“Here,” said Schaeffer, handing the commander his binoculars. He turned to Desmond. “Do we have any idea how long we’ll wait?”
“She must call us in a few hours,” Desmond said.
“I don’t see any Shade in the streets,” Hendrix said, lowering the binoculars.
“You shouldn’t,” Desmond said, “São Sebastião is practically a ghost town now. The satellites didn’t capture almost any heat signature on this area. That’s why Olivia and Thomas are coming here — it’s the safest place for an extraction.”
“The same satellites they used in Operation Blood Hammer?” Archer mocked. Everyone knew that one of the mistakes of that attempt to retake American territory through brute force was to underestimate the number of Shades because of blind trust in satellites and drone-provided images. At the time no one seemed to think that the things were hiding underground.
“Things are different here,” Desmond answered. “The images showed massive groups in the nearby town and along the mountain range. Looks like the creatures just... moved on.”
Hendrix gritted his teeth. Like any veteran, he knew that, despite the millions of dollars invested in drones and spy satellites, nothing was more reliable than the human eye. He keyed his radio, “Dev, in position?”
“Yes, boss,” Devereaux answered immediately.
“How many Shades do you see?”
“Zero activity, boss... Clean area for now.”
“I want updates every ten minutes.”
“Roger that.”
Hendrix still wasn’t feeling safe — first, because a sheep on no account feels out of harm’s way inside the lion’s den; second, that was a part of Hendrix that just wanted to see those Shades. When you fight monsters, worse than seeing them it’s imagining their presence in every corner and window.
On the other hand, it wasn’t worth wishing to rush the evil.
He glanced at his watch, then lifted the binoculars and scoured the street, planning. “Okay, we have a few hours to wait until the call,” he said. “Watch shifts, twenty minutes each; I will go first. Archer, Schaeffer, I can see a few cars that seem good, two blocks north from here. Go see if one of them is working; we might need a vehicle. Desmond, double-check the girl’s location. Depending on where she is, it may not be worth waiting.”
Schaeffer and Archer nodded and disappeared from view. Desmond got his tablet and started doing his things of spy-with-a-low-budget. Hendrix stared at the window again. Knight lazily extricated himself and sat on a chair, his BEAR rifle in his lap. He asked Hendrix, “And now...?”
“Now, bro, we wait for the call.”
CAN YOU DO THAT?
Slowly, Asimov pushed his face away from the wheel. His body throbbed, especially between his ribs, on the right side. He suppressed the pain with a grunt and forced his eyes to open.
Someone was shaking his shoulder. Thomas. The boy was moving his mouth, but Asimov didn’t hear the words — in fact, he didn’t hear anything. He stared at the tween, watching his lips move. It seemed to say “they’re coming” or something like that. Asimov moved his head back and searched for Olivia. The girl had passed out, blood escaping from her nose and mouth.
“They’re coming,” Thomas’s voice echoed in the distance as if Asimov was at the end of a tunnel and the boy at the other side. Asimov pulled his .45 from his holster and opened the car door.
He got out of the car. His knees buckled, the legs wobbly, and he fell down on the floor, hard enough to radiate a piercing pain through his chest. Clouds of smoke rose from the sedan’s hood. The front of the sports car was destroyed, as if Asimov had hit a light pole — with the exception of he didn’t hit a pole; Asimov looked at the lane behind the car, searching for the body of the creature he had run over.
There was none.
No good, Asimov thought. He opened the door to the back seat and glanced at Olivia. She was still breathing and he shook her. “Olivia? Wake up! Olivia?”
Her eyes opened very slowly, “W-what?”
Asimov pulled her out of the car and set her on the road; he wiped the blood from her face and searched for more serious bruises. Olivia pushed his hands away, her eyes suddenly wide, the surprise and shock stamped on her face.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!”
“Shhhh!” He covered her mouth with his hand until she went silent. “Can you walk?”
She nodded. Asimov helped her up and then looked around. They couldn’t stand there, in the open. Farther down the road was a motel It’s good enough, he considered sourly.
The three of them headed toward the motel, Asimov in the front with the pistol in hand, and Thomas helping Olivia to follow him. Of the three, Thomas seemed to be the only one who hadn’t been injured — blessed seatbelt! Olivia, on the other hand, appeared to be more wounded than Asimov could imagine. Every five steps the girl seemed to babble something, disconnected phrases that only make sense to her.
The design of the motel was very simple — the parking in the middle and rooms built around it, in the edges. The place seemed abandoned. Asimov saw no car in the vicinity and cursed softly. They needed a car; otherwise they would never arrive in São Sebastião, much less in Ilha Bela.
He stopped in front of a room and tried to open the door. Locked. He opened it with a kick, revealing a small space with two dirty beds, a bedside table and a bathroom in the back. He helped Olivia to lie down on the cleaner bed and then closed the door. Thomas sat on the bed next to Olivia, and Asimov let his body sink to the floor near the window.
“What do we do now?” Thomas asked.
“Now,” Asimov said, closing the windows’ curtains, “I must think.”
Olivia began to mumble, the words totally pointless to Asimov. He took another look at her, while Thomas watched him in silence.
