by Greig Beck
Her arms fell away from her girls and flopped bonelessly by her sides. The pain she felt was unbearable but it was nothing compared to the knowledge that she couldn’t protect her children.
Around them the warm sunlight was totally blacked out as the three females were now covered in a bristling, moving mound of segmented bodies.
*
Umberto “Bert” Terracini of the National Guard let his eyes move over the landscape. Blessing was a sparsely populated town, dry and well maintained, all of which was expected. But what was out of the ordinary was the deathly silence. And the emptiness.
Terracini held up a hand, and concentrated, listening for anything. But since he and his team had arrived they hadn’t seen anything living at all, not even a single bird trying to dine on the dropped cookies and sandwiches scattered on sidewalks.
He turned to his team: five men and women, ranging in ages from forty to twenty-two. Their eyes were wide and wired, and they perspired heavily from the heat. It was no wonder as they were all wearing full tactical gear: helmets with goggles, body armor, and each carried black, skeletal-looking M4A1 carbines, held perhaps a little too tightly.
Terracini waved them on and they turned into Hickory Street. Their destination was St Peter’s Church, the one structure large enough to hold at least a hundred people.
He swallowed dryly. There were over 850 people in Blessing, and they had to be somewhere. But it was as if everyone had simply been beamed up into space.
The Guard had been sent in rather than the local police following a frantic call from the local mayor, yelling to high heaven that they were under attack. There were screams, chaos, and then all communication was lost.
The original expectation was there would be an ongoing hostage situation and Terracini was prepared for armed resistance. Outside in the streets there were definite signs of panic with tables and chairs knocked over, food left uneaten on the street, and a sea of broken glass. But there was no blood, no bodies, and no stragglers hiding in bushes or under cars.
The church was right in front of them and, like a single, many-legged creature, the small group of soldiers surged forward. Terracini could see that all the ground-floor windows were smashed inwards or had golf ball sized holes in the remaining panes of glass as if someone had thrown rocks through them.
They stopped before the large wooden front door that was ajar, and Terracini spoke in clipped tones back to his headquarters. “Entering now.”
Terracini turned to his team and held up three fingers, counting them down. He made a fist and kicked the door, exploding it inwards. His team went in, some to the left, some right, and a few going to one knee with eyes down over the sight of their machine guns.
“Clear.” From the center.
“Clear.” From the left, and the same from the right side.
Then he saw them. “Got ’em,” Terracini said softly. He stared, and gulped. “I think.”
“Any survivors?” His supervisor immediately asked into his receiver.
“Checking,” Terracini replied.
He grimaced as he gaped, and then thought: I hope not.
There were dozens of bodies, many up against the walls and in clumps as though they had been forced back by some attacking force. But it was the state of them that stretched his sanity.
Terracini had seen bodies torn up before, but these were all flattened as though they were empty sacks. When he and his team prodded at them, they were soft.
One of his team used the barrel of his gun to lift one woman’s arm. The slim silver bangle she wore slid off the end of her empty glove-like fingers and clattered to the marble floor. The flaccid arm draped over the gun barrel as if it were just an empty sleeve of clothing.
“I think the bones are gone.” Terracini stared.
“Say again, team leader,” his superintendent queried.
“The bones, all of them, taken out, somehow.” He looked around slowly. Nothing but empty suits, he thought.
Fluid leaked from some of the bodies. He guessed that, with the bones gone, the liquid-filled organs were no longer supported by their calcium scaffolding and so were releasing their moisture from the closest orifice.
“Even the teeth are gone.” One of his men was using a finger to lift the gums of one flattened face. He turned. “This is bad shit, man.”
Terracini nodded. Bad shit was an understatement, he thought, and was glad he had on breathing equipment, as he was sure the smell of bile, undigested food, urine, and feces filled the air. He had no idea what could have caused it.
From under the pile of bodies he caught a hint of movement, and then burrowing out came a bug. It was about two inches long, glossy black, and glinted like hard plastic in the light. Terracini put a boot on it. Under his sole, it refused to crush and felt more like a rock. He applied more weight and finally its shell crackled like breaking glass.
Fucking roaches already come to feed on the bodies, he thought.
“They’re all dead in here, no survivors. Assailants or cause unknown.” He swirled his finger in the air as he and his team started to back out.
More bugs started to come out of the cracks and crevices of the body pile to investigate the new arrivals.
“Please confirm this is a non terrorist-related event, team leader.”
“I cannot confirm that, Superintendent – maybe a chemical or biological agent was used. But it might also be one for the National Center for Rare Diseases.” His lip curled. “One more thing: there’s weird bugs everywhere.”
“Get a sample, over.”
Ah, fuck it, he whispered, not wanting to touch anything. He exhaled. “Yes, sir, roger that.”
Terracini stared at the mass of bodies again. He had no idea what had happened but he wanted to be home. This was way above his pay grade.
He pointed to one of the bugs. “Someone catch a few of those critters so we can get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER 11
“The entire town is gone,” Hammerson growled the words. “Every man, woman, child, and damn dog and cat is dead.”
“Just like the stone predicted,” Matt replied softly.
