by John O'Brien
At the edge of the finger, the team began descending, the loose rock and scree turning it into more of a barely controlled slide. Behind them, the screams followed.
Hitting the bottom and nearly falling over, Reynolds shot forward, his boots digging into the sandy soil. His eyes were locked on the boulders lying at the bottom of another extension of land. His mind screamed for cover, but at the same time, he knew that was illusionary. They weren’t being fired on and rocks really weren’t going to stop those chasing them. But, it was a familiar comfort, and he’d take all of that he could get.
“Online.” O’Malley bellowed. “And for God’s sake, shoot straight.”
At the edge of the rocks, they turned and went to their knees in one fluid motion. Bringing carbines to their shoulders, the ravine reverberated with hints of suppressed gunfire in the midst of the screams. Spent cartridges plunked into the sand as rounds were delivered into the approaching mass, which was morphing and getting closer. Soldiers in armor and helmets fell to the ground, faint apparitions rising from their still bodies. The wounded crawled with ghostly images at their side, their bodies scraping along the gritty surface with cries of pain. Figures blurred as they launched forward, rematerializing in gunfire.
The soldiers’ morphing in front of sight pictures was confusing and momentarily drew the eye away from those charging. Reynolds sighted in on one target after another, sending three rounds at a time toward the closing masses.
“This is where we stand, boys,” O’Malley called. “If we turn again, we’re done for. Show these Boy Scouts what we’re made of.”
With his heart pounding against his ribs, Reynolds felt the bounding pulse in his ears. Each breath drew in heated air, further drying his mouth. This discomfort was pushed into the background as he focused on stemming the tide that had broken out of the encampment. Faces filled with pain and hunger jostled in his scope; the feet pounding on the soil and churning up dust sounded like a stampede. He followed another morphing soldier, sighting in and pulling the trigger. The figure fell to the ground in a swirl of dust without being able to gain its feet. His gut feeling was to retreat up the slope to gain additional separation, but he forced himself to stay online with the others of his team.
He sent a burst into a charging soldier, the bullets ripping into the shoulder and arms of the attacker. The man spun and stumbled to the ground on his knees. Reynolds delivered another burst directly into the upper chest and neck, blood spraying across the sand. The man slumped back onto his knees, his head hung as if in defeat. A ghostly aura lifted, shimmered in the heat, and then became thinner before vanishing.
With adrenaline pouring through his system, Reynolds hurriedly brought his carbine up for another target, worried that the distance had closed too much and the apparitions would start leaping into the mouths and nostrils of the team. Panic set in when he didn’t immediately find anyone. Leaping to his feet, he turned to the side, then behind. His fear was that the ones morphing had moved past them and were closing in from behind. There was nothing but empty stretches of the plain to the sides, and the rise of land behind.
Screams rose from the fallen within the mouth of the ravine, the maimed and injured still attempting to close the distance. Arms reached out to drag bodies along the sand, the ghostly images lunging to break free. The team rose beside Reynolds, their barrels swinging to the sides to find new targets. O’Malley aimed at the wounded and sent single rounds into each of them, the team joining him after a pause. Reynolds felt sick putting down fellow Americans, but there wasn’t much choice.
After a while, as ghost after ghost misted and disappeared, the ravine fell silent, the only sound the labored breathing from the six men. The carnage within the ravine was almost too much to bear. The soldiers that lay on the ground were their own, none of them wanting to be in this hellhole, but each doing his or her duty. Aside from feeling ill, anxiety settled in with the realization of the apparent widespread nature of whatever had happened.
Forming a small perimeter, the team waited for any sign that other creatures might be incoming. All was quiet except for the swoosh of a breeze that flowed down the canyon.
“Okay, spread out. We’re going back up to the high ground,” O’Malley stated.
The team moved out into the plain, giving the bodies in the ravine a wide berth. Although it was apparent that the apparitions were gone, there wasn’t any way they were going to go anywhere close. They still hadn’t come to grips with what was going on, and when dealing with an unfamiliar situation, caution was usually the best plan of action.
