by Mark Tufo
Mulder paused at the tree line and looked back at Garcia for his next order. Garcia scanned his men. They wore varied expressions ranging from stoic determination to hints of unease and fear, evident by widening eyes and tense muscles. He did not blame them. After everything they had been through, their most dangerous enemy was the unknown. The Variants had drastically changed since the start of the outbreak. They had evolved from zombielike beings with a thirst for flesh to creatures with beastly features that rendered them more monster than human. Evolution seemed to have been expedited in their ranks. Garcia had learned not to be surprised when a Variant showed up with claws the size of kitchen knives, chameleonlike color-changing flesh, or joints that bent like a spider’s. Not knowing exactly what lurked in the forest, not knowing whose eyes watched them or what had become of the SEAL team, was no doubt eating at each Variant Hunter’s mind.
But their directive was not to cower in fear or turn back at the first hint of danger. They were the chosen few, those selected to complete missions just like this.
Still, nervous sweat beaded across Garcia’s forehead as he signaled Mulder to surge forward into the forest. The man disappeared into the shadows of the trees, with Chewy, Stevo, and Thomas close behind. Garcia went in next beside Rollins.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
The words came almost unconsciously to Garcia, echoing in the recesses of his mind. Gnarled roots and seeping puddles threatened each step he took. He directed his men down the path he had memorized from the map Lt. Davis had given him, trusting his instincts and internal compass. While the buzz of insects and croaks of frogs accompanied their journey, the stench of rotten meat grew stronger. Nausea almost sabotaged Garcia’s fierce demeanor, endangering the meager meal he had managed to scarf down on the GW.
He could hear the labored breaths of the others over their comms. Their rifles probed the darkness, roving side to side in response to every creaking branch and lizard scuttling up the tree trunks. Garcia tried to maintain visual contact with the team of eleven, but the men constantly shifted in and out of his sight as the trees grew closer together, threatening to become an almost impenetrable obstacle. He diligently avoided the tangles of dried branches and leaves. With each step, small fiddler crabs scattered and dove into burrows.
The passage into the wildlife refuge became hypnotic as they trudged past the same plants and leaves and trees. The only thing that seemed to change was the burgeoning stink of decay.
Then Garcia heard a sickening crunch like breaking bone. His heart climbed into his throat, and he swiveled to his right, his M4 seeking a target.
Instead of a monster careening out of the darkness, he saw Kong frozen, his nose scrunched in disgust. He made an apologetic face at Garcia. The man had stepped onto what looked like a broken rib.
As Garcia gazed at the rib, he knew it had not come from any human. The bone itself was larger than his arm. His eyes widened as he spotted the trail of other bones intersecting the Variant Hunters’ paths. Large femurs and long, misshapen skulls lay scattered among the puddles and roots.
At first he feared the bones belonged to the Variants and the creatures were evolving faster than even the science teams back on Plum Island and in the GW strike group had guessed. But his fears were slightly allayed when he realized that the bones and mostly eaten corpses had belonged to the wild-horse population. The poor beautiful creatures had met the Variants. A shudder snuck down Garcia’s spine. He wondered whether the horde that had devoured the horses still lurked nearby.
Even as the eleven-man team moved past the horses-turned-carrion, the intense smell of death never abated as Garcia had expected. Instead, it followed them, stubbornly lingering even when a salty breeze twisted between the dense trees. They continued to put distance between themselves and the deceased horses.
Garcia held up a hand, signaling Mulder to hold. The group paused. Something was not right.
Then Garcia realized the bugs had gone silent. The only sounds he heard were the shallow breathing of the Variant Hunters and his thundering heart. He shot the others a quick hand signal to stay alert and keep an eye out for contacts.
He reached into one of the pockets on his TAC vest and pulled out a small device with an LCD screen. It blinked, displaying a single arrow pointing in the direction of the WINS device that was supposed to be on the SEAL team’s squad leader. The blinking grew rapider as they drew closer to the purported location of the WINS device, and Garcia’s pulse accelerated in response. They were close. So damn close.
