by Mark Tufo
“Copy, Victor Hotel. Reading your coordinates via WINS now. We have you at the Currituck Beach lighthouse. Can you confirm my coordinates are correct?”
“Roger, Command. That is right. We followed a network of tunnels leading here.”
“If what we’re seeing through your feed is correct, you’ve presumably got Variants bringing food back to a hive. Do you have any evidence if the actual hive core is beneath that lighthouse or museum?”
A pit formed in Garcia’s stomach. “No, but—”
“We need solid intel. This is good, but we can’t order a blind bombing on what may very well be nothing but another entrance to that tunnel network.”
“You want us to go in there?” Garcia asked.
“That would be correct. We need proof we’re hitting the right target. We might only get one chance at this, and we need every one of those goddamn Variants in whatever hive is out there obliterated.”
“Copy that,” Garcia replied.
Judging by the monsters constantly ebbing and flowing from the museum and around the lighthouse, this mission was nowhere near over. He prayed the epicenter of the Variants’ hive was not far from this complex. The monsters slunk under the cover of the trees that protected the lawns and their tunnels from the prying eyes of drones. It was no wonder they had operated here almost completely undisturbed. Between the dense, marshy forests up and down various parts of the long barrier island and the extensive tunnel networks, these creatures had built themselves a home almost impermeable to what little technology remained available to the US armed forces.
But even though the drones and satellite imagery had failed to locate the center of Variant activity here, technology was not the only thing the US had to offer. The country still had its marines, and Garcia vowed to prove they were still America’s most valuable asset. And by God, fear and Variants could not keep a marine from fulfilling his duty, no matter the cost. He pressed his binos to his eyes once more, studying the Variants’ movements.
“We going back underground, Sarge?” Stevo asked, trepidation etching his tone.
Garcia looked up between the trees, spying the full moon peeking out from the rain clouds. “As long as we can help it, I want to stay aboveground. I don’t think we need to hike up the lighthouse anymore, but something’s going on at the museum.”
“Doesn’t seem like a school field trip, either,” Thomas added dryly.
“Wait a second, Sarge,” Stevo said, his eye looking through his MK11’s scope. “Take a look at that mansion.”
More lightning flashed in the distance, accompanied by cracking thunder. A wide, open lawn, devoid of trees, rolled toward a white-painted mansion with a black roof and shutters. The ground rippled around the house as though huge moles shoveled their way through the dirt just beneath the grass to the mansion. Grooves in the ground from all directions spiderwebbed to the building as if they were the vessels and it was the heart.
Garcia scanned the mansion’s windows, spotting movement behind the cracked and broken panes. Grime obscured any hope of getting a clear picture of what lay beyond the glass, but the sight of activity there was enough to pique his interest.
“If I was a betting man…” Tank said, staring at the mansion, water dripping down his face.
Garcia nodded, bringing himself up to his knees. “Prepare to move out. I want to get a closer—”
Something crunched in the grass behind him, and he spun, aiming his rifle. Silhouetted by the moonlight, four dark shapes appeared, stalking toward them, rain sluicing off their humanoid forms.
— 11 —
“Hold your fire!” a voice snapped.
It was no Variant. It was a human voice.
Rollins.
Garcia lowered his M4 tentatively, unable to believe what his senses told him. The other Staff Sergeant strode toward him. He wore no helmet, and his fatigues hung off him in rags. Half his body appeared haphazardly covered by bandages. Daniels trudged next to him, a mirror image of scrapes and gouged skin. Lacerations marred the third marine’s hulking form. Russian. One of the man’s pant legs had been torn off, and he walked with a pronounced limp.
A gasp almost escaped Garcia when he saw the fourth man: Morgan.
“You’re alive,” Garcia said. Then he imagined Rollins dashing away with his team again, disobeying Garcia’s orders. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Rollins’s blood-covered brow creased in thick crevices. “I was thinking I’d save our brothers.”
Morgan wiped a swathe of dirt from his face as he crouched near the other Variant Hunters. “He about did, too.”
