by Mark Tufo
But the Variant was ready. It wrapped one repulsive claw around the barrel of the gun and tore it from Garcia’s grip then flung it away.
“Son of a bitch!” Garcia yelled as the creature whaled on him with both pincerlike claws.
He tried to block blow after blow, but the Variant drove a knee into his chest. He gasped for breath as the monster’s claws hammered into his arms. The violent shock of bone slamming against bone sent waves of pain shuddering through Garcia. He constantly twisted, still pressed flat on his back, to avoid the snapping jaws of the furious monster.
Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe this was it.
Ashley…Leslie…
Another bloodcurdling human yell rent the night air, filled with panic and pain. Even through the animalistic intensity of the wail, Garcia recognized the marine to whom the voice belonged: Mulder.
The thought of Mulder ending up like one of the SEALs galvanized what little strength remained in Garcia’s battered limbs. As the Variant drew its club-like appendages back for another round of pummeling, Garcia grabbed both of the monster’s wrists, fueled by a mix of rage and adrenaline.
The Variant almost seemed surprised. Its mouth opened in an expression that appeared simultaneously shocked and angry. Garcia surged up from the ground, every muscle in his body quaking, and he shoved the monster backward, pushing it toward a tree trunk. The creature fought in his grasp, twisting and screaming. Spittle sprayed across Garcia’s face.
He would not let this beast win. Not now. Not when others’ lives depended on him.
The Variant’s spine slammed against the tree trunk, and Garcia dropped one of the creature’s wrists. He pressed his palm flat against the creature’s forehead and summoned all the power he had, thrusting his hand forward. A cry of pain escaped the Variant’s lips. The back of its head was bleeding, devastated by Garcia’s early attack with the rifle.
Garcia slammed the monster’s head against the tree again, smearing bits of flesh and bone against the hard bark. Each time he bashed the creature’s head, the monster’s eyes seemed to lose a bit of the spark that had made the beast appear so fearsome and hellish. Its thrashing and bucking grew sluggish and its limbs listless. Then its eyes glazed over. Its tongue lolled out. Garcia let the monster fall into the water at his feet.
“Bastard,” Garcia spat.
His chest heaved as he scoured the darkness for the rest of the Variant Hunters. It did not take him long to spot them through his NVGs. Their green bodies lit up in flashes as they struggled against the sinewy forms of the Variants. All of them seemed to be shifting and moving rapidly, each marine engaged in a deadly dance with a mutant partner.
Garcia scooped up his rifle and sprinted at the nearest Variant. Like the one that had attacked him, it had pincerlike claws and crustacean-inspired plates bumping up along its flesh. But none of that armor did it any good as Garcia pummeled the back of its head. The monster dropped, and Garcia plugged a couple of rounds into its skull for good measure.
When the monster’s twitching ceased and a death rattle signaled its demise, Garcia offered a gloved hand to the marine who had been at the receiving end of the monster’s hammering claws.
Kong took it and hoisted himself up. “Thanks.”
Garcia simply nodded then pointed to the next group of embattled monsters and men. Together they killed a Variant pushing Stevo’s head into the sand and making him suck down mouthfuls of muddy water. Near them, Rollins kicked another Variant into a tree then slung a blade from his sheath and stabbed it through the monster’s eye socket. He dug the knife around, rotating it until he turned the creature’s brain to mush.
One by one, the Variant Hunters finished off the creatures that had ambushed them. The clicking of joints and claws finally abated. Garcia gathered the men on his position, and they circled around each other, their rifles diligently sweeping the trees and shrubs as they searched for new targets. Each gasped, recovering from the brief but brutal skirmish.
“Contacts?” Garcia asked.
No response.
“Head count. Now!” he said. Stevo piped up first, followed by Thomas, then Tank. Then a beat of silence. “Where the fuck is Mulder?”
— 6 —
Garcia scanned the group. No, no, no. The lanky Variant Hunter could not be gone. He searched the corpses but saw only the twisted forms of the slaughtered Variants bleeding into the filthy water around their ankles.
