by M. R. Forbes
“It’s always intrigued me,” Ghost said. “The trife kill humans by the thousands, but they don’t go after anything else. Chickens, cows, horses, you name it. None of them are targets to the creatures. But, they also don’t eat us. They kill for fun, or maybe because it’s what they were made to do.”
“Made by who?” Natalia asked, after swallowing the eggs. She didn’t like them, but she needed to eat. She forced herself to take another forkful.
“The question of the millennium,” Ghost said. “Sent from the stars. Apparently designed to wipe out humankind. To feed the goliaths? Or was there another purpose? A war that was started, but could never be finished?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if an alien race sent the trife to destroy us, but then were destroyed themselves before they could come and claim the planet? What if the universe is teeming with alien species all battling one another for survival, a macrocosm of our existence here?”
“You don’t think the goliaths are the master aliens?”
“They don’t seem intelligent enough, do they? Maybe the master group is somewhere else, sending the goliaths out. I don’t know. It’s an interesting thought exercise, but we’re in no position to discover the truth.”
“We could be if King would unite people instead of ruling over them with violence and fear. There’s an old saying, you-”
“Catch more flies with honey,” Ghost finished. “Yes, I’ve heard it. We’ve had four hundred years. We’ve learned it doesn’t work. Not for long. As long as there’s one person out there who wants to do violence and can get others to join them, there can never be true peace. You have to become the biggest and baddest.”
“Maybe the trife were sent to keep us preoccupied?” Natalia said. “Maybe their whole goal was to set us back and keep us from reaching the stars? Was it a coincidence they arrived around the same time the Generation ships were being made?”
Ghost stared at her, his brow lowering as he considered the statement. “Nobody has ever made that connection before,” he said. “Interesting. What do you think of the bacon?”
Natalia picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. She started to chew. The flavor was similar to the steak, but different. It was delicious.
“Now, that is good,” she said after swallowing.
“I’ll leave you with your meal. If you need anything else, Sergeant Nil is waiting to serve you. I’m going to prep the transport. We still have a long way to travel, and without the convoy, we’ll need to move fast.”
“We aren’t going back to Sanisco?” Natalia asked, surprised.
“No. King gave me a mission. It is my responsibility to complete it. The complex is important. It may be a key to everything we hope to accomplish. I’ll get you there safely. You have my word.”
He smiled and tried to look confident, but she could tell he was in pain as he turned and headed for the door.
Had she survived the prior night, only to die today?
26
HAYDEN and the others spent the next four hours walking. There were nine of them in all, including the six members of Kilambe Huston’s failed guerrilla rebellion. He had tried to speak to them, to introduce himself, Chains, and Jake to the group, but they didn’t want any part of it. The rebels were blaming him for the failure, despite the fact that the explosives had saved their lives.
In the end, they let Huston’s people range ahead, staying just close enough to them that they could still take advantage of the light from the flashlights they carried. Not that much light was necessary in the tunnel. It was straight, perfectly straight, with no turns, no rises, no dips. It seemed to go on forever, as though they were falling horizontally into Hell.
They didn’t say anything to one another. The other group was being quiet, just in case, so they had fallen into the pattern as well. It had left Hayden alone with his thoughts, which wasn’t a place he wanted to be.
Winding up down here was a setback to reaching Sanisco, but at least now he had time to think about what to do once they arrived. If they arrived. Ghost and Natalia had a three-day head-start on him, meaning she had been in the capital city for more than forty-eight hours already. He had to assume that whatever work King wanted her for, she had already been put on it. He was sure she was doing a great job of it, too. Somehow, he would have to find out what that work was and where it was located. He was thankful to have Chains and Jake along with him for that. They could steer him in the right direction, get him talking to the right people.
Once he found her and got her back, then what?
He wasn’t sure. It was hard for him to see the way the people suffered under King, and a large part of him wanted to bring the man down. But how was he supposed to get through all of the Scrappers to reach him? Besides, he would have to do more than that. If he killed King, someone would take his place. Another Scrapper, who was probably more of a monster than their current leader. He would have to start a rebellion of his own, and having seen what happened to Huston’s efforts; he didn’t have much confidence in that.
What were the other options? Head off to the east, get out of the Scrapper’s territory and try to make a new start with Natalia? Return to the Pilgrim and clear it of trife. Get Malcolm to let them back in? Or tell Malcolm the truth and try to lead them to a new home on Earth? A home filled with demonic aliens who wanted nothing more than to kill them, and even larger monsters that wanted to eat them?
Was there a good option? As much as he would love to head off into the sunset with his wife like John Wayne, he couldn’t leave the citizens of the Pilgrim behind knowing there were people like King or Wiz trying to get into Metro. People he knew would use and abuse them. He also couldn’t just abandon the people of Haven, or the others he was sure occupied the other cities and towns. He had been raised to believe in law and order and justice. The plastic badge on his coat was proof he couldn’t stop being a Sheriff just because he left his jurisdiction behind.