Hammerson sounded like he spoke through clenched teeth. “Yeah, I was wrong. And that pisses me off.”
Matt had the phone on speaker and kept his mouth shut as the HAWC Special Forces Colonel continued.
“We have some biological samples which are being analyzed as we speak.”
“The bugs?” Matt asked.
“Yeah, the bugs. If that’s even what they are. No one has ever seen anything like them before.” Hammerson sounded like he swore again under his breath. “We need to get ahead of this. You called it and I didn’t listen. Seems like there might be something in that analysis of yours that we need to check out.”
“Good.” Matt felt a swell of vindication, but wished he didn’t. “There’s missing pieces of the puzzle. We need to see that New Zealand stone and the Hitler diary, and hope it leads us to the second half of the message stone, which has vanished somewhere in Europe.”
“Agreed. So three things are going to happen real quick,” Hammerson declared. “One, I’m dispatching a team to track down that missing diary. We have a lead on that already and I want you there to verify its authenticity and also interpret the contents. Two, we’re going to retrieve that stone from New Zealand. And three, we’re going to analyze this weird bug thing we caught.”
“They’re going to let you borrow the New Zealand stone?” Matt asked.
“Sure they are. They can have it back safe and sound when we’re finished.”
“That’s good of them.” Matt was constantly impressed with the colonel’s influence.
Hammerson went on. “We’re moving quickly on this, Kearns. The clock is ticking on those dates you gave me.”
“Problem is, the half of the stone we’ve seen only says when, not where,” Matt said. “If we can determine that, then we may be able to save some lives.”
Megan leaned over the phone. “Y
eah, but first prize should be stopping these events from happening in the first place, right?”
Matt winced. There was several seconds of silence over the line after she spoke. Then the colonel’s words came low and slow.
“Who the hell have you got with you, Kearns?” Hammerson demanded.
Matt grimaced theatrically at Megan who put a hand over her mouth. He was sure she was smiling behind her hand.
“Uh, a colleague, Jack. Well, actually my cousin, Doctor Megan Martin. She helped with the analysis of the stone’s numbering patterns. She has a PhD in pure mathematics and is a genius.” Matt squeezed his eyes shut as he waited.
“Professor Kearns, take the phone off speaker.” Hammerson’s voice had a menacing edge.
Matt gulped and did as the colonel asked. Megan frowned and mouthed: What’s up?
She then tried to put her ear up closer to the phone, but Matt pushed her back, got to his feet, and walked a few paces away.
Hammerson sounded like he had the phone real close to his mouth. “Professor, I like you, and you’ve been very helpful to us in the past. And that’s why I’m only going to give you a warning about breaching your confidentiality agreement with us. Because if I didn’t like you, or stopped liking you, then you might find yourself in the darkest, deepest lockup we have in the country. Do you understand me, son?”
“I think so, sir, yes, sir.” Matt’s heart rate increased.
“Professor, do not tell anyone, even members of your family, of the work we do together. Do not tell them who we are. Do not tell them of past missions, and do not tell them you even know what a HAWC is. Everything we do is of vital importance to national, and sometimes global, security.” Hammerson’s voice got even lower. “This is me being nice, Professor. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can I come?” Megan asked.
Matt shook his head and waved her away.
In typical bulldozer fashion, Megan made a guttural sound in her throat and grabbed the phone from his hand. She put it to her ear while keeping the other on Matt’s chest to fend him off.
“Hello, General?” she winked at Matt. “This is Megan. You need me because –” She stopped talking and listened.
Matt felt a knot grow in his stomach.
“Don’t you dare.” Megan’s eyes widened.
“But –” Her mouth snapped shut.
“Prick.” She tossed Matt the phone.
Matt fumbled it out of the air and put it to his ear. “Hello, Jack?”
Hammerson sounded like he’d sat forward. “She’s your problem, Matt. Don’t let her become mine. She’s out of the loop, keep her out, and that’ll keep her safe.”
“I get it, sir.” Matt turned to Megan who glared at the phone and gave it the finger.
Matt silently laughed. He didn’t know what Jack Hammerson had said to her, but he’d never seen his cousin shut down so effectively.
Matt turned away and walked to the window, lowering his voice. “Jack, one more thing – those bugs, where’d they go?”
“Last seen heading north.” Hammerson exhaled loudly. “Damndest thing, they decimated the town and then vanished. We’re still searching.”
Matt frowned. “Could they have died off?”
“We don’t think so,” Hammerson replied. “We’ll find them.”
“Okay, good. So, what now?”
“In two hours a car will be out front. Travel light. You and the team will be paying a visit to Herr Rudolph Schneider, a collector of World War II memorabilia.”
“Is he expecting us?” Matt asked.
Hammerson laughed, slow and deep. “Unlikely.”
*
An hour and a half later, Matt had thrown some gear together and shut everything down. He still had about thirty minutes until pickup, and he decided to ping Lana, hoping he hadn’t insulted her with his last abrupt message.
Hi Lana, sorry for getting dragged away. Something urgent came up – going to be out of town for a while. He sent it.