Moving up the ridge from a different angle, the three set up watch over the bodies in the ravine. The Twilight Zone effect was real, and they couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the corpses might rise up and attack. Retrieving his long gun, Reynolds scoped into the encampment. The only things in motion were the awkward movements of soldiers walking into tent walls or dropping to the ground and pretend firing.
“So, how to you think they found us? There was the rock fall, but there’s no way they could have seen us.” Reynolds asked.
“They must have, one way or another,” O’Malley answered.
“They could have somehow sensed us,” Hanson stated.
“I suppose that’s possible,” O’Malley admitted.
“So, what now?” Reynolds inquired.
“Well, it’s pretty obvious this thing is more widespread than we’d thought. Right now, we need to look after ourselves, and that means supplies. That camp is our only real choice at this point,” O’Malley responded. “We don’t have enough water to make it far.”
“So, what do we do about them?” Reynolds asked, pointing toward those within the wire. “I mean, they aren’t exactly attacking us like the other ones.”
“And that’s the million-dollar question. If we leave them alone and they turn out to be a danger in some other way, we’re fucked,” O’Malley said.
“But, if they aren’t a risk and we shoot them like they are, well, that kind of feels like murder,” Hanson continued the thought.
“Precisely,” O’Malley responded.
“So, we need the supplies that the camp holds. That’s the bottom line for us. Now, it’s whether we take a risk and go in without doing anything to those inside, or take a risk of later being tried for murder if we take them out and support forces move in…aside from the mental aspect of shooting someone that isn’t posing on overt threat,” Reynolds stated.
“This is territory that I don’t remember reading about in a manual. Shoot our own in order to gather supplies and shelter, or risk the team by moving into an unknown situation where we could have prevented the harm,” Hanson mused.
“You two cover me,” O’Malley stated, rising.
“You’re going in?” Hanson questioned.
“It’s the only way to know for sure. I’m not against taking out any enemy from four ways to Sunday, but our own troops are off the board unless they pose an obvious threat…like those,” O’Malley thumbed over his shoulder toward the ravine. “If someone doesn’t go in and find out what’s up, then we’ll be standing here discussing philosophy until we drop from thirst.”
Reynolds scoped the entrance as O’Malley walked a distance away from those entangled in the wire. The Master Sergeant pumped a couple of rounds into several of the bodies as he made his way toward the sandbagged entrance. A couple of soldiers were just inside, making random movements. O’Malley walked right up to one of them and stared. In his magnified view, Reynolds observed absolutely zero recognition on the man’s face. He tracked the sergeant as he walked to another, observing the same thing. O’Malley waved the lot of them in.
The heat of the day and the tension of the situation made Reynolds light-headed as he trudged toward the entrance with the others. Freshly dried blood clung to the razor wire surrounding the camp, the sand below thirstily soaking up its share. Washed out eyes from the entangled dead stared blankly at the sun riding high in the sky, the last mom
ents of agony etched deeply in their expressions.
Reynolds moved to the entrance, looking at one of the soldiers who was kneeling by the sandbagged machine gun emplacement and making motions of reloading. The man didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Kneeling down, he looked deeply into the soldier’s eyes. They were clear and seemed normal, except for the absolute blankness of them. Besides the absence of any recognition, there didn’t seem to be any life in them, nor any expression at all.
Reynolds slapped the ground, attempting to gather the soldier’s attention. The man slowly turned his head, staring mindlessly at Reynolds. There still wasn’t any reaction to indicate that the man was looking at anyone. Then the man suddenly rolled to the side. Reynolds rose quickly and stepped back while bringing his weapon to bear. The man resumed his actions of reloading.
“That’s just fucking weird,” Hanson whispered at his side.
“No shit. What in the fuck happened here?” Reynolds responded.
“I don’t know, but it’s some fucking Twilight Zone kind of shit,” Hanson replied.