He fell deep into the thoughts, the monotony of the tunnel and their travel through it making it easy to become outwardly lethargic. His mind worked in circles, trying to plot and plan and figure out how he was going to succeed.
It hit a rough spot when he remembered the trife disease.
Three months, and then he might not be alive. Worse, Natalia might not be alive. If they both died of the contagion, he could handle that. If only one of them went?
One thing at a time. He had to find Natalia before he could worry about their ultimate fate.
“Sheriff.”
The word dragged him out of his head. He noticed a light shining toward him, and one of Huston’s people approaching.
“Sheriff,” he repeated in a whisper. He reached Hayden, stopping in front of him.
“What is it?” Hayden asked, looking past the man. The other rebels had stopped and backed up.
“We have a problem. We’ll need to work together to solve it.”
“I tried to tell you that before,” Hayden said.
“I know. I’m sorry for being an asshole, but I figured we would come out in the countryside and go our separate ways. It looks like fate has other plans.”
“What kind of other plans?” Hayden asked.
“Come take a look.” He paused, and then put out his hand. “I’m Hollis, by the way.”
Hayden took it. “Nice to meet you.”
“You might want to take that back in a minute.”
Hollis led them forward, back to the other rebels. There were three other men and two women.
“This is Sia, Lily, Bruce, Aman, and Abjit.” He pointed to each of them in turn. Hayden nodded toward them. “We’re going up ahead. Stay here. Stay silent. Stay ready.”
The other rebels put their fingers to their foreheads in acknowledgment.
“You two wait here,” Hayden said.
Chains opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. She gave him a silent thumbs up.
He looked at Hollis, who started forward, keeping his flash
light aimed at the ground only a dozen centimeters ahead of his feet. They walked down the tunnel that way, a hundred meters or so.
Hollis came to a stop. As soon as there was complete silence, Hayden could hear it. The friction. The hissing. He could smell it, too.
“A trife nest?” he said.
Hollis nodded before slowly raising the flashlight off the floor, toward the blackness ahead of them. The beam exposed an opening in the tunnel, an expansion of the space into a larger area. It crossed over the trife, a thick pile of them slithering around one another, so far oblivious to the intruders.
“I think it’s a station,” Hollis whispered. “There are a few to the south, leading out to the fringe of Haven. This is probably the same, but this one has these guys in it.”
“We have to get around them,” Hayden said. “There’s no other way out.”
“I know. I wanted your opinion. Should we try to sneak around, or should we blow them away while they’re preoccupied?”
Hayden had already counted his remaining shells. He had ten, plus the two already loaded into the shotgun. Chains had six rounds. Jake had a revolver with a full cylinder.
“How many rounds do your people have?” he asked.
“About seventy, all told,” he said. “But our rifles are single-shot, and our sidearms are discarded pieces that failed inspection. They could blow up in our hands at any time.”
“You’re saying it’s better if we try to sneak around.”
“That depends on what you can bring to the fight.”
“Not enough,” Hayden decided. “We need to take our chances getting past them.”
“Okay.”
They retreated to the others.
“What is it?” Chains asked.
“Trife nest,” Hayden replied. “Not the biggest I’ve seen, but big enough. One hundred trife, maybe.”
“Too bad we don’t have any boomsticks left.”
“We’d just as likely collapse the tunnel on ourselves if we did. We’ve decided we’re going to sneak past them.”
“Are you kidding?” Jake said.
“They’re pretty distracted when they’re reproducing,” Hayden said. “We should be able to make it by without drawing their attention.”
Jake’s expression showed he was terrified, but he didn’t say anything else.
“How do you want to do this?” Hayden asked.
“We’ll mix ranks,” Hollis replied. “That way neither of us has any cause to do anything that would screw the others.”
“I wouldn’t do that, regardless,” Hayden said.
“Yeah, right. You must not be from around here. Huston’s own son turned us in.”
Hayden shrugged. He couldn’t change the man’s mind in an instant when it had been conditioned his whole life. “We’ll do it your way. Jake, take point. Chains, between Aman and Sia. Make sure you keep your decorations quiet. I’ll take the rear.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hollis said.
The entire group organized into a single line, with Hollis at the head. They moved together, one slow step at a time, barely lifting their feet to keep from making any noise, approaching cautiously.
It took almost an hour to reach the station. The bulk of the trife nest was on the left side, on a platform next to the tunnel. There were stairs behind them, but they were covered over by the remains of a collapsed building. An old vehicle rested awkwardly tilted in the station, a corroding, bullet-like shaped craft with a rusted ‘T’ icon still visible on its front.
Hayden tapped Bruce on the shoulder. “Tell Hollis to try to get us around that wreck,” he whispered as softly as he could. Bruce tapped his forehead, and then tapped Abjit, sending the message forward.
It reached Hollis, and he turned back and tapped his forehead, changing direction slightly to get behind the old vehicle.
They kept going, inching out beyond the tunnel and into the station. Aman kept his flashlight aimed near the nest, just enough so they could see the motion of the trife within it.
Another hour passed in tense silence, the group working their way deliberately across the station. Hollis reached the old craft, passing behind it and out of sight of the trife. Soon enough, all of them were in its relative safety.
