted body.

  A pack of beasts descended upon the wreckage, smashing through the glass and metal to reap the dying soldiers.

  “Coleman, this is insane! Retreat!” screamed Lopez.

  Coleman leaned heavily into the steering column, swerving to avoid the wreckage, and turning them one hundred and eighty degrees until they were retracing their route back deeper inside the camp. Lucy desperately fumbled to get her night-vision goggles on.

  “Coleman, kill the lights!” she cried, sensing what was coming.

  “I can’t – I don’t have night vision on!”

  “Just do it!” shouted Lucy. “I’ll direct you!”

  He killed the lights and continued to speed forward, as Lucy stared ahead into the night. A dozen more beasts were bounding towards them at speed, cloaked by the darkness.

  “There are more of them coming, up ahead!” cried Lucy. “We need to get inside!”