by Mark Tufo
“Christ,” Thomas said. “Can’t catch a break in the apocalypse, huh?”
“If the military can barely hang on to the station, how do we fit into this?” Garcia asked. “Don’t see what good we’ll be at holding a large-scale attack off.”
“Good question,” Davis said. She tapped on a keyboard, and the map displayed on the monitor zoomed in to a satellite image of a small town near the north end of the islands. Garcia recognized it: Corolla, located just south of the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge. “We’ve been using drone surveillance to track the Variant movements toward Norfolk. Most of the Variant movement has been traced from somewhere on this island.”
“Why not bomb the whole place and call it a day?” Mulder asked.
Deep creases formed in Tank’s forehead. “Sounds a bit overkill.”
“Truth is,” Davis said, “we simply don’t have the ordnance to waste haphazardly bombing up and down the length of a two-hundred-mile island, hoping we hit a Variant hive.”
“But if we can locate the actual hive, then it’s a go?” Garcia asked, guiltily hopeful of the Variants’ lair exploding in a hail of fire and brimstone. Served the devils right. If he could help make that happen, he would oblige.
“Exactly,” Davis said. “So that’s where you all come in. As much time as our eyes in the sky have spent above the area, we can’t seem to actually find where these things are coming from. We need boots on the ground to figure out what the hell is going on.”
“Sounds right up our alley,” Garcia said, rubbing the fresh tattoo on his arm. He noticed a slight frown in Davis’s expression. “What’s the catch?”
“You all aren’t the first team we ordered to investigate the area.” Davis indicated a spot in the middle of the refuge. “An eight-man team of SEALs made landfall at approximately 1600 hours. They traveled only three klicks south from their insertion point before we lost radio contact. I’ve highlighted their last known location for your reference. This is Objective A.” She passed a paper map across the table to Garcia. “We need you to locate them then pick up where they left off. Objective B is Corolla, a small town on the Outer Banks. This is a prime candidate for Variant hive activity.”
“Locate a missing SEAL team and a possible hive of Variants,” Kong said. “Doesn’t exactly sound like a cakewalk.”
“I don’t give easy missions to my best teams,” Davis said. “And this is no exception.” Garcia wanted to feel pride at the compliment. But worry wormed itself through his nerves as Davis unveiled each new detail of the mission. She placed a cell-phone-sized device with an LCD screen on the table.
“New toys?” Garcia asked.
“Very new.” Davis pushed it toward Garcia, and he examined it. “This is a locator. It tracks other soldiers on the ground through what’s called the Warfighter Integrated Navigation System. Works even when GPS doesn’t by using inertial sensors to calculate motion and trajectory. Gives us something to see through terrain and obstacles unfriendly to GPS.”
Garcia appreciated anything that would give them another tool to navigate through the unknown. Especially when that unknown and darkness Davis referred to was filled with hungry Variants. “WINS devices.” Garcia stuffed the locator in his pocket. “Isn’t that experimental tech? Not even approved for field use yet?”
“No one gives a rat’s ass about regulatory approval right now,” Davis said. “The SEALs were equipped with WINS chips. Should help you find them.” She deposited six plastic devices, each the size of a credit card and three times as thick, in front of the marines. “Each of you will have one on this mission.” Davis placed her palms flat on the table as she leaned over the map. “And that’s not all. Reports from Norfolk indicate the Variants that have been attacking them have been demonstrating progressive adaptations over time. We’re talking gills, scales, fangs, and all kinds of other strange mutations.” She pressed her lips together. Garcia knew the look. It was the same one the doctor had given him before telling him his mother had passed away on the surgical table, or when his old CO had told him he was shipping out to fight the Variants. “The team in the labs wants samples to see if they can figure out how these changes are taking place.”
“Samples?” Stevo said, his eyes wide. “It’s going to be a real pain in the ass bringing back bits of ’em. Pardon the language, ma’am.”
Davis raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll bring whatever the hell you want,” Garcia said. “Blood, tissue, limbs. Consider us your Variant delivery service.”
The others enthusiastically voiced their assent to Garcia’s promise.