“Chewy’s missing, too,” Russian said.
“And Morgan,” Rollins added. “Son of a bitch!”
Thomas surveyed the Variants’ bodies with his rifle. “Where the fuck did those monsters come from?”
“I don’t see Mulder anywhere,” Stevo said.
“Jesus,” Tank said. “Did they take Mulder?”
“Where the fuck would they take them?” Daniels asked. “Can’t see any goddamned footprints in this marsh.” The man started to wander toward one of the bullet-riddled Variants leaning against a tree.
“Stick close, and stay together,” Garcia said. The Variants had outwitted them, performed an ambush that neither he nor his men saw coming. He wanted to run after his men, but no good would come from rushing into the darkness. That was what the Variants wanted. The damn things wanted them to panic, wanted them to let rage and anger and feral instinct drive them into their clutches. As much as Garcia wanted to tear the monsters apart with bullets and knives, seeking revenge for what they had done to his men, the SEALs, and for that matter, the rest of humanity, he knew it would be foolish. “I don’t want anyone else going missing.” He wracked his mind for what to do next and looked to the sky. The stars were blotted out by the thick blanket of tree branches. There were no answers from above. God was not about to intervene. “Command, this is Victor Hotel. We encountered hostiles. Three men are MIA. Orders?”
“Victor Hotel, Command. Continue as planned.”
Garcia nodded to the others. “Keep your eyes peeled. I—”
“Fuck that,” Rollins burst out. “I’m not walking around here with our thumbs up our asses while those things eat our men. We’re going after them.”
Garcia’s brow pinched into a furrow. He fought to control the heat washing into his face. “We have our orders.”
“Goddamned Command doesn’t know shit about this marsh,” Rollins said. “You saw those SEALs. You saw how those Variants came from the ground like some ass-ugly crabs in the sand.”
Rollins’s volume was ranging dangerously high. Garcia did not want to add fuel to the fire and call more Variants to their position by engaging in a noisy argument. But he needed to quench this insurrection before it threatened their mission—and the lives of everyone else still with them.
“Rollins, our orders are to carry on. We don’t know where those bastards took Mulder, Chewy, or Daniels. Running off into the darkness won’t help them or us. We stick together and find out where these assholes are coming from. If we can do that, maybe we find where they took our boys.”
“Maybe?” Rollins held his hands out in a disbelieving gesture. “Maybe? I don’t work well with fucking maybes.” He shook his head, his NVGs clicking as they jostled. “No way. Russian, Daniels, on me. We’re getting our men back.”
Russian sidled up to Rollins. His expression was wrought in fierce determination. Daniels looked between Rollins and Garcia like a dog choosing between two masters.
“Come on, Daniels,” Rollins growled, studying the screen on his locator synced up with his men’s WINS devices. “I’ve got a read on Morgan. He’s headed south.”
“Don’t do this,” Garcia said, his voice rising sharply. Heat flushed across his cheeks, and his nostrils flared. Rollins was proving Garcia’s deepest fears of the man’s bullheadedness right at the worst possible time. The man had an understandable chip on his shoulder against the Variants, but now was not the time to go full Rambo on their gray asses. “You’ll be court-martialed. This is suicide. For you, for us, and for them.” He waved one hand into the darkne
ss.
“This was already a suicide mission when Davis sent us here,” Rollins said then charged off into the underbrush with Russian at his tail.
Daniels gave a final glance back at Garcia. “Sorry, Sarge.” He took off after the duo. They smashed through branches and stomped over the foliage, disappearing beyond Garcia’s line of sight in seconds.
“Damn it,” Garcia muttered as Tank, Kong, Thomas, and Stevo stared at him, awaiting their orders. This mission had already been derailed. By Variants and by Rollins. Garcia knew Mulder, Morgan, and Chewy’s lives depended on him, but so did the thousands of others at Norfolk Naval Station. And if the United States stood any chance of wiping out the Variant threat, he had to succeed. Had to control the anger that Rollins could not. He had to find the Variant hive where all these monsters were staging their attacks.