He waited for several moments, but his phone remained lifeless. He checked his watch and exhaled through pressed lips as he surveyed his now empty apartment. He had lied to Megan. She had asked him if there was anything to worry about and he’d said “No”. These things usually sorted themselves out, he’d told her, and she should just forget about it.
So she had decided to go to her mathematics convention after all, and told him to go to hell with his bullshit stories. Next time he needed help, she’d said, he should ask one of his military bullyboys. He just hoped he could smooth things over with her when he got to his mom’s place at Walnut Grove.
His phone vibrated, and he was thrilled to see it was from LanaPHD.
Hi Matthew, don’t sweat it, I fully understand. I also have been requested to get involved in something urgent and extraordinary. Might be hard to catch me for a while.
Oh great. Matt felt even more depressed. Was this a brush-off? Or maybe payback because she thought he had shut her down a little too brusquely?
Everything okay? He messaged.
The response came back immediately.
Of course. By the way, you’d better ask me out for drinks or dinner soon … or else.
Deal, just say the word, he sent. He waited, but she was gone. He didn’t know if he felt better or worse.
CHAPTER 12
Milford Sound, New Zealand west coast, the Maori marae
It had just gone 1 am and Roy Maddock entered the marae and stopped just inside the door. He turned slowly and changed vision spectrums from light assist, to amplification, and then to thermal, sighting the many sleeping bodies flaring with an orange glow. He changed back to light assist, and then saw the stone exactly where it was supposed to be.
The full infiltration suit he wore was matte black and absorbed ambient light, making it a smudge in the darkness. But its technology also gave the wearer mechanically assisted power, while delivering the silence of a wraith.
He held a duplicate stone under one arm. The objective was to retrieve the original, replace it, and then leave without trace.
As Maddock crossed the marae, he detected movement and one of the figures came at him like a charging bull.
The infiltration suit had numerous sensors to deliver a 360-degree defense field – a form of “eyes in the back of his head”. Plus the hydraulics gave the wearer the power of three men on top of the already above normal strength of the Special Forces soldier.
He shot out an arm, grasping the throat of the charging Maori warrior and closing off any yell. The burly young man still managed to throw a punch with enough force that it would have felled a normal man. But Maddock barely flinched from the impact.
He let the replacement stone slide gently to the floor and pulled a long-barreled gun from a holster on his thigh, aimed it at the young man’s stomach and fired. The ice dart entered the skin, immediately melted, and in a few seconds the man’s struggles slowed and then stopped.
One-handed, Maddock carried the 240-pound man back to his sleeping place and carefully lay him down. By morning it would seem nothing but a bad dream.
Captain Roy Maddock stood silently, watching for a moment, but no one else woke, so he reholstered the dart gun, lifted the replacement stone again, and went to where the original stone sat behind the throne.
He picked up the age-old 150-pound tablet and tucked it under one arm like it weighed nothing, moved the replacement into place, and then silently exited the marae.
In another five minutes he was heading over the cliffs in the stealth helicopter for a rendezvous with a boat waiting just half a mile offshore.
CHAPTER 13
“Take me through it.” Colonel Jack Hammerson put the scientists on speaker as he watched their live feed.
“Yes, sir. Basically, this is the most amazing thing Doctor Miles and I have ever seen … anyone has ever seen.” Phillip Hartigan was one of the chief military biologists working at USSTRATCOM, and he led the analysis proj
ect of the biological sample brought in from the devastated town of Blessing.
“This thing is a biological wonder, and absolutely unique. Frankly, Colonel, it shouldn’t even exist.”
“Looked like one hellova big ugly bug to me,” Hammerson replied. “So we agree it’s weird and ugly – what else can you tell me?”
“For a start, it might not be a bug at all,” Hartigan said. “We’re simply fascinated –”
“Then what is it?” Hammerson cut him off. “And where’d it come from, or where’s it been hiding?”
“Images coming through now,” Hartigan said.
Hammerson’s screen pinged as the scientist’s image folder appeared. He opened it and looked through the magnified images of the bug thing, in various states of dissection.
“So, like I said, it’s a big bug.” Hammerson squinted. “With extra legs … that attacks people?”
“Yes and no,” Hartigan said. “It certainly has arthropod morphology, but it doesn’t correspond to any entomological classifications that we know of. And there’s no match in the historical or fossil records that we can find, although insectoids didn’t tend to fossilize all that well. Anyway, I want to direct you to image one.” Hartigan waited.
“Got it.” Hammerson stared at the spread-wide creature with a slide scale next to it. The Blessing specimen was around two inches in length and shiny black.
“Doctor Miles.” Hartigan handed over to his assistant.
Hammerson heard the young woman’s voice take over. “Colonel, on first pass it does look like an insect due to its exoskeleton and segmentation. But the first anomaly apparent is it has eight legs, more like an arachnid, and it injects a form of venom, also like a spider. However, as well as having a carapace exoskeleton, it also has scaling. Interestingly, the scales are epidermal, like those of a reptile rather than a fish. Plus there is a downy fur on its underside.”
“It’s a damn bit of everything.” Hammerson grunted.
“Exactly our thoughts,” Hartigan agreed. “Like evolution took a bit of everything along the way to establishing its form. But all of that pales into insignificance to what we found next.”