“Fought the Variants in the street. Almost lost my life.” Russian’s eyes narrowed. “But then those damn things dove into some tunnels. We lost ’em down there.”
“Got away with Mulder and Chewy,” Rollins said, spitting on the wet ground. “But maybe they wouldn’t have if you came with.”
The words were like a knife twisting in Garcia’s gut. He forced himself to ignore the jibe. Maybe they still had a chance of saving Mulder and Chewy.
“Where the fuck is Kong?” Rollins said, looking around at the haggard group.
The other Variant Hunters’ eyes seemed to convey the message before Garcia even said a word.
“Gone,” he said simply.
“Should’ve gone with us,” Rollins said again. “We could’ve avoided—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Garcia snapped, his nostrils flaring. This was not the brotherhood and respect he had been accustomed to while serving. Something was wrong with Rollins. Maybe the apocalypse had gotten to him. Maybe it was the fact that his family had been killed by the Variants. Maybe the deadly combination of PTSD and depression were inking his brain black, subverting years of professionalism and dedication. There would be time to deal with Rollins’s insurrection later and time to mourn for Kong. Mulder and Chewy might still be out there, so everything else would have to wait.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Garcia said. “This is my mission. Davis didn’t put you in charge. If you fuck this up, if you get us all killed, that’ll be blood on your hands. I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you, but I need you to shut up and do as I say right now. That’s the only way we’re finding the Variant hive and getting out of here alive. Got it?”
Rollins glared at him, his face turning red under the grime. His lips straightened until they turned white, but he said nothing.
“Good,” Garcia said. The others stood still, their eyes wide, filled with a sense of almost palpable shock. Garcia’s superiors had always praised him for his calm demeanor and his coolness under pressure. He was well practiced at hiding the fury that flowed through him. His men knew him well enough to recognize that if the Sarge was pissed, he had a damn good reason.
“We came here to hunt Variants, and that’s exactly what I want to do.” Garcia pointed to the mansion. “I want to get in there, find out if that place leads to these monsters’ shitty hive, and get the hell out of here. We’re almost done, but this is the part that counts. These are the last few yards before the shit storm, and I need every one of you on your A game. We are no longer individuals. We are a team, a machine. Forget about everything else outside the mission, outside your lane of fire, outside your brothers right here on the ground. All that matters right now is what’s in front of us. No more distractions.”
“You got it, Sarge,” Tank said without hesitation. The others, barring Rollins, voiced their agreement in soft murmurs, careful not to attract undue attention to their position.
“We’re the Variant Hunters,” Garcia said, his chest puffing out slightly. “Let’s hunt some fucking Variants.”
***
In a matter of minutes, Garcia found himself huddled behind a thick hedge near the rear entrance of the white mansion. Sheets of rain slapped against the mansion and across the lawn. Tank, Stevo, and Rollins were positioned along the hedge several yards apart. He no longer trusted Rollins to lead his team, so Thomas
crouched near a shed with Daniels, Russian, and Morgan, ready to cover Garcia’s team’s entrance into the building. Garcia crossed himself. The words of the Lord’s Prayer whispered through his head as he traversed the lawn, drawing on whatever strength he could muster to face the inevitable evils ahead.
With each step, he avoided the holes and bumps in the ground demarcating the tunnels. He did not want to fall belowground or let his thumping footsteps notify the Variants that intruders approached their gates. When he reached the porch and pressed his body flat against the wood siding, he signaled for his team to follow, one by one. They flitted over the lawn, their rifles scanning for any sign of danger. A Variant dragging a horse carcass lurched from a nearby patch of trees, and the group threw themselves to the ground, taking refuge behind the furrows. The Variant shuffled onward, lugging its cargo, too focused on its mindless task to notice the humans lurking in its midst. It vanished around the front of the mansion, and the others army-crawled the rest of the way to Garcia, soon joining him at the back door.