He knew his men could not fathom the loss of their brothers. Truthfully, neither could he. But he had to deal with that on his own later when he added their names to the cross on his forearm. Because his men and Lt. Davis needed a leader that could be trusted. A leader to complete this mission.
“What now, Sarge?” Thomas said softly, almost weakly.
All it takes is all you got, Davis had said. In that moment, he knew she was right.
Garcia clenched his jaw and wrapped his fingers around his M4. “We finish what we started.”
“And Rollins?” Kong asked, adjusting his MK11.
“We finish what we started with or without him.”
***
They continued south for what seemed like hours, surrounded by the chorus of animals calling throughout the marshland. A couple of gulls squawked overhead, hidden by the dense tree canopy, and Garcia sucked down breath after breath of humid air. It felt as if he were breathing in water.
“Rollins, do you read?” Garcia asked over his mic.
Once again, Rollins ignored him. He had already reported to Command that Rollins had gone AWOL, taking his squad with him, and the man had refused radio contact. Davis had promised she would deal with him later.
If there was a later for him, Garcia thought morosely.
They continued slinking between the trees like ghosts wandering the woods. Garcia checked his locator. Three icons blinked, representing Mulder, Morgan, and Chewy. They were spread out, carried away by the Variants, but they were all generally south of the Variant Hunters’ current position.
A snapping branch caused Garcia to spin to his right. He searched for the source of the noise with his rifle pointed at the trees. A silhouette moved into his vision, limping. His muzzle never wavered off the center of the target, but he did not pull his trigger. Out of his periphery, he saw Tank follow his lead, while the others covered their backs.
At any moment, they expected the calls of Variants to shatter their eardrums as the monsters ignited another attack. But no gargling yells or howls called out into the darkness.
Just this single shape.
“Help…” the limping thing said. Or at least, Garcia thought that was what it had said. He still could not be sure, not with the Variants demonstrating varying degrees of intelligence and evolution. It was impossible to discern what was a trick and what was truth anymore.
But as the limping thing came nearer, Garcia realized what it was. Half the person’s face was torn, shredded to the bone. It left no mystery as to the physiological workings of his jaw. One eye was gone, as was most of his right forearm. Dried blood and mud covered his fatigues. Claw marks stretched down his torso and over his legs. An ankle bent inward at an unnatural position, and Garcia lifted one hand, signaling for his men to hold their fire. He dropped his rifle to his side. Its strap caught his shoulder, and he sprinted to meet the injured man.
The missing SEAL!
“Thank…you…” The man slumped into Garcia’s arms.
A thunderbolt of worry cut through Garcia. They had to save this man. Had to bring him back. He would not let him die, not when everything else in this mission was unraveling around him.
“Morphine, now!” Garcia barked. Tank dug into his pack, immediately complying. He readied the emergency syringe as Garcia lowered the man against a tree trunk. It was all too much like déjà vu. Was this another trap set by the goddamned Variants? Were they using this SEAL too as bait, lying in wait, ready to attack and carry away more of his men?
Tank handed Garcia the morphine, and he wasted no time in injecting the painkillers. The SEAL looked as if he could use more painkillers than the Variant Hunters had with them in all their medical supplies. But he feared a more-permanent painkiller was fast approaching this man.
Death.
Garcia chinned his mic, once again ready to call a med evac.
The SEAL waved him off. “Don’t. You know…you know they’ll just come for us…come to the chopper… Don’t waste your lives on me. I’m already gone.”
The man was lucid, brave even in the face of an agonizing death. Garcia hoped he could carry just a quarter of that man’s courage with him for the rest of this mission. “I can’t let you die out here.”
“I can’t let you all die out here,” the man countered as bloody saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth where the skin of his cheek had been shorn. “Those monsters. They ambushed us. From the ground.”