“She’s in shock,” Asimov explained to the kid. “She suffered a concussion.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I hope so. I’ll let her sleep for 15 minutes.”
Thomas’s face was a mask of concern. He hugged his backpack as if it were some kind of totem. Asimov looked at him and smiled slightly, trying to get some sense of security. It was obvious he couldn’t, so he decided to use another strategy.
“Where did you learn Portuguese?” he asked, with the clear intent to distract the boy.
“My mom taught me,” Thomas said. “She liked it here. She used to say that, when I got better, we would travel around the world, starting with Brazil.”
“When you get better?”
“I was sick,” Thomas explained, his voice more controlled, “I was in a hospital. Mom was going to visit me every day. Then I came home and get better.”
“Hmmm…” Asimov thought about that for a second. “What about your father?” he asked.
The boy shrugged. “He’s in the States.”
“Do you miss him?”
“A little, but I’ll meet him. I miss my mother more.” And then there was an expression of pain and sadness that didn’t match such a young face. Thomas tightened his pack against his chest, his attention returning to Olivia.
“And that backpack, boy?” Asimov said, still trying to get him distracted.
Thomas looked at the pack on his lap. “Mom gave it to me.” He opened his backpack and began to show his belongings. There was a bit of everything in there: some old comic books, bandages, a flashlight, an empty bottle of water, batteries...
But, among all that stuff, what caught Asimov’s attention was the metal cylinder — at first glance, it actually looked like a thermos, but now Asimov saw it was bigger and looked heavier. Above the lid was a tiny alphanumeric keyboard.
Now he was curious. He finally asked, “And what is this?”
Thomas stared at the cylinder but didn’t remove it from his pack. “Prescription,” he answered.
Asimov opened his mouth ready to claim further explanation, but then stopped, raising his head due to a sound carried by the wind outside. He waited
a few seconds. It was difficult to discern things with the noise of the rain suppressing everything else, but his trained ears caught that sound again. He approached the windows and opened the curtains, trying to find the source.
Asimov stepped away from the window and Thomas heard him take a deep breath.
“Get your things,” he told Thomas as he walked over to Olivia and held the girl in his arms.
“It’s—?” the boy asked, joining his backpack.
“Come on...” Asimov called. He headed to the bathroom. It was a ridiculously small cubicle, and would hardly have breathing space for two people there, let alone three. “Come in!” he said to Thomas.
Realizing that it would be useless to try to extract any explanation from the man, the boy obeyed in silence. Asimov placed Olivia on the ground at the kid’s feet. She groaned as she returned to consciousness.
“Shhhhh!” Asimov said as her eyes filled with terror and confusion. There wasn’t time to explain things, and he could only hope that she’d be able to keep quiet. Their chances of escape were already very small.
Asimov looked at the bathroom. Without a doubt, there wasn’t room for him there. He made his decision in an instant — if one could call it a decision; after all, that word meant that there was a choice, that there were options, and there was none.
He turned his attention to Thomas. At that moment, the boy was the only one he could count on. But he was still a boy.
“I need you to keep her quiet,” he told to Thomas. “Can you do that?”
Thomas nodded at once, trembling. Asimov couldn’t tell whether this was a positive sign that he was a mature kid, capable of handle himself, or another testimony that Thomas was just a boy, unable to understand the gravity of the situation.
Ridiculous! It’s you who can’t even remember your real name!
He got out of the bathroom and put his hand on the door handle. Only then he noticed the confusion on Thomas’ face.
Where are you going? He seemed to ask.
“Don’t make a sound,” Asimov whispered to the boy as he pulled out his gun.
At that moment, something flickered in Thomas’s memory. He opened his mouth to protest, but Asimov slammed the door in his face and locked it. Thomas leaped to his feet, ready to open the door when he heard the sound of shattering glass and shots. The boy flinched, but then bent to peer through the keyhole.
It was happening all again. Thomas remembered his mother, and the thought of the story repeating itself terrified him. He prayed to God that this time would be different.
He didn’t see much, however. It was very fast. There seemed to be three Shades in the room. Motion’s blurs, the flashing of shot, a fight, bodies being thrown against the wall, furniture flying around.
Seconds passed and then he saw the first Shade, a ghost that seemed to slide down the walls and ceiling of the room, moving above and behind Asimov. There were a few more shots, and then Thomas saw the man being erected by a second Shade as if he weighed nothing.
And then the monster tossed him out, through the broken window, and he was gone.
THE PRIMITIVE ALLUSION OF AN EXECUTION
First, he was flying.
Then he was falling.
Asimov landed harshly, his body rolling, rolling and rolling through the concrete as if he was a toy tossed with hatred by a giant. When he finally stopped, Asimov found himself looking at the gray sky, the rain beating on his face, the body consumed with searing pain. Raising his head from the wet floor, he searched for the Shades.
They jumped back and forth, too fast for untrained eyes to follow. One of them landed only ten paces away, claws spread out on the hard floor, while the second stood on the top of the hotel, squatting in the roof.
The third wasn’t in sight — it was still inside the room.
