Primal

by D. J. Molles

  Sam kept his attention out on the perimeter, but that didn’t mean he was deaf. The gathered team leaders at the backend of the Humvee kept their voices down, but Sam heard them anyways.

  “The hell’d you give him?” Paige growled. “He’s been out for four hours now.”

  Squad 10—The Reapers—had the only real medic deployed with them today. He was a quiet old soul of only thirty years by the name of Poggs. He didn’t rise Paige’s bait, but answered calmly. “I gave him a fentanyl lollipop. He needed it.”

  “We needed to debrief him,” Paige returned.

  “He was barely hanging on,” Poggs replied. “I’m surprised he had the energy to yell at us. That probably took everything he had left. Both shoulders are dislocated. Same with his hips. I’m concerned about a fractured pelvis. And his BP isn’t where it should be.” Poggs paused. “Better that he live to give you a full debrief than die because we didn’t administer proper care.”

  “I would’ve liked to make that call before you stuck the fentanyl in his mouth.”

  “All due respect, but my priority is to administer care.”

  Billings’s voice interjected. “Is he gonna make it, then?”

  “Probably,” Poggs answered. “But that ‘probably’ turns into a ‘maybe’ if we stay out here.”

  “It’s stupid to sit here in the dark,” one of the other squad leaders put in. “We either need to get moving back into Augusta and waste some primals, or head back to Butler.”

  “I’m not going back into Augusta until we debrief Loudermouth,” Billings said.

  “Okay,” Paige grouched. “You take Loudermouth back to Butler, and we’ll get some CKs in your absence.”

  “CKs and incentives aside,” Billings responded, his voice betraying his irritation. “That’s a stupid idea, Paige.”

  “Why? Because you’re spooked?”

  “No, because Loudermouth is alive,” Billings shot back. “Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd? That the primals deliberately broke his legs and arms—incapacitated him, but didn’t kill him?”

  “If they were trying to use him as bait for a trap, they didn’t spring it very well,” Paige said. “To me, it looked like they ran.”

  “Right. Which is another thing I don’t like. When have you ever seen them run?”

  “None of what you’re saying tells me that we’re in any more danger than we normally are.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re so sure of yourself, Paige, but in my mind, when weird shit starts happening, that’s a good time to step back and re-evaluate your strategy.”

  “Fine. Call it into first sergeant, then. Let him make the call. But I can tell you right now, he wanted Augusta cleared five hours ago, and here we sit, having made zero progress on that front. So you tell me what you think Hamrick is gonna say.”

  “Hamrick’s a hardass, but he’s not stupid,” Billings said.

  “Alright,” Paige invited. “Go ahead, then.”

  Sam’s gaze strayed from the perimeter just enough to perceive Billings stalk around to the front passenger’s door. He gave Sam a blistering glance, and Sam shot his eyes back up to where they were supposed to be.

  “Quit eavesdropping, Ryder,” Billings gruffed as he slumped into his seat.

  Sam heard Billings snatch up the radio handset and switch to the command channel. “Squad Four to Alfred Actual.”

  One of the TOC operators answered. It sounded like the same woman as earlier.

  “Alfred to Squad Four, standby for Actual.”

  Billings waited. Sam heard him tapping out an irritable rhythm on the dashboard.

  Jones and Chris sauntered over, their rifles slung, NVGs propped up on their helmets.

  “What’s the word, sarge?” Jones asked, leaning on the front fender. “These NVGs are giving me a wild headache. Heard Poggs has some fentanyl. Think he’ll give me some if I suck his dick?”

  “Not now, Jones,” Billings grunted.

  “Ooh. Sorry.” Jones held up a hand in surrender. “Didn’t realize we were in Serioustown.”

  Sam braced himself, knowing that he would be in the crosshairs.

  Jones lounged up against the front of the Humvee and his gaze drifted up to Sam. “Ryder. Honeybuns. You got a purdy mouth on ya. Think you can get some fentanyl for me?”