Garcia shuddered. An hour ago, he would have thought the man meant the Variants had simply sprinted at them, dodging between tree trunks and using the shadows as cover. Now he knew the man quite literally meant the Variants had burst from the ground. It fit with the speed at which the monsters had surprised the Variant Hunters.
Trying to guard against the Variants was getting increasingly difficult.
“Do they burrow? Do they use a tunnel system or something?” Garcia asked.
“Don’t know.” The SEAL’s remaining eye closed as the morphine washed through him, assuaging the fires that Garcia knew must be burning throughout his body. “Didn’t have time to investigate. They came out like goddamned dead men escaping their graves, plowing right into us. We didn’t stand a chance. We weren’t ready.”
Neither were we, Garcia thought. “Brother, do you have any idea where their hive is?”
The man shook his head slowly, his movements fast becoming more and more lethargic. “No, no. We never found it.” He let out a sardonic laugh. “No wonder the drones couldn’t track these bastards, huh? Digging their tunnels underground like ants or something. No wonder…”
The SEAL’s chin slumped to meet his chest, and Garcia thought that was the last of him. He started to stand, but the SEAL opened his single eye and stared intensely at Garcia.
“You’ve…you’ve got to find them. All of them,” he said.
“We will, and then Command will bomb the living shit out of them.”
The SEAL’s head shook slightly. “No, no, not the Variants. The…the…”
His voice faded, and his chin drooped again.
Garcia crossed himself then muttered a quick prayer for the man.
“Who was he talking about, Sarge?” Tank asked. “He saw his team die, right? He couldn’t have meant them.”
“No, and he couldn’t have known about Mulder and the others,” Stevo added, peering around nervously into the dark.
“Then who the hell are we supposed to find?” Tank asked.
“God only knows,” Garcia said, “and we better figure it out.”
Stevo eyed Kong. “Hey, man, you good? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Might be we all saw a goddamned ghost,” Tank said. “That SEAL shouldn’t have even been alive when we got here.”
Kong nodded sullenly as they crept forward toward the edge of the forest. “You know, when I was a kid, I used to be afraid of the dark.”
Garcia shrugged. “Everyone was.”
“I know. I outgrew it like everyone else, too.” Kong’s eyes roved between the pockets of shadow and murk around them. “But goddammit, I’m not too proud to admit I’m afraid again…now that the darkness has evol
ved.”
Normally such chatter would have drawn the chuckles of more seasoned marines. But not here. Kong was right. Garcia, too, was afraid of the darkness and everything that grew and lurked in it now. The Variants were an almost-unknowable and unpredictable force, attacking more furiously than a hurricane and constantly changing, both biologically and mentally, as the war against them raged on.
Kong was right.
The darkness had evolved.
— 7 —
The group trudged onward, still with no sign of Rollins or the Variants. Garcia glanced at his locator to determine Rollins’s location. The WINS devices were new technology. They had barely transitioned from the research labs to deployment with the armed forces. Now, Garcia stared at a symptom of their newness. Or at least, that was what he hoped he was looking at.
According to his locator, Rollins, Daniels, and Russian were scattered over the small town of Corolla. The WINS devices relied on inertial sensors when it was not receiving proper GPS signals due to jamming or interference of some kind. A myriad of possible explanations for the marines’ varied locations rattled through Garcia’s head. Maybe the trio had found the Variants’ tunnels and the sensors were only able to report their location intermittently and inaccurately while underground. Maybe they really had spread out in their search for Mulder, Chewy, and Morgan, all three of whom now had disappeared off the locator device completely.
Or worse yet, maybe Rollins’s group had fallen victim to the Variants.
“Rollins, Garcia here. Do you read?”
As he had expected, Rollins offered no response. The group exited the woods. Garcia cursed at the man’s insolence and signaled for his squad to pause at the edge of a treeless expanse. Waves lapped a sandy shore, and short, verdant bushes lined a roadway leading to Corolla. Several beached boats, hulls rotting and torn open like decaying whale carcasses, lay along the beach. One sailboat lolled side to side. Its sails hung off its masts in long tatters.
