by Jeff Carlson
In the middle of the broad tunnel he’d felt particularly odd, his head banging with thoughts that didn’t feel like his own. Fortunately the sensation went away, and, once through, they found an unexpected bounty. On the north side of the highway were two more sections of park. Buildings and roads boxed in each piece of land, and both were laid with concrete and benches, but the farthest section also held a pond.
The foul-tasting water revived them. These areas of dirt and plants were soothing, and Nim’s people weren’t the only living things who preferred this land to the cityscape. They saw birds and squirrels. The dogs tried to hide in a thatch of juniper bushes.
Nim trapped his prey with an age-old pronged attack, splitting his weakened group. Two of his men were nearly bent double by their wounds. He didn’t believe they would live through midday. They knew it, too, but they gave their last hours to the tribe, using themselves to form the wall into which Nim and his able-bodied men stampeded the dogs.
The dogs were strange to Nim. Despite bunching together, they almost seemed to belong to different species. One was almost as large as him. Others were much smaller. Their fur also varied wildly—long, short, black, brown—and yet their insides were arranged normally. The loins and brains were easy to find, although removing these choice parts was sloppy with only a splintered hunk of wood for a knife.
But there wasn’t time to feast.
“Here!” En sang as he scrambled down from the long straight hilltop of Highway 101. “Here!”
Nim dragged the dogs’ carcasses into the open as bait, then quickly divided his hunters again. Did they have enough time before the Dead Men appeared?
“Hurry,” he sang.
LOS ANGELES
Drew stopped his team on the highway. Thirty feet above the park, the storm was blinding. Channeled by the intermittent cinder-block walls, the wind rasped at his flight helmet, sneaking soot into his eyes and masking his ears with noise.
Where was the man they’d chased?
Due north, the parks spread out below Drew were a mess. A maple tree had crashed down across two picnic tables. Other trees had lost branches or most of their leaves. Except for the wet heat, it might have been autumn, which helped him. He was able to see more, and there were few places to hide.
“They’re gone, sir,” the corporal said.
“They ran into the city,” Drew agreed, glancing at Emily with mixed feelings. She was in decent shape—probably a gym rat. She’d climbed the fence and the embankment readily, never lagging behind.
Now he had to tell her to go back. They couldn’t follow her nephew all day. He just didn’t have enough men to encircle the boy. He wished he hadn’t left Bugle in charge of the aircraft. A stupid joke would have gone a long way toward easing Drew’s mind because he was beginning to think they’d underestimated P.J. The boy must be tired and hurt. Drew was perplexed that he’d hiked so far so fast.
“What’s that?” Julie pointed at the second block and its man-made, crescent-shaped pond.
“There’s something by the parking lot, too,” the corporal said. “Bodies.” He aimed his M16 at the northeast corner of the nearest block, sighting through the rifle’s scope.
Drew slung his M4 and pulled his binoculars. “Those are… dogs,” he said. “It looks like they cut ’em open.”
“They’re hunters,” Emily said.
Drew looked back at the pond. “There’s a man by the water, badly hurt. He might be unconscious.”
“They must be close,” Emily said. “We startled them before they could eat.”
“Why are they eating dogs?” Julie asked.
Emily shook her head. “What else is there? Cats. Birds. Dogs are the biggest. We think their diet was almost entirely protein. There are enough vitamins in liver and marrow to stay healthy. Neanderthals were predators.”
“We’ll see if we can save that guy,” Drew said. “Then we go back to the plane. I’m sorry. We can’t keep running after them.”
Emily said nothing. Strands of blond hair whipped around the edges of her helmet.
In silence, she nodded.
Drew wondered what she felt. Maybe we can ID the guy down there and she’ll find his medical records like she needs, he thought. He wanted to say something to encourage her, but he had nothing to gain by allowing her to reopen their argument. She was too persuasive. In the hospital, she’d talked circles around him with words like genotype and protein expressions, so he turned to Julie instead.
“We’ll move to your side,” he said, pointing west.