“That’s what I like to hear,” she said. “I know we’re asking a lot. But I’ve got faith in you, Garcia. Faith in all of you.”
“We won’t fail.” Garcia’s chest swelled as he stood straighter. But he knew they would need more than faith if they were to survive what the night would have in store for them. Once the sun settled over the horizon and Variants stalked the land in full force, all bets of faith and hope were off. Valor and bullets spoke louder.
Davis forced a smile. “I know.” She regained a stern look. “You’ve got thirty minutes to load up and ship out.”
“You heard her, brothers,” Garcia said. “Ammo, armor, and chow if you’ve got time. Let’s move.”
The men started filing out of the CIC. Garcia followed.
“Sergeant,” Davis said, and Garcia turned. “I appreciate what you’ve done for us. One mission after another, virtually no sleep. I’m asking the impossible, but it seems like every damn mission, the odds are getting worse.”
“You don’t need to tell me.” Garcia wrapped his fingers around his tattooed forearm. As the odds got worse, so did the snakes of guilt constricting his mind tighter and tighter with each new death. “Rest assured, we can handle this.”
“All it takes is all you got, Marine.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Garcia said.
“But just in case that isn’t enough, I’ve briefed another team. They’ll be joining you on the Osprey. You’ll have command in the field.”
***
Garcia adjusted the chin strap on his helmet as he marched down the corridor to the boat bay. Tank reached the hatch to the top deck first and opened it. The din of idling aircraft and the thrum of the aircraft carrier pushing through the ocean overwhelmed them. A warm, seaborne wind blasted into the corridor. The smell of brine swirled around them. Three gulls dove toward the deck. One cocked its head, eyeing Garcia, then caught an updraft. He watched the bird, wondering if the animals had noticed what had happened to their world.
A blue-shirted flight-deck crew member waved them through the churning air and cacophony on deck. He gestured to a V22 Osprey. The tiltrotor aircraft’s props were spinning up, and the rear door lay open, welcoming Garcia’s team into the fuselage.
As Tank, Stevo, Kong, and the others strapped themselves in, Garcia eyed the other marines Garcia would be leading. The group had already secured their harnesses, with their equipment at their feet. A flight-deck crew member shut the rear door of the Osprey, drowning out the cacophony enough to give Garcia’s eardrums a rest.
“Monster Hunters, prepare for takeoff,” a pilot called back.
One of the marines that had been waiting on Garcia’s group answered, “Ready. And we’re not the goddamned Monster Hunters.” The words came out laced in venom. “Sounds like some pansy-ass group out of a B-rated sci-fi flick. Variant Hunters, man. Variant Hunters.” The marine, Staff Sergeant Wesley Rollins, leader of a fellow Force Recon team, gave Garcia a shit-eating grin. Most of the time, Garcia’s group and Rollins’s operated independently. But now was one of those rare times when Command deemed the mission dangerous enough to send both teams.
“Finally something we can agree on,” Garcia said. “Monster Hunters sounds like we’re going to end up in some bullshit zombie-tornado movie. Never been a fan of things with teeth in my tornados.”
“That’s goddamned right,” Rollins said, cracking
his knuckles. “Variant Hunters. We hunt goddamn Variants. Should be pretty simple.” His eyes narrowed. “Can’t wait to shoot up some of those oily bastards again.”
The aircraft lifted off the deck, and the marines wrapped their fingers around their harnesses as the rotor blades chewed into the air.
“So you’re leading us tonight, Garcia?” Anton “Russian” Gorbachev said with a plain Midwestern accent that seemed to contradict his name. The son of Russian immigrants, Russian had joined the Marines at the age of eighteen, vowing to defend his parents’ adopted country.
Garcia nodded, scanning the rest of Rollins’s team. Jeff Morgan sat stoic and silent beside Russian, with one hand gripping his MK11. Beside him, Jimmy Daniels checked the magazines for his M4. His short-cropped hair, mustache, and olive skin made him appear like a slightly younger version of Garcia. Brad “Chewy” Olsen, tall and lanky, appeared every bit his namesake, with a thick coat of hair covering his arms like Han’s sidekick and, when prompted, was willing to make the half-growl, half-gurgling call of a Wookie.