His eyes scanned the muddled green and black shapes through his NVGs, seeking out any sign of life, any sign the SEAL team was nearby. Faster and faster the locator blinked until it reported that they were almost on top of the WINS signal and, Garcia prayed, the SEAL team.
Suddenly, the locator displayed a single black circle, signifying that they were in the immediate vicinity of the WINS device. Garcia gestured to the others to fan out. Chewy nudged a thicket with his rifle muzzle, and Kong peered around a particularly knotted mass of roots. Stevo sifted through the edge of a creek with his hand, breaking the surface of the stagnant water. His fingers left a tiny wake, and he peered into the shallow water.
The SEALs had to be around here somewhere. Whether they were dead or alive, Garcia was determined to find them—or at least learn what had happened to them. He sucked down gasps of humid air, his eyes scanning back and forth.
Then he saw it. A pair of legs in black fatigues sticking out from a gap under a fallen tree trunk.
One of the SEALs!
Garcia nudged Rollins and Russian, and the duo sprinted with him to the trunk. They leapt over the rotten log to the trapped SEAL beneath it. Garcia’s boots landed hard in the mud, kicking up flecks of soil and broken twigs. The other Variant Hunters swarmed around, setting up a perimeter. But Garcia’s guts twisted painfully when he saw the rest of the SEAL—or rather, the lack of the poor SEAL.
The entire top half of the man was gone.
— 4 —
Garcia knelt next to the torn torso of the SEAL. His eyes followed a trail of blood and shredded organs spread across the broad leaves and vines. His nerves burned hot, and his jaw clenched tight enough he risked grinding his teeth to stubs. The brutality of the beasts astounded him. The monster must have killed the SEAL out of pure bloodlust. It had not even bothered to stop to finish the man off and make a meal out of its prey. Then again, Garcia wondered if the Variant had left these SEAL carcasses to rot for a reason. He tried to shrug off the thought, unwilling to believe the monsters were intelligent enough to apply rhyme or reason to their actions. Still, he shouldered his rifle and searched for the monster that had done this. Maybe the Variant Hunters’ arrival had scared off the Variants from their kill or at least distracted them from their meal.
A smattering of nearby deformed footsteps contained puddles, but the patterns led in all directions. Tracking down the Variants those footsteps belonged to would be an arduous, if not almost impossible, task.
“Stevo, Kong, Daniels, Morgan, check for survivors,” Garcia said. “The rest of you, watch our backs.”
Six other SEAL bodies lay among the weeds. Judging by the dark stains splashed on the tree trunks and soaking into the ground, Garcia guessed he would not find a pulse in any of them.
But damn it, he had to try. He threw himself down near a SEAL sprawled on his back with limbs outstretched. Deep lacerations crisscrossed the SEAL’s flesh, and his fatigues hung off him in ragged strips. Dark bruises covered the man’s face, and dried blood crusted over his eyelids.
Garcia grabbed the man’s wrist and pressed his fingers against his skin, praying for a pulse. “Come on, buddy. We’re here to help you.”
He did not expect the man to acknowledge him, much less be alive. And matching his expectations, only the coldness of death crept from the man’s flesh into Garcia’s fingers.
“Any survivors?” Garcia asked.
“Negat
ive,” Rollins replied. The others confirmed Garcia’s dark suspicions. He looked up, surveying the mangled bodies of the other SEALs. Besides the one missing the top half of his body, he saw another whose spine had been ripped out next to a corpse with no head. The other two were no better, their bodies nothing more than disemboweled sacks of ragged flesh.
“Found a dead Variant,” Stevo said. “Not much of him left. Usual gray flesh and claws and shit. Got some weird growths on his back.”
“Grab a sample like the scientists ordered,” Garcia said, glancing at the abominable corpse Stevo stood over. The marine bent next to the body and tore off several pieces of flesh he stuffed into plastic tubes. Bullet holes riddled what little was left of the Variant’s body, and just as Stevo had said, dark plates covered its back and parts of its arms. Its fingers had fused together, forming a pincerlike appendage rather than a hand. Most of its muscle and flesh had been torn off its bones. Garcia guessed its fellow Variants did not want the dead body to go to waste and made a meal of it. He took his eyes off the creature’s remains and surveyed the scene once more.