The embankment descending from the highway was lined with another chain-link fence. At the east end of the park, an on-ramp rose from the surface streets to join the highway. Drew wanted to avoid that dark space. The underpass where Glendale reemerged on the west side of the park was also a potential hiding place, but his team had scouted it five minutes ago, which was why he led them down the embankment at a westward angle.
His boots dug into the moist earth. Weeds and trash covered the slope. Emily sent an old bottle clattering into the chain-link fence at the bottom, slipped, then caught herself. Everyone paused as she stood up with mud on her knees, brushing angrily at her hands.
The fence sagged in places. Drew chose his spot to climb and went over it in seconds. On the ground again, he faced north, covering his squad mates with his M4. Julie and the corporal climbed after him as Patrick, Emily, and the lieutenant waited to take their turns. They were separated from Drew by the galvanized steel wire.
Then everything went to pieces.
On the fence, clinging to it, Julie yelled, “Contact left!”
Drew swung west. P.J. and a dark-haired man had leapt out from the underpass less than twenty feet away. They’d run into his blind spot, gaining a crucial second.
Behind Drew on the other side of the fence, Emily screamed. The chain-link rattled as Julie and the corporal redoubled their efforts to climb. Beside Emily, the Guard lieutenant opened fire. His rounds clanged through the wire, grazing P.J.’s leg and the dark-haired man’s ribs, but they never slowed, and he couldn’t sweep his weapon without hitting Drew.
“Watch it, watch it!” Patrick yelled.
“Nnnnnnnmh!” P.J. shrieked.
Drew fired as P.J. darted past the barrel of his M4. The three-round burst took off part of P.J.’s scalp, the muzzle blasts scorching his hair.
Nothing stopped the boy. He slammed his thin arm into Drew’s chest. Drew must have outweighed him by a hundred and thirty pounds. Nevertheless, P.J. lifted Drew off his feet, then chopped down with his club, a broken-off slat of wood. It cracked against Drew’s flight helmet.
Staggering, Drew saw the dark-haired man lunge at him, too. The man was larger—quieter—stronger than P.J. He swung a heavy pipe.
Drew lifted his M4 to block it. Impact shattered his pinky finger and something in his hand, knocking the M4 from his grip. He felt no pain. The sensation was a bad sound like a snap. The blow drove him to one knee.
Somehow Julie flew past him. Had she jumped from the fence?
She struck P.J. first. They rolled into the dark-haired man’s legs. Then the three of them collapsed. Julie lost her M4 in the scuffle. Drew saw her weapon disappear beneath the rolling bodies. P.J. bit and shrieked as Julie punched him.
Drew grabbed the 9mm Glock on his hip.
His broken hand wouldn’t close on the pistol’s grip.
The Guard corporal had also cleared the fence. He charged into the melee, swinging his M16 at the dark-haired man. Drew ran to join him. But on the embankment, Emily yelled, “Behind you!”
Drew hesitated. He saw three men sprinting from the east end of the park. They dashed toward him with crude spears and clubs.
Patrick cut them down. On the embankment with Emily, Patrick’s M4 stuttered in short, controlled bursts, slashing through all three men.
Drew ran to Julie. The corporal had her arm. He tried to tug her free as she kicked at P.J., who held one of her legs. Drew caught P.J.’
s filthy shirt. Drew meant to choke the boy—but his broken fingers slid off P.J.’s collar.
On the ground, the dark-haired man caught Julie’s flight helmet in the crook of his arm, yanking at her. Julie bent awkwardly.
P.J. used the weight of his club like a pendulum. He cocked his arm behind his back. Then he whipped forward, smashing the wood slat into Julie’s throat.
It snapped her neck. Her body twitched like a frog, lacking any dignity or grace.
“Noooooooo!” Emily cried.
Drew’s insides felt like Emily’s scream. He pulled his sidearm with both hands, wrapping his good left hand around the weapon with the busted fingers of his right.
P.J. turned with his club.
There was nothing in the boy’s eyes except a cold reptilian light. Drew shot him twice. The bullets went high because Drew’s grip was weak, but each 9mm round punched through the top of P.J.’s ribcage like a train, slamming the boy into the ground.