Thomas peered at Garcia from behind a cluster of bushes. Garcia gave a single hand signal to ensure the marine was ready. As soon as Garcia disappeared into the mansion, Thomas’s team would follow across the lawn, posting up along the porch.
Stevo wrapped his fingers around the handle of the door and nudged it softly to test the lock. The door came away from the frame, opening an inch and creaking slightly. Garcia cringed, and they all froze, waiting for the howls or clicking joints to come.
When twenty seconds of only the pounding rain sounded, Garcia signaled Stevo to enter. The marine pushed the door open gently. The hinges groaned the entire way. Rustling sounds and the splat of dripping water met Garcia’s ears as Stevo slipped inside. Tank followed immediately after, with Rollins being goaded onward by Garcia.
Garcia entered last. His eyes blinked to adjust to the sight before him. An intense smell like that of moldy cheese and body odor surrounded them, evoking pangs of nausea. But even more startling was the mansion itself.
In his mind’s eye, Garcia recalled the early-twentieth-century furniture that had once filled the dining room, library, smoking room, and entryway with antique decadence. He had toured the place with Ashley, admiring how the old mansion had stood up to the salt-bearing winds of the ocean, a true testament to humanity’s stubborn inclination to preserve the past.
Now, the mansion was nothing like he remembered. He and the others ducked behind a pile of furniture—moved by Variants or humans, he could not be sure. He peeked out from behind the mess of torn sofas and cracked tables and fought to keep himself from gawking. The innards of the mansion had been gutted like a pumpkin ready to carve. A few walls still stood, riddled with massive holes. Support beams jutted up, straining to hold the building together. But it was not the destruction of the building’s interior that startled Garcia.
Rather, it was what had been constructed there.
— 12 —
A thick, weblike substance coated every inch of remaining wall, ceiling, and support beams. A few Variants scuttled across the netting like spiders and tucked things into various large pouches. The pouches—most of them, at least—contained the corpses of humans and animals. Some had evidently been eaten, and only bones remained. Horses, humans, birds. Anything and everything the Variants had apparently gotten their claws on. At least a dozen of the pouches nearest the Variant Hunters harbored writhing shapes. Humans still clinging to life, barely conscious.
One man was missing an entire arm. The same webby substance holding him to the wall was plastered over his wounds, presumably to staunch the bleeding. His jaw worked back and forth as if he was grinding his teeth. Crusty tears dripped out of his eye sockets, his eyelids yanked open. Garcia’s stomach dropped, and the iron grip of nausea wrapped around him. The man had no eyes left. Just gaping wounds. Another woman cocooned nearby seemed barely more than a torso with a head. Her chin drooped against her chest, which moved in shallow, slow breaths. Garcia could practically hear the thoughts running through his team’s heads.
My God. These poor souls.
Clicking and snapping sounded from holes in the rotten and torn floorboards, and Garcia leaned forward slightly to confirm what he already suspected. The massive holes revealed another terrifying tableau.
Hordes of Variants squirmed over and around each other, blankets of them so thick, it was impossible to see the ground beneath their feet. Dozens of tunnels stretched beyond this central hub, no doubt leading to various points around the island. The deep chamber below this mansion seemed to host hundreds if not thousands of the creatures. It took Garcia several moments to find one corner of the massive chamber devoid of the crablike Variants. A single Variant the size of a rhinoceros sat there with a swollen belly. Eight legs stuck out from its abdomen, and its back was protected by a crustacean carapace. Garcia shuddered at the sight of the monstrosity as a pair of normal, human-sized Variants brought it the carcass of a horse.
The monster devoured the dead animal, its talons ripping into the hide, tearing through bone and flesh with ease. It stuffed the bones into its mouth, crunching madly, as the two servant Variants retreated into the crowd. This place truly was like an ant colony. If Stevo’s earlier guess was correct, that must be some sort of queen. But if that abomination was the queen, that meant…
Garcia shivered uncontrollably. He had heard rumors that the Variants might be breeding, might be repopulating even as humans desperately vied to quell their numbers.
Please, God, don’t let that be true.
