The Survivalist (Solemn Duty)

by Arthur T. Bradley

  Little bunny foo-foo,

  Hopping through the forest,

  Scooping up the field mice,

  And bopping them on the head.

  “What is that?” she whispered, her heart suddenly doing double time.

  “Don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s moving away from us.”

  “Good,” she breathed.

  “We need to follow it.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Because it’s either Mama Bear, or it’s headed back to her.”

  Samantha looked down at the men lying on the floor.

  “Shouldn’t we at least get them out of here?”

  “Business first. You know that.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded.

  Tanner began slowly walking down the tubular hallway, doing his best not to trip over the men or slip on their blood. Samantha cast a quick glance back at the control room before following after him.

  As they passed one of the injured men, she leaned down and checked his neck for a pulse. If he had one, she couldn’t find it.

  Even so, she whispered, “Just hold on a little longer. We’ll come back for you.”

  They continued forward, slowly so as not to gain ground on whatever creature was ahead of them. The tube seemed to go on forever, with the floor now perfectly level. Whether or not the creature knew of their presence was impossible to say, but the faint singing never faltered.

  It wasn’t until they had followed it for two long minutes that the sound finally quieted.

  Samantha touched Tanner’s arm as they stopped to listen. The singing had been replaced with a rustle of movement.

  “What’s it doing?” she whispered.

  “Don’t know.”

  A deep agonizing moan echoed from the darkness ahead.

  “It has to be one of Purdy’s men,” she breathed.

  Tanner motioned to the flashlight. “Turn it up.”

  With her derringer ready in the other hand, she pulled the scarf off the end of the flashlight. Bright white light flooded the corridor, and what they saw was nothing short of horrific.

  A beast stood hunched over, its enormous head dotted with an assortment of mismatched eyes like those of Lovecraft’s mysterious shoggoth. The creature was completely naked, standing on two enormous legs, each covered in thick layers of dimpled fat. Its corpulent belly spilled halfway to the floor, flabs of flesh stacked upon themselves. Dozens of fingers, some from adults, others from children, protruded from its chest and belly like tiny antennae with which to feel the world. Even slouching forward to better carry its incredible weight, the shoggoth towered seven feet in the air. In one hand, it clutched a meat hook, and in the other a small bloodstained sledgehammer. The hook pierced the shoulder of a young man lying at the edge of a dark pit that stretched as far as the light could reach.

  Before Tanner or Samantha could intercede, the shoggoth slipped the hook from the man’s shoulder and rolled him off into the pit. A short pitiful scream echoed up from the hole as he fell. And then, nothing.

  Samantha let out a little squeak as fear squeezed her chest.

  “Steady,” Tanner growled, lining up the Mare’s Leg.

  She took a deep breath and raised the derringer.

  “Can guns even kill something like that?”

  His grip tightened on the weapon.

  “Guns can kill anything.”

  The shoggoth turned and studied them, its many eyes squinting in the bright light.

  “Whatever you do, try not to look into its eyes,” she whispered. “It might be like Medusa and turn you to stone.”

  Despite Samantha’s warning, Tanner met the creature’s fearsome gaze. They stood, staring at one another for a long moment, two mammoths testing to see who would look away first. When neither did, the beast lumbered forward, the metal floor trembling under its tremendous weight.

  Tanner and Samantha both fired in unison, his bullet ripping a bloody hole in the creature’s thick neck and hers sinking into its gelatinous belly.

  Neither seemed to have any effect.

  Samantha cocked the hammer on her derringer and brought the weapon up a second time. It was the last shot she was going to get, and she had to force herself not to break and run. She aimed at its head and fired again.

  Boom!

  The slug ripped through one of the shoggoth’s eyes, pink gelatin spraying out.

  Tanner fired too, punching a neat hole in the creature’s chest.

  Neither slowed its advance.

  Realizing that they weren’t going to drop it before it got to them, Tanner set the Mare’s Leg down and quickly passed the saddlebags over to Samantha.