Garcia noted they were missing a sixth member.
Rollins seemed to notice him surveying his team, and he scrunched his brow. “Lost Williams on our last recon.” He spit at his boots. “Fucking Variants.”
“Damn,” Garcia said. He had heard the rumors of the group’s surveillance mission outside Boston. What was supposed to have been a covert observation mission had turned into an all-out slugfest with the Variants. Garcia wished his team could have been there to help them instead of being stuck near NYC. “Sorry to hear it, brother.” He found himself saying another silent prayer for yet another marine who had paid the ultimate price.
“Same with you by the looks of it,” Rollins said. “Who’s the new guy?”
“I’m Kong. And don’t call—”
Before he could finish, Rollins started laughing. “Man, who the hell started calling you Kong? You’re skinnier than a goddamned scarecrow. More like a shitty little capuchin. You probably wouldn’t even be an appetizer to the Variants.”
“That’s my team member you’re talking about,” Garcia said. “If Davis says he’s capable, he’s capable. Plus, he’s a marine like us. You know as well as I do what that means.”
Rollins held his hands up in a supplicating gesture. “Hey, hey, no need to get so defensive. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Lighten the mood?” Tank said with a slight snarl. “There’s no such thing as lightening the mood when you’re about to face Variants.”
The pilot’s voice came over the speakers, interrupting the marines. “Insertion point ETA in five.”
Any purported attempts of Rollins to cut the tension evaporated like a puddle in the desert with those words.
Rollins popped a magazine out of his TAC vest. He took several rounds out, scratching something into the casings. His face seemed stuck in a permanent scowl as he did.
“What’s that about?” Stevo whispered, leaning over to Garcia.
“Does it for every mission. Etches the names of his wife, mother, father, and sister into them,” Garcia replied. Every soldier had their way of coping with the mounting deaths. And good God, they needed those methods now more than ever. Garcia scratched at the gauze taped over his tattoo.
“Lost them to the Variants?”
“Lost them to the Variants. He talked Davis into letting his family onto a ship in the GW strike group.”
“Variants got on the ship?”
“No,” Garcia said. “Family never made it on the ship. Things tore his sister from his arms before they could load an escape boat.” Images of his own wife and daughter flashed through his mind. “Took his wife, parents. Horrible.”
“Horrible,” Stevo agreed.
Garcia twisted to stare out a window. The last rays of the sinking sun cast an orange glow over the barrier islands along the coast, giving them the appearance of dying embers.
“Them the Outer Banks?” Mulder asked.
“That’s right,” Garcia said.
The islands themselves appeared strangely peaceful. Sun-glinted waves lapped the expansive beaches, and trees populated the marshy lands Garcia knew contained a wild-horse population roaming the wildlife refuges—if they had survived the Variants. But just past the islands, all along the main coastline of North Carolina, columns of smoke stretched into the darkening sky. Beyond that coast lay his home, ravaged no doubt by the Variants, where his daughter and wife had been taken from him.
Someone kicked Garcia’s boot, and he jolted away from the window.
“Hey, man, you look like you’re going to puke,” Rollins said, one eyebrow arched. “You sure you can take the lead here? If not…”
Garcia straightened. Rollins was known to be brash. Bullheaded even. But suggesting he would assume command took it to a new level. He narrowed his eyes, meeting Rollins’s gaze. His voice came out in a low growl. “I got this.”
All it takes is all you got, he thought. He was about to confront monsters that had not only once been human, but also ones that haunted his memories and nightmares. But he had no choice. This was his duty, his penance, to serve those still left in this world. He started to mutter the Lord’s Prayer under his breath, instilling himself with the strength of a higher power—hoping that a higher power was still up there listening to him.
“You praying again, Garcia?” Rollins asked. He forced a curt laugh. He glanced out the window, past the Outer Banks and toward the fires still raging across the coastal towns where Variants roamed, hunting the remaining humans. “Maybe you need to pray harder, because I don’t think those goddamned prayers have helped anyone.”
— 3 —
The Osprey’s rotors tilted as the aircraft began its descent. Dark beaches rose toward the craft. Gritty sand kicked up under the rotor wash, tossed from the insertion point.