Drew shot the dark-haired man next. He put one round through the man’s thigh. As the man flailed away from Julie, Drew fired four more rounds into his torso.
Finally reaction set in. Drew’s head roared.
Somewhere, Emily kept screaming.
Drew knelt beside Julie. He set his hand on her distended neck, not believing there wasn’t a heartbeat until Patrick shouted, “Commander!”
No time to mourn.
One of the men on the east end of the park staggered up again. His arm hung as if its tendons were cut. His chest was destroyed. That he stood at all was demonic. He moved like a resurrected corpse, fighting for one step, almost falling, then lurching forward again.
“Hnn!” the man cried.
Drew had ignored the signs of their preternatural strength. Even in cautioning himself not to underestimate P.J., he’d assumed he was pitting his team against a ragtag band of unarmed civilians. Stupid. Stupid. Emily had warned him. These men were more than human. They were powerful, fearless, and cunning. P.J. must have doubled back to the underpass on Glendale and sent his other men to the east side of the park, luring Drew into the middle with the dogs and the man by the pond.
Was that man also alive?
Drew wanted to kill everyone responsible for Julie’s death, but his self-discipline had been built on years of ROMEO conditioning. He gestured at the walking man. “Lieutenant, Corporal, take that man prisoner,” he said. “Patch him up. Then we’ll check the man by the water.”
“Sir,” the corporal said. “Yes, sir.” His voice was shaken, but he didn’t protest. He waited for the lieutenant to climb the fence.
“Sergeant,” Drew said to Patrick. “Cover the lieutenant with your M4. Stay with Dr. Flint.”
“I’m sorry!” Emily cried. “Is she—? Oh God, I’m sorry!”
The corporal and the lieutenant ran across the park as Emily walked to the fence. She stood against the wire, holding her hands apart like a woman who’d been crucified. Then she began to climb.
Drew would have preferred if she kept her distance. He didn’t want anyone to see his stinging tears.
He opened Julie’s visor. Blood trickled from her mouth. Her eyes were huge, bugging orbs. He shut them for her. He wiped at the blood and caressed her cheek. He’d lost other people under his command. This was something more. In a short time, Julie had grown closer to him than he’d allowed anyone in years.
He would never know what they might have been together.
Emily stepped down from the fence in a numb haze. My fault, she thought. This is my fault. Oh, P.J., I wanted to save you, and we really do need your DNA, but I should have let you run into the city…
She was afraid to impose, but she couldn’t just stand there. Kneeling beside Drew felt like the right thing to do.
“She loved you very much,” she whispered. He glanced at her, and she was surprised by the surprise in his face. “I saw how she looked at you,” she said. “I—”
“Movement,” Patrick said. “Up the street.” He remained on the embankment with his M4, which he’d aimed over their heads toward the northwest end of the park. He was no longer covering the Guard lieutenant and corporal, who’d jogged sixty yards east to the wounded man. He was targeting a new enemy.
There are more of them! Emily thought.
Northward up Glendale, nine strangers stood at the edge of a two-story home on the corner. They were partially camouflaged by the mulberry trees and the hedge in its front yard. Two were black. One was about sixty years old. All of them stood in an identical top-heavy pose, heads down, eyes up, their shoulders hunched as if their clubs weighed more than any chunk of wood.
Drew rose from his lover’s corpse and matched the Neanderthals’ stance. Emily thought he would attack. Instead, he barked at his two Guardsmen without turning his gaze from the Neanderthals. “Lieutenant, come back! Leave him!”
One of the men at the front of the new group raised his voice in answer, a wordless sound. Something about it seemed very familiar. What was it? But her pulse roared through her body like the wind. She was almost deaf with adrenaline and other questions—
Where were the Neanderthal women? In hiding? ASD affected four boys for every girl. Emily wondered faintly if these hybrids were exclusively male. If so, it could be another clue to saving them.
Meanwhile, the lieutenant and corporal hustled to rejoin Drew. In silence, the Neanderthals watched from a hundred yards away. They eased into the street, leaving the home on the corner. Each step was subtle, almost unseen. Their progress had the gliding quality of a nightmare.