  Well, that didn’t take long. Sam smirked, but kept his eyes out on the perimeter. “You know, Poggs is literally ten feet that way,” he said, jerking his head to the rear of the Humvee.

  “Is he?” Jones leaned out, craning his neck to see around the open fastback. “Shit. Shut my mouth, then.”

  The radio inside popped, and First Sergeant Hamrick’s voice came over. “Alfred Actual here. Who is this and what do you have?”

  “Sergeant Billings with Squad Four, sir,” Billings replied.

  “Did Loudermouth wake his ass up yet?”

  “No, sir. He’s still under sedation. Poggs recommends moving him back to Butler. Based on what I saw in Augusta, it’s my recommendation that the entire Hunter-Killer group pull back to Augusta and wait to hear from Loudermouth.”

  “That’s not possible, sergeant. We need Augusta cleared.”

  “I understand that, sir. I want to clear Augusta, too. But there’s some wonky shit going on with these primals. I think Loudermouth is going to be able to fill us in on some details that might help us target them with less risk to the squads. I wouldn’t be telling you this if my hackles weren’t way up, first sern’t. I want to clear Augusta and get back to Bragg as much as everybody else does. But there’s something going on here.”

  The radio remained silent for a long moment.

  Jones and Chris sat very still, listening.

  Sam, despite his orders not to, couldn’t help but eavesdrop. The radio speaker was right underneath him.

  “What’s Sergeant Paige say about it?” Hamrick finally asked.

  Billings cursed under his breath before transmitting back. “Sergeant Paige believes that my squad should escort Loudermouth back to Butler, and the rest of the Hunter-Killers should proceed with a night op.”

  Sam cringed, waiting for Hamrick’s response.

  “Copy that, Billings. Paige will take charge of the Hunter-Killers and proceed with night ops. Your squad will return Loudermouth back to Butler, immediately. How copy?”

  Billings swore. Then transmitted: “Solid copy, first sern’t. We’ll be oscar-mike in five. Out.”

  Billings slapped the receiver back into its cradle. “Jones, go get Pickell. You heard the man. We’re heading back.”

  True to his word, they were on the road five minutes later.

  Poggs huddled in the back with Loudermouth’s unconscious body.

  On the squad comms, Paige organized the remaining teams with a distinct note of triumph in his voice. The Wardogs, Lead Farmers, Reapers, Highlanders, and Alphas were heading back into Augusta to continue the hunt. Squad Four was escorting the wounded back to Butler.

  Jones was uncharacteristically quiet.

  Having relinquished the turret to Pickell again, Sam sat in his usual seat, behind Chris as he drove them along the dark roads. He looked over to Jones and couldn’t tell if the other man was pissed that they weren’t going in with the others, or if he sided with Billings’s assessment.

  Sam happened to agree with Billings—when the primals started doing strange things, it was best to take a step back and figure out what was going on. But that didn’t stop him, and probably everyone else, including Billings, from feeling like the outsiders.

  The other squads were heading into the fray.

  And Squad Four felt like they were tucking their tails and running.

  Perhaps sensing this general mood, Poggs spoke up from the back. “Billings.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You made the right call.”

  “Hmph.”

  “And I’m not just saying this as a medic. I’m saying this as a fellow warrior. We always go into the unknown. But this is some
next level shit. Paige made a bad call.”

  Billings didn’t respond.

  “Just do me a favor,” Poggs continued.

  “What’s that, Doc?”

  “Don’t take it on yourself.”

  Billings turned around and looked at Poggs through the dark interior of the Humvee.

  Poggs nodded to him. “Discretion is the better part of valor. You advised the prudent course of action, and you were ignored. No matter what happens tonight, they made their choice.”

  “You saying you think something bad is going to happen?” Billings asked, his voice quiet.

  Poggs shrugged. “I’m saying that if it does, remember that it’s not your fault.”

  Billings gave the medic a slight nod and then turned back around.