Garcia crossed himself then pressed two fingers to his helmet, touching the spot outside of where he had the photo of Ashley and Leslie taped. “Variant Hunters, this is it. Mulder, you’re on point.”
The thin marine locked a magazine into place on his M4. “You got it, Sarge.”
“Russian, Tank, you’re on rear guard.”
The two hulking marines nodded.
“Everyone else, eyes open, keep your firing lanes clear.”
The Osprey jolted as its tires hit the shifting sands, and the rear door opened. The Variant Hunters sprinted from their seats, boots stomping across the metal deck, and fanned out of the rear of the aircraft.
“Victor Hotel Alpha, clear,” Garcia said, chinning his mic.
“Victor Hotel, Griffin One out. Headed back to the GW.”
The air swirled around the team. Wet sand sucked at Garcia’s boots. He shouldered his M4 and scanned the rapidly darkening landscape as the sun sank. The other Variant Hunters circled up, bristling with weapons, searching the encroaching shadows for the monsters they knew were out there. A lone, shrill screech broke through the night air, echoing over the island.
Garcia tensed, adrenaline already barreling through his vessels. His finger hovered near the trigger guard while he stared down the optics of his rifle. He sniffed the air, anticipating the fermenting-fruit-and-rotten-meat odor characteristic of the Variants. The distinct smell usually wafted on the air ahead of the beasts. “Contacts?”
He waited for the chorus of other shrieks and the clicking joints that would precipitate a raucous assault, but none came. No odor reminiscent of death and rot, either.
“Negative,” each of the Variant Hunters reported in turn.
The hair on the back of Garcia’s neck stood straight as he signaled the team forward over the beach, toward the snarls of trees in the wildlife refuge. Somewhere in those thickets, the SEAL team had ceased contact with the GW. No amount of moonlight would permeate the dense canopy shrouding the forest, and Garcia imagined the demonic eyes watching them from those shadows. Darkness and the unknown. That was all the Variant Hunters faced. The final columns of dark
blue and purple succumbed to the blackness of night.
“NVGs on,” Garcia said. His command was met with a flurry of clicks as the others flipped their NVGs down. “Radio discipline.”
They crossed the beach toward a cracked asphalt road. Mulder stayed on point, swiveling left then right. Leaves rustled, and at first, Garcia could not tell if it was the wind or Variants lying in wait, ready to ambush their unsuspecting prey.
But the steady drone of cicadas and low chirps of hidden frogs and birds grew louder. Approaching the road gave Garcia some comfort. At least, the animals of the refuge seemed not to have noticed any genetically engineered super predators lurking among the trees.
They reached the sandbank leading up to the road. Garcia held a hand up. Cars lined the roadway, stuck forever behind an overturned SUV only a dozen meters from their position. Glass shards from busted windows sparkled in the moonlight, like a thousand glittering stars fallen to Earth. A warm breeze picked up. Garcia’s nerves lit up in excitement. This time, the wind carried the distinct rotten smell of death.
Out of his periphery, Garcia saw Russian cringe at the scent before the man regained his composure. The odor of decaying flesh and meat continued drifting around them, and Garcia searched for the source.
He expected to find the shredded bodies of humans scattered along the road, with Variants creeping among them. But as they weaved between the wrecked and abandoned vehicles, he could not see any human corpses. Instead, all they discovered were suitcases torn open and spilled clothes across the ground like a wounded animal with its guts splayed over the road. Soggy boxes of food and bottles of water lay half-buried in the sand. All signs indicated people had attempted a desperate escape from the Outer Banks, but no signs indicated where those people had gone.
Tank seemed to be reading Garcia’s mind and shot him a questioning look. Garcia lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal gesture. They pushed past the roadway and reached the tree line. Snarled roots broke the surface of the ground like sea serpents, and thickets of brown and green grass pressed up through the marshy landscape. Trees jutted up before them, dense and thickly packed like a phalanx marching toward them. Even with his NVGs, Garcia could not see more than a dozen yards into the forested area with all the branches and foliage blocking their view.