  “I’ll keep it busy,” he said, charging ahead.

  “And what am I supposed to do!”

  “Use the napalm!”

  Tanner and the shoggoth collided, two goliaths crashing in the dark. Despite being a hundred pounds lighter than the creature, Tanner was not pushed back. Instead, they came to a dead stop as mass met mass.

  The shoggoth immediately pivoted and swung the hammer up the middle, hoping to catch him under the chin.

  No luck. Tanner had already shuffled to one side, firing a short hook as he moved. His knuckles smashed against another of the creature’s eyes, and it too, exploded into a sticky wet spray.

  The shoggoth swiped sideways with the meat hook, a powerful swish sounding as it cut through the air. Tanner dropped to a knee, barely avoiding being speared as he blindly shot a punch beneath a thick flap of fat. His hand hit something wet, and when he pulled it back, it was covered in a thick layer of the yellow paste.

  As he flicked it off, the shoggoth jabbed the hammer forward, bashing him in the ribs. The blow sent Tanner stumbling back against the rounded wall of the tube. The creature lumbered after him, hook and hammer both raised.

  Hoping to maintain distance, Tanner whipped a roundhouse kick to one of the shoggoth’s legs. The behemoth’s knee buckled, and it stumbled forward with its hands outstretched. Unable to escape, Tanner hit it with a flurry of punches—jab, cross, uppercut, hook. Three of the blows hit eyes, and all three ruptured upon impact. The grotesque swollen state of its head had apparently instilled so much cranial pressure that its eyes had become tightly-stretched water balloons waiting to burst. It was in that moment that Tanner saw a way to defeat the shoggoth.

  He risked a glance back at Samantha. She had pulled one of the jars of napalm from the saddlebags but was still foraging for matches.

  “Hurry!” he shouted.

  “Almost there!”

  For his plan to work, Tanner needed for the shoggoth not to see her coming. Fighting every natural instinct, he closed to within a foot of the beast. With his fingertips pressed together into tight beaks, he began popping the creature’s eyes with quick pointed jabs.

  Screaming in pain, the shoggoth tried to hook him, but Tanner had gotten in so close that the point only managed to scrape across his back, tearing his shirt and leaving a thin trail of blood for its passing.

  Tanner continued his precise attack, striking one eye after another.

  Hoping to stop the onslaught, the shoggoth dropped both hook and hammer to wrap its massive arms around his waist. It had but two eyes remaining, and just before he was lifted into the air, Tanner managed to rupture both. As the world suddenly went dark, the beast let out a long wailing scream that was answered by hundreds more from the dark shaft beyond.

  Now several feet in the air, Tanner felt the full measure of the creature’s might. Ribs compressed as air was forced from his lungs, and he knew that if he didn’t act quickly, the shoggoth would surely snap his spine.

  With an arm outstretched, he choked, “Sam, the hammer!”

  With a jar of napalm in one hand, Samantha rushed over, picked up the hammer, and passed it up to him.

  Unable to draw a breath, Tanner began to hit the beast. The heavy mallet smashed against its oversized skull, cracking it like a hardboiled egg. After the third blow, th
e shoggoth hurled him away.

  “Now Sam!” he shouted.

  Samantha threw the jar of napalm at the creature’s fat-covered back. The glass shattered, leaving the beast dripping with the sticky white substance. She immediately struck a match and flicked it toward him. The napalm burst into flame, and the creature stumbled about, screaming in agony as it tried to reach around to pat out the fire.

  Blind and in horrible pain, it ran in random directions, colliding with one wall and then the other. Unable to escape, it began shaking violently as if trying to shed its own skin. That too failed to bring relief, and after a few seconds, the shoggoth collapsed to the floor, its flesh spitting and popping from the blistering napalm.

  Samantha walked over to where Tanner lay on the floor and extended a hand.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Peachy,” he said, getting back to his feet.

  She noticed him wince when taking a breath.