They encountered much of the same as they slowly moved through the camp. Soldiers went through the motions of being soldiers, but without any basis for their actions. It was like they were responding to stimuli occurring within their own minds without being conscious of the same reality that their bodies were in—much like kicking the covers while dreaming of running.
“They’re alive, but no one is home,” Hanson quietly said.
Reynolds didn’t respond, afraid to make any sound within the creepy confines of the camp. Wind whistled past guide wires and ruffled the sides of the tents. The encampment would normally be alive with noise; vehicles driving, shouts, running feet, generators chugging, thin wooden doors slamming. Instead, there was just the eerie quiet.
The team followed O’Malley to the edge of camp and descended a set of steps cut into the ground. They entered the darkened confines of an ammunition bunker buried underground. Pulling up several empty crates, they sat by the entrance in the glow of radiant light shining a little way inside.
“Well, that was…odd,” Dixon intoned.
“Downright unnerving if you ask me,” Mendez added.
“Are you sure we should even be here? This is…unnatural, and it gives me the creeps. The sooner we get away from this place, the better,” Sergeant Wright commented.
“Getting the fuck out of here has my vote,” Hanson stated.
“Look, I’ll give you all that, but we weren’t attacked. We need supplies and to figure out what’s next…get our bearings,” O’Malley said. “So, we’re staying…at least for the moment.”
“That one chick who was constantly diving onto the ground and pretending to fire was fucked up,” Hanson said.
“What about those low-crawling?” Wright mused.
“It was all messed up. Did you look into their eyes? There was nothing there,” Reynolds added.
“Okay, stow that shit. We don’t know what’s going on; we just have to deal with the fact that it is. We’ve been through some tough shit before and made it through. We’ll do the same here, but we have to keep our wits about us. So, settle down with all this ‘it’s weird and scary’ shit. Here’s what we know.
“First, this is widespread. How wide is anyone’s guess. The lack of radio contact doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more than regional,” O’Malley began. “It could just be that the satellites were fucked up by the solar storm.”
“But the lack of response worries me. I mean, there’s nothing flying anywhere. No vehicles, no contrails, nothing. Surely they’d be sending forces out with the lack of radio contact. A war doesn’t just end because the radios go down,” Dixon said.
“Maybe something else happened with the storm—like, maybe there was something that spilled or was dropped by accident when the power went down. In which case, they’d be avoiding the area,” Hanson stated.
“Something spilled that creates ghosts. Or whatever those things were. I highly doubt that,” Reynolds chuckled.
“Do you have another explanation, Einstein?” Hanson asked.
“Well, no. But, if it were something like that, we’d be affected as well, right? I mean, we were—still are—in the same area,” Reynolds answered.
“Maybe it isn’t persistent. Biological agents disperse after time, some less and others more so,” Hanson responded.
“But we were there, near the village. And tromped through the entire area. Surely we’d have been affected, regardless,” Reynolds claimed.
“Stow it, you morons! We don’t know what happened, but until we find out for sure, we’re going with the assumption that this is everywhere. In the days we’ve marched across this seventh level of hell, and with the exception of the caravan, we haven’t heard or seen anyone that isn’t one of those two…things. That means that we have to assume that we’re on our own and only have ourselves. Now, with that said, I know we all have families back in the states. But, this isn’t the time to get all teary-eyed. We have to focus on extricating ourselves. We’re all professionals, although I question that about Hanson most of the time,” O’Malley said, smiling. “So, let’s keep that about us at all times.”
“Fair enough. So, what now? We gather supplies, then what?” Reynolds inquired.
“Well, it doesn’t look like we’ll be driving out of here. I checked a few vehicles on the way through the camp and they’re all dead. Seeing as the generators aren’t running, I’m going to assume they and the radios are toast as well, but we have to verify that,” O’Malley stated.
“That’s fine and dandy, but didn’t really answer the questions,” Hanson commented.