Hollis turned his flashlight, pointing it into the next segment of the tunnel.
Hayden’s heart started to thump harder in his chest. The others in the group looked at one another, and then between Hollis and him, the sudden fear obvious.
The corridor ahead of them was littered with trife, apparently asleep on the ground.
27
HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW the damn things slept. Why weren’t they part of the nest?
Hollis backed up toward him, the group pulling tightly together.
“What the hell?” Sia said.
“Seconded,” Chains said. “I’ve never seen them sleep before.”
“Maybe they’re dead?” Aman said.
“How many nests have any of you seen?” Hayden asked.
“One,” Hollis replied. “Besides this one.”
The rest of them shook their heads. They had never seen a trife nest before.
“I don’t think we know enough about them to know if they do or don’t sleep,” Jake said. “Most of us have never been this close to a nest before.”
They all turned to look when they heard a slight shifting in the group. Hollis put his finger to his lips, and they all remained still and silent for a minute.
“We have to go past them,” Hayden said. “There’s no other option. Go slow. Stay quiet. Hope they don’t wake up.”
None of the group looked happy, but they all nodded their agreement. Hollis returned to the front of the line, beginning the long walk through the organic minefield.
He stopped as he neared the first trife, pointing his rifle down toward it as he approached. He made it to the creature, putting his foot right next to it. The demon didn’t move. He stepped carefully over its legs, and then continued, looking back at them with a relieved expression.
Until the legs suddenly moved, snapping out, sharp claws catching his ankles and ripping through them, pulling him to the ground.
Hollis cried out in pain as the trife pounced on him, silencing him with a quick slash from its razor hands.
It was already too late. The sound of the scream echoed in the tunnel, the other trife rising from their slumber. Behind them, Hayden heard the rising pitch of the hissing, the trife in the nest realizing they weren’t alone.
“Grep me,” Chains said, bringing up her shotgun.
“Run,” Hayden barked.
They did, all eight of them, charging headlong into the trife. The creatures rose to meet them, claws ready, mouths open wide. They hissed joyfully at the challenge.
The rebels fired their single shots, two of the trife falling to the rounds. Then they switched to their poorly made revolvers, unloading slugs one after another, filling the lead trife with holes.
The nest was stirring behind them, the activity increasing as the creatures pulled themselves away.
Hayden aimed his shotgun and fired, the blast nearly ripping one trife in half. He whirled on a second, using his other shell to drop it, too. He scanned the area while he reloaded, watching as Chains shot two more of the demons.
Another scream pierced the tunnel. Hayden saw Bruce on the ground, his left arm missing, a trife at his throat. Jake fired into the creature, killing it before it could kill the rebel. He should have let it finish the job.
A trife jumped from the top of the tunnel, heading toward Hayden upside down. He gripped the shotgun in his right hand, swinging his left, squeezing his fist to extend the metal claws of his replacement as he did. The trife looked surprised by the attack, and it rolled in the air in an effort to escape the sudden blades, failing miserably. The claws impaled the creature’s head, and Hayden turned with it, redirecting its momentum and throwing into another demon at his side.
“No. Nooo!”
H
ayden had just enough time to see Lily die, a trife’s claws piercing her chest. He swung the shotgun and fired, hitting two more of them before looking back at the nest.
They were out of time.
“Go!” he shouted, sprinting forward. “Keep moving!”
They had nearly cleared the path ahead, but the trife behind were on their way, dragging themselves out of the serumen and scurrying along the floor. Hayden caught up to Chains, urging her forward.
A trife dove toward her, claws flashing. She grunted, putting her arm up in defense, the sharp fingertips getting stuck in her chains. The trife dragged her back and onto the ground, preparing to pounce.
Hayden kicked out at it, the force knocking it aside. It hissed and jumped at him, meeting his claws with its forehead and dying.
They kept running, breaking away from the trife, putting a little bit of distance between them. Distance that wouldn’t last long. The trife were too fast.
Hayden reloaded the shotgun while he moved, realizing he was nearly out of shells. Chains had already dropped her weapon, and Abjit and Sia had also left their guns behind.
The seconds passed like hours, each step feeling like it was coming in slow motion. Hayden looked back over his shoulder, searching for the creatures. Hollis’ flashlight was resting on the ground beside his eviscerated body, shining just enough light to see them gaining, a mass of chaotic limbs flailing their way.
He twisted to fire the shotgun, the shot catching the lead row of trife and causing them to stumble and hiss. The others climbed over them, barely slowing.
“I see light up ahead!” Sia shouted from the front of the line.
Hayden looked forward, barely able to make out the pinpoint of daylight in front of them. The demons were nearly nipping at his heels, only seconds from cutting him down.
He wasn’t going to make it.
He took two more steps and then turned to face them, firing the remaining round in the shotgun point blank into the face of one of the creatures. Its head exploded, splattering viscera across his body. He ignored it, claws angling toward the first trife to reach him, slicing through its face as he ducked below its grab.