A voice sounded over his comm link, about causing him to jump. “Victor Hotel, this is Command. We see what you’re seeing through vid link. Science team confirms this is likely the hive’s core.”
A hand tugged his sleeve. Thomas’s group had sidled up beside Garcia’s after making it into the mansion stealthily. With wide eyes, Thomas silently gestured to another two Variants dragging a human behind them deep in the chamber. The man was barely clinging to consciousness. His head lolled back and forth. Variants cleared a path for the duo as they dragged the man to the queen.
Garcia’s index finger sought his trigger, his arm shaking. It was not just some hapless tourist or Outer Banks citizen the Variants were dragging. Garcia recognized the lanky man’s shaved head and square nose: Mulder.
He wanted to save the man, to decimate the Variants down there, to send a storm of bullets into the queen’s bulbous body. He would take pleasure in those monsters’ agonized deaths.
But to do so would be to condemn himself and his men to death. All he could do was stand by helplessly. The Variants served their queen Mulder as if he were nothing more than a Big Mac. Garcia had to turn away when the queen tore the man’s body in half. His voice called out, long and shrill, until Garcia heard more slurping and tearing, and the agonizing screams silenced.
No, no, no, no. Garcia’s arm burned as he pictured the new name that would be added to the cross. Heat scorched his face. He wanted to yell, to curse, to rip the Variants apart piece by piece as the queen had done to Mulder. His fingers reflexively clenched until it felt as if they would punch through his palms.
“That’s good enough, Victor Hotel,” the specialist’s voice droned through his earpiece. “You all are to head to your extraction point immediately.”
Garcia started to shift back on his feet, ready to retreat. But another sight caused him to freeze. There was a woman with long dark hair plastered to the wall next to a skeleton. She was alive, intact. In her arms was a baby, younger than a year old, clinging to its mother. Both seemed asleep, draped in the mysterious webbing. A fire burned in his belly, a grim determination inching through his mind. He recalled the SEAL’s last words: “You’ve got to find them. All of them.”
He had found them.
And as Garcia gazed around the room, spotting the other humans still alive, still squirming or unconscious in the web pouches, he realized there was no way he could leave without trying to save them. To bomb this
place was to eradicate the hive beneath their feet, but it would also sentence these people to death. Command already had what they wanted. Garcia had served his purpose for them. He crossed himself. Now he had a higher purpose to serve.
***
“We can’t abandon these people,” Garcia said to the group as they mustered outside the mansion. Rain flushed through the bent and broken gutters along the porch’s roof. “You saw what those things did to Mulder. We leave them here, they die.”
“The strike group can send a rescue team,” Rollins said. “We need to go. You might think I’m an idiot, but there’s no chance in hell we’re putting up a fight against the Variants in those huge chambers. No fucking way.”
“Sarge told you to shut up,” Tank said. “Something you’re pretty bad at.”
Rollins narrowed his eyes. Garcia had half a mind to sit the guy on the porch and have him watch their backs to keep him out of their hair. But he was not sure if he could trust him to do even that.
“Daniels, Morgan, Thomas, you take the south wall. Tank, Stevo, and Russian, take the east side.” Garcia pictured the mother and child again. “Rollins and I will take the north. Anybody that looks like they’re in decent health, cut ’em down and bring them with us.”
Stevo scratched behind one of his ears, his tell that he was worried. “And what about the ones in rougher shape?”
Garcia gulped. “Can’t take everyone, I’m afraid. You saw the state of those people. If you think you can walk ’em out, if they’ll live after we take them down, great. If not, we’ll try to save as many lives as possible without getting ourselves and everyone else killed.” He peered around the group, meeting each of their eyes. Everyone except Rollins. “Ready, brothers?”
Their voices whispered up in a chorus of affirmatives. A wave of thunder exploded around them.
“Remember, all it takes is all you got, Marines,” Garcia said. “Reload, and take stock of everything we’ve got left. I don’t want this to come down to a fight, but if it does, let’s be ready.”