Then something struck him. He counted the SEALs again. There were only seven of them. Davis had told him the SEAL team had consisted of eight men. Where was the other?
“Command,” Garcia started. “We found the SEALs. We’ve got seven confirmed KIA. One MIA.”
“Copy, Hotel Victor,” a specialist called back. “Are there any indications as to where the missing SEAL may have gone?”
Garcia looked to his men, all of whom shook their heads. The WINS locator displayed no eighth signal. Maybe the SEAL’s device had been torn from his fatigues or malfunctioned. Either way, it was of no help now. “Negative.”
“Then you’re to proceed to Objective B.”
“What happened to never leaving a man behind?” Rollins asked, one eyebrow arched. “They want us to just abandon the last guy? He’s probably wandering around, looking for us.”
“Then pray he finds us. We have our orders,” Garcia said, hating every word he spoke. Never in his two decades of service with the Marines did he dream of leaving a US serviceman or woman behind, even after death. “We don’t have the luxury of time to perform a man search.”
Stevo gawked at the dead soldiers. The man had a terrible poker face, which made it easy for the others to fleece him whenever the group had a card night. It also meant Garcia saw the look of pain cross the man’s face when he realized they would be leaving the decimated SEAL team behind.
The missing man was probably dead like his comrades. He prayed their souls had at least found solace in Heaven, far from this hell on Earth. Tension hung thick in the air as Rollins scowled, shaking his head and trudging away from the deceased. Russian’s eyes lingered over the tangled roots of a twisting tree, and Thomas looked away, unable to meet Garcia’s gaze. Garcia had served with most of these men long enough to read their thoughts, even if their faces were as stoic as gargoyles on a cathedral.
They were not happy. Not one bit. They did not want to leave the missing SEAL behind, but Garcia had his orders.
“I don’t like it,” Rollins said, almost spitting. “I’m not about to act like a chickenshit little boy scared of those goddamned monsters. We need to bring that boy home.”
With one hand, Garcia took the dog tags glistening on the ground next to the SEAL pinned under the tree. He looked at the bloodied man for a moment then looked back at his men and stood.
“If you asked him what he’d want us to do, do you think he’d want us to risk our asses for his remains? Or do you think he’d want us to go on with the mission—the one he might already have sacrificed his life for?” Garcia stared hard at Rollins. The fellow marine’s eyes narrowed, and his nose scrunched into a snarl. If the man were a dog, Garcia would expect to hear him growling and snapping with his ears pressed flat against his skull.
“Fine. I want to kill some damn Variants and find our guy,” Rollins said. “But do what you want. It’s on your goddamn conscience.”
A final prayer whispered through Garcia’s mind. He turned away from the remains of the SEAL team. Rollins was right. This would weigh on his conscience, adding to the already-overflowing deposit of dark memories and devastating choices, and he would pray to God every day for these men he had left to rot in this marsh filled with unseen monsters.
But his corporeal obligations were to the men still standing beside him, the men who had trusted him with their lives, and he was not about to fail them or Lt. Davis.
“Mulder, take point. Chewy, Morgan, on his flank,” Garcia ordered. “South toward Objective B. Let’s find out where in the hell these Variants are coming from.”
The trio converged ahead of the group, their rifles shouldered and probing the darkness. They moved forward like panthers lurking through the shadows. Muck and mud sucked at boots, and the ground gave way to shallow, salty water made opaque with silt. They marched between the trees again, ducking under vines and low-hanging limbs, making their way out of the refuge and toward Corolla. Soon they would be out of the grasp of the marsh.
But something still felt wrong. Garcia’s nerves tingled.
He peered through the forest. Out of his periphery, he thought he saw movement. He whipped his rifle around. His pulse thumped like war drums in his ears, and his finger slid forward, ready to meet the trigger.
Nothing.