  “I think it broke your ribs.”

  “Nonsense,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t break.”

  As Tanner retrieved the Mare’s Leg and saddlebags, Samantha reloaded her derringer.

  “Did we do it?” she asked. “Did we kill Mama Bear?”

  He turned his eyes toward the dark pit ahead.

  “Maybe, but we need to get the rest while they’re asleep.”

  “Are you sure there’s time?”

  “We’ll hurry.”

  “But what if—”

  “Sam,” he growled.

  “Right,” she said with a nod. “We’ll find a way. We always find a way, right.”

  “Right.”

  As they continued down the hallway, she added, “Of course, we’ve never been trapped in a missile silo full of infected monsters. So, really, who knows for sure?”

  Tanner shook his head. There was no one quite like Samantha.

  “What?” she said. “I’m just saying.”

  He grinned. “Yes, you are.”

  As they came to the ledge, a deep pool of darkness beckoned them to step off into the abyss. The light from Samantha’s flashlight barely reached the far side of the empty silo, perhaps a hundred feet away. The walls were round, much like the corridor, only turned vertical instead of horizontal. A metal walkway went all the way around the shaft, slowly ramping its way downward.

  She swept the light across the open space.

  “It’s the launch tube.”

  “Yep.” He pointed up. “Missile goes out that way.”

  Samantha looked up to see a slice of bright light coming in from overhead.

  “It’s the door we saw from outside,” he explained.

  “It looks like a giant eyelid.”

  She turned the flashlight to shine down into the dark void. The beam didn’t reach the bottom, but she could see several matching circular walkways on levels below them. Thankfully, there were no signs of misshapen mutants. Her flashlight settled on a ladder running up the inside of the launch tube, not more than ten feet away.

  “That would be quicker than walking around and around.”

  He nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 17

  Mason floored the gas pedal the instant they bumped their way onto the opposite side of the divided highway. His plan was simple, put enough distance between the tractor trailer and the rest of the convoy with the hopes that Dix might not want to risk leaving them exposed.

  “If they decide to run us down, this isn’t going to end well,” Beebie said, studying his side view mirror for any sign of the HMMWV. Unable to get a clear view with the truck lunging back and forth as Mason changed gears, he leaned his head out the window.

  A moment later the HMMWV appeared on the highway behind them.

  “Incoming!”

  Mason glanced down at the speedometer. They were pushing forty miles an hour and pulling away fast. Dix would have to decide whether to give chase or surrender to the fact that a sheep had gotten away from the safety of the flock. Given their head start and the precarious situation that the rest of the convoy still faced, turning back would have been the smarter thing to do.

  Unfortunately, no one ever accused Dix of being smart.

  “Shit!” Mason growled as he saw the HMMWV starting to close.

  Beebie saw it too. “I don’t have to tell you what’ll happen if he opens up with the fifty cal.”

  “He won’t,” Mason said with a great deal more confidence than he felt, “at least not until he’s sure he can’t recover the payload.”

  Mason checked his speedometer again, fifty miles an hour. Unfortunately, the HMWWV was now steadily gaining on them. He could see Dix riding high in the saddle, the Browning pressed out in front of him like a harpoon lining up on a humpback whale.

  “Marshal, if you’ve got a trick up your sleeve, now would be the time.” Beebie’s voice was starting to rattle as nerves took hold.

  Letting out a frustrated sigh, Mason removed his foot from the gas pedal and turned on the emergency flashers, letting the truck coast along the highway.

  Beebie’s eyes widened. “We’re surrendering?”

  Instead of answering, Mason said, “Better put on your seatbelt.”

  Beebie quickly pulled it across him.

  “Why? What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get that ace out of my sleeve.”

  With the truck slowing, the HMMWV barreled up from behind them. Mason watched in his mirror as it approached. When it swerved to come up alongside the truck, he turned to Beebie and said, “Hang onto Bowie.”

  “I got news for you. This rig isn’t nimble enough to hit them.”