The two Shades examined him, growling low, and they looked like two wolves preparing to hunt down their prey. Asimov stood up, his heart hammering with adrenaline and aware that, somehow, he had managed to keep the pistol in his hand.
His eyes didn’t move away from the monsters. They were different from those he had fought on the apartment building — larger, with flaky white skin and elongated limbs, those were the ones that tried to hunt him down earlier that day.
Oh, well, now they definitely found me…
The thing on the ground had a lock of pasty hair falling over the face, and, although gender was difficult to discern between the creatures, this one seemed to have more feminine traits than what was on the roof.
A female.
The Shade moved from side to side in a way that seemed almost casual, in a petulant step. The one who was squatting on the roof began to shake; Asimov raised his gun, not knowing which of the two he should shoot first.
Drops of sweat broke out all over Asimov, colder than the rain that was bathing his body. God, he didn’t even know if he could face them; it seemed this wouldn’t be a fight, but the primitive allusion of an execution.
He barely saw the Shade on the roof before the creature took a majestic leap into the air, a figure shining in the sky, pulsing with an almost psychotic savagery. Then it was falling, a barbarian buzz escaping from its mouth.
The creature engulfed him as he pulled the trigger of the gun.
A roar, a shot, and then the explosion of force as the bodies collided. Asimov felt the claws cutting into his shoulder. He was thrown to the side, his body in the air for a second before finding the soil, lying on his stomach. The cut on his arm seemed to burn.
Any pain he felt seemed to diminish as he saw the male Shade rushing toward him, the bullet wound in the chest not lessening the creature’s impetus — that shot was the only reason the monster hit his shoulder instead of his throat.
Asimov turned his back and, still sitting on the floor, raised his pistol and put two on the Shade’s chest. The thing descended on one knee, placing one of its claws on the floor to regain its posture. The Shade jumped before Asimov could fire again. He tried to track the thing with his gun, but he saw another movement from the corner of his eyes — it was the female Shade, getting in the fight and setting off in a race, heading straight for him.
Asimov turned the gun on her and fired, but the Shade changed direction instantly, avoiding his shots. The female jumped, leaping ten feet into the air with the same splendor as her partner — a leap that should be anatomically impossible —, and within three seconds she was already away from him, hopping around the motel roof with the male, crossing the entire area around their prey.
Asimov kept firing as he got up, but the Shades were too fast. It was as if the creatures wanted to force him to spend all his ammunition; a trap in which he was falling without delay — and he knew it.
And it wasn’t long before he was out of bullets. He searched his pockets for another magazine, his eyes trying to catch up with the creatures as they jumped and ran around him. It was their turn, and he could feel they would attack now, at any second.
His eyes met the male as the monster lunged directly at him, its body depicting a fatal arc in the air, a muscular being with sharp claws and powerful teeth.
♦♦♦
Thomas didn’t have to keep peering through the keyhole to know that there was still a Shade in the room. The bathroom door shook as the monster slammed into it. Just a few more blows and the monster would tear it apart.
What do I do? What do I do? Thomas looked from side to side. The window in the bathroom was too small for him to go by. The only way out was through that door, through that Shade. So what Thomas would do? What could he do?
The door snapped suddenly with a stronger blow from the Shade, the wall trembling from the impact. The kid could almost feel the door detach itself from its place with each blow, slowly, inch by inch.
A gun, I need a gun! Thomas looked at Olivia and then remembered her revolver. Thomas leaned over the girl, tapping her face to wake her. She recovered from her stupor for a second and looked at him as if he was a complete s
tranger.
“Olivia, where’s your gun? Where’s your gun?!” She didn’t seem to understand what he was saying and he screamed, “Gun!!!”
The door shook violently behind him — suddenly, a large piece of wood burst and flew through the bathroom. The boy barely contained a cry, “The gun! The gun...!”
“Thomas...” Olivia muttered but didn’t say anything else. Thomas ignored her, searching her pockets for the revolver. Where did people put a gun in the movies? That’s right, on the waist!
A loud crack! He turned his head and saw the hole in the door a little wider, and a pale hand full of claws trying to get through the hole.
“The gun! The gun! The gun!” He was screaming now. The revolver wasn’t on her waist, neither in her pockets. Where then? Did she leave it in the car after the accident? No, please, this couldn’t be true. Thomas grabbed his backpack. Maybe it was there, right?
It must be. Please, please, please! Thomas opened his backpack and turned upside down, dumping everything on the floor.
“Thomas...” Olivia called again. This time Thomas looked at her, and she did nothing but look at the sink. Thomas turned and saw the revolver on the floor, under the sink.
How did it get there? He grabbed the weapon at the exact moment that the small hole on the fractured door widened enough that now there was a whole arm shoving itself inside. Thomas turned with the revolver and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
What?! He looked at the gun, perplexed, squeezing the trigger like madly. Then he realized: the safety. He flicked it with his thumb like the detectives did in the movies. He almost laughed at that thought but stopped when a massive “bang!” broke the door in two.
Then there were claws around his arm.
And then he was pulled from the bathroom.
And then he was screaming.
♦♦♦
The War Within #1: Victims Page 10