Maybe it was just the wind causing the tree branches to dance. Still, the explanation did not satisfy him. He could practically sense eyes on him as they distanced themselves from the sight of the SEALs’ massacre.
But the rotten odor of death never disappeared. Even as they approached fifty yards out from the SEAL team, the smell of moldy fruit and maggot-filled meat never left his nostrils. At first, he had attributed the odor to the SEALs’ corpses, but now he warranted that they were too far away to smell the bodies.
Adrenaline started to surge. The sounds of the forest had not returned either. No bird songs. No croaking frogs or chirping insects.
No, no, this was not right at all.
He opened his mouth to warn his men, but as soon as he did, something burst from the shallow water before him. Muddy droplets sprayed up, blinding him momentarily. Gritty sand scratched his face. Clawlike fingers wrapped around his ankle, dragging him to the ground. His elbow hit a tree trunk on his fall. Pain throbbed through his bones, and he lost his grip on his rifle. The back of his head hit a rock buried under the sandy mud. Something towered above him, hissing. Its eyes burned like budding volcanoes through his NVGs, and saliva sprayed from its pursed lips. Muscles coursed under sickly gray flesh. Hair hung off the creature’s head in ragged clumps. Hard plates covered its body, and its fingers had grown together into pincers not unlike a crab’s.
Variant.
The strange Variant opened its mouth wide. It lunged at Garcia with all the darkness and ferocity of a horseman of the apocalypse. Garcia stared past the serrated teeth of the monster, into the recesses of its throat, where he was sure he could see a tunnel straight to hell as the Variant bore down on him, ready to destroy him as it had done the SEAL team.
— 5 —
Garcia knew he would meet his maker someday. His time on this Earth would not be for eternity, and he welcomed his reunion with Leslie and Ashley beyond the pearly gates. He would embrace their heavenly spirits readily.
But today was not that day.
He still had a duty to humanity on Earth and a deep-seated anger that needed to be satiated. He rolled to the left. Water soaked into his fatigues, and he recovered his dropped rifle. The crablike Variant crashed into the muddy water where he had been a moment before. Its claws stabbed into the sand, and its teeth gnashed together in a sickening chorus of clicks and hisses. Twisting to face him, it snarled and bared its pointed fangs. Sinew tensed under the plates and almost-translucent gray flesh covering its demonic limbs.
The sounds of more clicking joints, yells from other marines, and Variant hunting cries echoed between t
he trees in a cacophony grating on Garcia’s eardrums. Gunfire flashed. Rifles barked. Bullets riddled Variant bodies.
The fight around Garcia had become a messy, bloody blur. But where the hell had these monsters come from? He knew the goddamn island was infested with them, but he had not even seen these creatures on their approach. It was as if they had simply teleported like ghostly apparitions at their feet.
He did not have long to consider the mystery of their origins as the creature bent to tackle him. It charged forward, flat webbed feet slapping into the muck, splashing. Claws glistened in the wan moonlight, and Garcia brought his rifle up.
But he could not fire on the Variant. Not while his men were scattered in the darkness around him. Not when he could not be sure he would not hit one of them embroiled in hand-to-hand combat with the creatures. And by God, he was not about to help these abominations finish the job they had started.
As he stood his ground, Garcia’s muscles tensed. The creature leapt through the air. Claws slashed like so many menacing daggers. Garcia juked to his left and hammered the back of the Variant’s skull with his rifle. He was rewarded with the hot spray of flesh and gore.
Such a wound would have debilitated a normal human but not a hungry Variant with one thing on its mind: kill.
Spinning on its heels, the Variant reared back and came at Garcia again. An agonized human scream burst out somewhere to Garcia’s left, momentarily drawing his attention away from his attacker.
Rookie mistake for a Variant Hunter.
The creature took advantage of Garcia’s surprise and rammed into his chest. Air whooshed from Garcia’s lungs. The creature’s shoulder dug hard into his sternum and knocked him on his ass. Garcia swung out with the rifle. He attempted to bash the creature’s mutated snout with the gun’s stock.