  The rest of the trip rolled by in silence.

  Even the squad comms were quiet, before they passed out of range.

  Like standing in the calm eye of a hurricane.

  ***

  Captain Maclean Marlin was pretty sure that he was going to rip Benjamin’s head from his shoulders.

  His squad trailed behind him as he erupted out of the stairwell and onto the top floor of the call center that they’d been camped at for the last few days. They were pissed too, but also a little hesitant—was Marlin going to do something rash?

  The industrial metal door slamming off of its stopper caused Lieutenant Wibberley and all of his squad to poke their heads up above their little fortress of cubicle walls, fingers tingling, and hands unconsciously moving towards their weapons.

  “Where is that faggot?” Marlin snapped.

  Being a good lieutenant, Wibberley saw a possible poor decision on the horizon, and skirted out of their encampment to intercept Marlin before he got to the door to the office where they’d staged the kid hours ago.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Wibberley pumped his hands. “What happened?”

  “I’munna fuckin’ kill him.”

  Wibberley made a rapid decision, and scooted between Marlin and the office door, placing a hand on his chest—firm enough to get through his superior’s cloud of anger, but hopefully not disrespectful…

  Marlin pulled up short, and looked at the hand on his chest, then up to his second in command with a look like he might want a go at him too.

  “Can you just tell me what happened before we create an international incident here?”

  The term international incident seemed to remind Marlin of what they were doing.

  They were a political envoy.

  This was a foreign country.

  This was not the wastelands of the Canadian tundra, where mistakes could be simply left for the wildlife to pick clean and if you forced yourself to forget about it, then you erased it from reality.

  They’d been in those places before. The whole team had.

  But this wasn’t one of them.

  Here, their actions had deep and far-reaching consequences.

  Marlin took a breath and it hissed out of clenched teeth, like cold water cooling hot metal. The captain lowered his voice, as his squad gathered around him, only a few paces off the door beyond which the kid Benjamin was sequestered.

  Marlin jabbed a finger at the door. “The kid’s mom is dead.”

  Wibberley blinked a few times, trying to process how exactly that was the kid’s fault.

  Marlin clarified a moment later: “She’s been dead for weeks, Wibberley.” His anger turned into a sneer of disgust. “We found the buildings that he told us about, where he and his mother had been hiding out—or abandoned, or whatever…” Marlin rubbed his jawline. “We could smell it the second we stepped in, but we kept searching…hoping it wasn’t the case. But we found her. In a room. An office. Bloated and rotting. Piles of shit all over the floor.”

  Marlin’s Adam’s apple bobbed like he was struggling with a memory of gagging.

  “Okay,” Wibberley soothed. “So the kid’s mom was dead. That’s fucked up.”

  “Damn right it’s fucked up. He knew she was dead and sent us in there anyways, putting our lives on the line for a corpse.”

  “The kid’s a little wonky in the head,” Wibberley said, almost whispering now, aware that the kid in question could probably hear them through the door. “He just spent weeks, stuck in a room with his dead mom. I mean…is it surprising that he’s a little special now?”

  A shadow of pity glided across Marlin’s expression. He seemed to grit his teeth against it, like he hated the feeling.

  Wibberley pressed on. “We don’t really know how important this kid is to the social structure of this United Eastern States thing. Maybe not important at all. Probably not. But you go in there and beat the shit out of him…I dunno. I personally don’t really want to show up on their doorstep with a flag of truce, saying we’re a diplomatic envoy, oh, and by the way, here’s this chap we recovered from Fort Bragg, please ignore the bruises.”

  The argument hung there in the air between them, as though teetering on a narrow fulcrum…

  Marlin made a growling noise and looked away.

  Wibberley let out a quiet breath of tension.

  He knew that the bad decision had passed them by.

  Knowing this, his duty as second in command was completed, and he gave his superior a nod, as though he had the utmost confidence that his captain would make the right decision.