“I’ll carry Julie,” Drew said, lifting up his right hand. Emily realized at least one finger was broken. The implication was he couldn’t use a gun, so he’d let the others protect the team.
From the embankment, Patrick said, “Sir, do you want me on that side of the fence or are you coming over?”
Drew shifted his pistol to his left hand. “We’ll run through the underpass,” he said. “Lieutenant, you take point. Sergeant, Corporal, you’re our tail. Fire only on my order. If they don’t chase us, leave them alone.”
Patrick’s boots clattered on the fence. Then he landed beside Emily, rousing her. Suddenly she fumbled through her pocket for a blood kit. Drew bent to hoist Julie over his shoulder as Emily darted past him, jabbing a VacuCap into the dark-haired man’s arm.
“What are you doing?” Drew asked.
“Give me a second.”
“Move!” Drew began to leave with his burden.
Following him, the Guard corporal picked up Julie’s M4 and then Drew’s, slinging both weapons over his shoulder. Patrick caught Emily’s arm and hauled her away from the dark-haired man. They stepped over P.J.
“Take the boy, too,” she said. “Please. He doesn’t weigh anything. You’re so big. I can’t—”
Their gathering speed triggered something in the Neanderthal pack. The nine men burst into a run. “Fire,” Drew said as the Guard lieutenant yelled from in front, “Watch it!”
Emily saw more Neanderthals ahead of them.
Guns blazed on all sides, overriding her mind, overriding any concern for P.J.’s body. She screamed and screamed as Patrick dragged her into the underpass, where their weapons hammered and echoed.
“Clear! We’re clear!” the lieutenant yelled, leading them from the south end of the tunnel.
Three men sprawled in the street. Emily barely noticed. Her panic was so total, her consciousness spread so thinly beneath her hysteria, she retained few details of their escape. Gun smoke. Gunfire. One ray of naked sunlight.
There was also the leader’s high song amplified by the underpass. It was the same sound he’d made before.
More important, his voice dwindled behind them as they charged down Glendale Boulevard. Emily looked back before she turned onto Temple Street. The corporal was the farthest behind, skipping backward with his M16 at his hip. No one followed.
“They stopped!” she shouted. “They gave up!”
Drew growled at her fr
om beneath Julie’s corpse. “They might be trying to flank us,” he said. “That’s twice they’ve caught us in a pincer.”
Emily’s head rang with the leader’s voice as she dodged through the cars and ash. She remembered how P.J. and the others had identified themselves at DNAllied. Every man had made his own sound—and yet P.J. had used this same drawn-out syllable. Nnnnnnnmh. What did it mean?
“I have movement on our right,” Patrick said, holding his M4 sideways. At first Emily thought he was covering the two-story windows above them. Then, beyond the rooftops, she saw a running shape on the highway.
“They’re following us,” Drew said.
“We’re almost there!” she said. “You don’t have to—”
Another voice called from her left. Three men stood at the corner of a small restaurant. Their leader sang to a fourth man farther up the street. Eerily, he also used the same formless word as P.J.
“Nnnnnnmmh!” he cried.
“Hnn!” the fourth man answered.
“Fuck, they’re coming out of the woodwork,” the lieutenant said. He took one knee beside an Audi, leveling his M4.
Drew ran past him. “Keep moving! Don’t stop!”
Emily’s thoughts felt like a meteor shower. It’s the noise of the guns, she realized. That was why the Neanderthals kept coming. The fight at the hospital had attracted every group in the vicinity, and now they were paying the price.
At least that was what she told herself. Her most insidious fear was she’d been more accurate than she’d known while arguing with Colonel Bowen.
How many people had turned? One in a thousand? More?
“Here,” the leader sang. He was a tall man, six foot four, with gray hair, brown pants, brown loafers and a blood-stained length of pipe.
His name was Nim.
Two of his three men were Han. The last was En. They were accustomed to having many of the same people. The Neanderthals had just six base personalities, three male, three female, although some incarnations were more outspoken than the rest, allowing for a hierarchy even when a tribe held many Nims.