  “I’m not going to hit them. They’re going to hit me.”

  Mason jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and slammed on the brakes with both feet. The tractor trailer’s heavy tires barked across the asphalt, leaving long black streaks as it skidded to a stop. The HMMWV had nowhere to go. It was either hit the trailer or careen off into the woods.

  Diego elected to keep it on the road, and the HMMWV hit so hard that its hood pushed beneath the truck to raise the trailer’s rear most wheels a foot off the ground. The collision also sent Mason, Beebie, and Bowie slamming against the dash, but thankfully, none were thrown through the windshield.

  As the world slowly settled, Mason checked his side view mirror.

  The only thing he could see was the back end of the HMMWV protruding from beneath the truck. He popped the transmission back into first gear and pulled forward, dropping the heavy trailer back onto the asphalt.

  Beebie rubbed his injured shoulder. “Thanks. That was just what the doctor ordered.”

  Mason grinned and leaned out to get eyes on the HMMWV. The entire front end had crumpled so badly that the motor had dropped out of the bottom of the chassis. He saw Diego lying slumped over the steering wheel, the windshield in front of him cracked and spattered with blood. Dix had thankfully managed to drop back down inside the vehicle, avoiding decapitation, but he lay prone across the dash like an oversized statue of The Virgin Mary.

  While clearly injured, both men appeared to have survived the crash. What worried Mason was the small engine fire that had sprung to life, a cloud of black smoke puffing out from what was left of the hood.

  He popped open his door and said, “Beebie, give me a hand.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To keep some old friends from turning into fried chicken.”

  Mason climbed down and hurried back to the HMMWV with his Supergrade in hand. While he had no intention of shooting either man, experience had shown the value of having a gun at the ready. Beebie and Bowie followed a few steps behind, both still a bit dazed by the crash.

  Approaching from the passenger’s side, Mason saw that Dix was out cold after having taken a pretty hard bump to the head. Diego didn’t look much better, blood running from his nose and mouth. Neither looked like they could speak, let alone put up much of a fight.

  Mason holstered his pistol, grabbe
d Dix under the arms, and began dragging him toward the grass-covered median. Beebie did the same for Diego, but instead of dragging, he carried him like a child in his arms.

  Setting Diego on the ground next to Dix, Beebie said, “It’s probably a good thing Dix won’t know you saved him. Talk about adding insult to injury.”

  Mason looked down at Dix and couldn’t help but feel a sense of comradery. They had been through some difficult times together, and it seemed like a shame that they now found themselves on opposite ends of a gun.

  He spotted the cast on Dix’s arm.

  “Did I do that to him?”

  Beebie nodded. “Broke it in two places.”

  An idea came to Mason, and he hurried over to the HMMWV. After digging around in the glove box, he returned, carrying a black Sharpie marker. Kneeling down, he scrawled a few words on the cast covering Dix’s forearm.

  “There,” he said, turning to leave. “Maybe that’ll help mend a few fences.”

  Beebie trailed after him, chuckling to himself.

  “Yeah, I’m sure a few words are going to fix everything. It’s not like you just gave him a concussion. Oh right, you did.”

  “True, but I didn’t kill him.” He glanced back at the HMMWV that was still trying to decide whether or not to burn. “And I didn’t let him burn to death either. That’s got to count for something.”

  Beebie smiled. “In your world, maybe. I’m not so sure about in Dix’s.”

  Dix didn’t regain consciousness for another twenty minutes, and when he awoke, he found himself lying in knee-high grass with the HMMWV smoldering nearby. Diego sat with his back to a tree, nursing a broken nose, a few loose teeth, and an eye that had swollen shut.

  “You alive, jefe?” he said, turning to see through his one good eye.

  Dix sat up, and when he did, nearly vomited thanks to a golf-ball-sized hematoma in the middle of his forehead.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Bastard hit the brakes just as we were coming around.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Dix said, slowly turning his head to see down the highway.