“We have food and water to keep us for a time here, but eventually, if the cavalry doesn’t come swooping in, we’ll have to leave. That means trekking across a lot of territory, possibly south or east with the possibility of reaching a coastline. We’re not exactly liked in these parts, so if there are others who haven’t turned into ghouls, we won’t find any friendlies. Given the environment, any route we consider will have to be along a waterway or have water available. Around here, that leaves very few choices. And there is the fact that there will be people along any waterway, so we’ll have to deal with that as well.
“The Indus River crosses the mountains in Pakistan. We could follow that and arrive at the Arabian Sea, but what will that give us? Or, we could head east across northern Afghanistan and Iran. There are a couple of waterways that flow east-west. Although, there are some vast, mountainous desert tracts as well. They follow the Caspian around, cross northwestern Iran into Turkey, then down to the Med,” O’Malley briefed. “Of course, that’s assuming we don’t run into friendly forces before then.”
“Well, either way certainly sounds like a lot of fun,” Hanson chimed in.
“It wouldn’t be fun if it were easy,” O’Malley said.
“Okay, suppose we make it to either one and don’t find friendlies. Then what? That still leaves awfully big ponds to cross to get home,” Reynolds said.
“See that bridge over there…” O’Malley began.
“I know, I know. We’ll cross it when we get there,” Reynolds finished. “The distances we’re talking about are huge, longer if we don’t have transportation. How long do you imagine that would take us?”
“Possibly the rest of our lives,” Hanson muttered.
“Maybe so. But if you wanted to die an old man, you should have chosen a different profession. So, we stay together, and let’s check the rest of this place out. This will be our new quarters, so we’ll need bunks and bags. There’s only one way in and it’s easily defended, as long as someone doesn’t chuck a grenade in here,” O’Malley replied, looked at the crates of stored ammunition stacked in the dim lighting.
“So, we’re staying here?” Hanson asked.
“Yes, for the moment,” O’Malley replies. “We’ll wait and see if the cavalry shows up. If not, then we decide on a direction and move on.
&nb
sp; “Staying here? Yeah, that won’t be creepy at all,” Hanson muttered.
“Look on the bright side. Now you might actually find a woman who doesn’t immediately flee the moment you open your mouth,” Reynolds remarked.
“Fuck. You!”
The six checked their weapons and exited the underground bunker, having to pause for a moment as they adjusted to the bright sunshine after being in the dim interior. The heat of the day folded around them like an unwelcomed blanket, the sweat evaporating almost immediately. Canvas flapped with each gust of wind, but otherwise, it was eerily quiet considering the number of soldiers in camp. There should have been the general hubbub associated with a large gathering, but it was as if voices had been muted in this version of reality.
Avoiding any of the erratically moving troops as best they could, they cautiously worked their way toward the operations tent. Inside, they sorted through the folders and messages found scattered on the desks and floor. Reading dispatch after dispatch, they searched for anything that might give an indication as to what had happened. Several log entries and messages talked about the impending solar storm and the measures to be taken, but there was nothing about the actual event. The only indications were the last log entries mentioning the northern lights in the nighttime sky and then the failure of communications. Then, it just stopped.
Replacing the batteries and testing the radios demonstrated that they wouldn’t reach anyone on the outside in that manner. Outside, they tested the vehicles and generator and found that they weren’t operational. Inside many of the tents, corpses lay on the ground or halfway fallen out of cots. A few lay dead under blankets just as they slept, having apparently died immediately. Closer inspections didn’t show any apparent trauma, only the usual scrapes and cuts. They had just succumbed.
The rest of the camp yielded no clues, either. It was obvious to the team that whatever happened had been a direct result of the solar storm, but exactly what that was remained a mystery. There was also the unknown as to why they had been spared. They gathered several unused cots and coverings to bring back to the ammo bunker. Cases of MREs were looted, and they wheeled one of the water trailers near to the entrance. As the sun headed toward the horizon, they gathered inside the bunker.