  Cooled, and also aware that the kid inside the room had likely heard the voices outside of his door—if not every word, then at least the basic gist—Marlin stepped up to the door, and pressed it open, but then he simply stood in the doorway and didn’t go in.

  The kid named Benjamin sat in his chair. He didn’t look at Marlin as the door opened. His head was turned, his eyes fixed on the wall. Red rimmed. Wet streaks down his cheeks. But otherwise no blubbering. No sniffing. No hitching of breaths.

  No sign of emotion at all, outside of the tears.

  Marlin immediately felt even worse.

  Wibberley was correct.

  Could you fault the kid for being a little crazy? He’d probably tried very hard to keep his mother alive. And when he’d died, what else did he have to keep him going in the darkness?

  Just a grim fantasy that things would be okay.

  That he wasn’t all alone in there.

  That he wasn’t facing death all by himself.

  Marlin drew in a big breath through his nose. “Benjamin. You know that your mother is dead. You knew that already. Didn’t you?”

  Benjamin continued to stare at the wall.

  Marlin felt a little bothered, but just as he was about to repeat his question, Benjamin nodded, once.

  “How’d she die?” Marlin asked, his tone flat.

  This one took even longer for Benjamin to answer, but now Marlin saw the struggle. It rippled subtly behind the young man’s features, like dark things just beneath the surface of a still lake.

  “I don’t know,” Benjamin whispered.

  Like hell you don’t know, Marlin thought.

  But he said nothing.

  Something was going on. There was more to this story than Benjamin was telling them. Which then called into question everything else that he’d told them. How much of it was delusional? Exactly how insane was this kid?

  “Listen,” Marlin said.

  Benjamin gave no response.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Benjamin dragged his eyes to Marlin’s.

  Marlin lowered his chin. Arched his eyebrows. “We got a lot of kilometers between us and this Butler Safe Zone. You give us bad intel again—you put me and my team in danger again—I’ll kill you and leave you on the side of the road and never mention that we found you.”

  Again, Benjamin didn’t react much. Just stared at Marlin.

  “You understand?” Marlin demanded, irritation making a sudden comeback.

  Benjamin nodded.

  Marlin held his gaze for another moment, trying to impress upon Benjamin how serious he was about that threat.
But as he pulled himself out of the doorway and closed the door behind him, he thought that he understood the look on Benjamin’s face.

  Benjamin was thinking that being killed and left on the side of the road was perhaps his best option.

  NINETEEN

  ─▬▬▬─

  DECISIONS

  Captain Terrence “Tex” Lehy knew how to be alone. He’d been alone before.

  That’s what he kept telling himself as he sat in a chair, facing a glowing computer screen in the dark.

  This is no different than all the other times you were sequestered to your home bunker.

  But it was different. Because all those other times, back before the world had gone to shit, he’d just been Captain Lehy, a Coordinator for Project Hometown. One man, living a quiet life out in the middle of the Texas countryside. And when the Washington Worry Warts saw something they thought might be a threat to the survival of the nation, down he went into his bunker, to wait for the all-clear.

  In all those other times, including the last time, when the all-clear never came, and the Washington Worry Warts had finally been right about something, he’d just been one man, following orders.

  But then he’d become Tex. He’d become the leader of a guerilla movement, aimed at keeping Texas out of the hands of people that had no business calling themselves Americans. He hadn’t been a man following orders since then.

  For four years, he’d been the man giving the orders.

  His troops, his guys, his boys…they were like his children, in a way. And like his best friends in other ways. And he’d been surrounded by them. He’d eaten with them, bled with them, suffered with them.

  They’d become his family.

  And he’d grown accustomed to being surrounded by them.

  And now they were gone.

  So yes, he knew how to be alone. And yes, he’d been alone before.

  But this was different.

  Now he thought about them, almost nonstop. What had happened with them? Were any of them still alive? Had they all died in the trap that Cornerstone and Greeley had laid for them at the Comanche Creek Power Plant?