by Gina Ranalli
Driving fast on this road was impossible in the best of circumstances, but Collie attempted it anyway, veering back and forth, narrowly missing plowing headlong into trees and ditches. It was many seconds before he realized his headlights were still off, and as he reached for the switch, an arm suddenly snaked around from behind, crushing his neck.
“What did you do to Jackie?” the kid in the back seat screamed, tightening his grip on the sheriff’s throat. “It’s your fault! I’ll kill you!”
The car swerved wildly as Collie fought to retain control and Casper spun around, shouting “No! Let him go!”
The kid’s eyes were spinning pinwheels of madness as he shoved what was left of his injured hand into Casper’s face. He clenched his arm, crushing Collie’s windpipe and causing the man to lose control of the vehicle. He slammed on the brake, but it was too late. The car spun again and then rolled.
A deafening explosion of glass and metal.
A tree trunk.
Then nothing.
* * *
Sometime later, Casper opened her eyes. She briefly wondered where she was. It was too dark to see anything, but when she tried to sit up, she found she couldn’t. There was something wrong with her legs. Or maybe it was her hips. She couldn’t tell.
Laying in the darkness, she managed to turn her head and was able to make out the wreckage of the squad car about thirty feet away. She was staring at the undercarriage and the memory of the crash came flooding back to her.
“Steven,” she whimpered and coughed. Something inside her was broken—definitely bones, and likely nerve damage too—but she used her arms to crawl forward, dragging her useless lower body behind herself.
An unknowable amount of time later, she reached the vehicle and heaved herself around until she was on the far side of it, able to peer in through the smashed rear windshield.
Two bodies, tangled together and unmoving. Dark splotches of blood covered everything. Limbs and torsos twisted into impossible shapes. Heads were crushed.
Casper slumped down, her back pressed to the roof of the car. She wondered where the shotgun had ended up, but supposed it didn’t matter.
There were glowing orange eyes, creeping closer to her position. Too many to count. She felt her holster and was stunned to find her weapon still sheathed. She pulled it out, said a silent prayer, and then took a deep breath, readying herself for battle, all alone against the night.
Chapter 37
Hogan barely had time to inform Swanson what the A.D. had told him before they were on the run again, descending the stairs as fast as they dared, trying to go from the roof of the hospital to the basement where the morgue and Dr. Quirk were.
“The military?” Swanson panted as she ran. “Isn’t that defeating the entire purpose of us coming here to begin with?”
“You’d think,” Hogan replied.
“What about our reports?”
“Got me. But I think whatever is going on in North Carolina, might have something to do with what’s happening here.”
“More mothmen?” she asked incredulously.
“Must be. It would explain the urgency.”
When they finally reached the basement, they were both out of breath and talking was difficult. They had passed a few frantic people in the stairwells, who told them the situation in the hospital was only getting worse.
As they strode down the hall towards where they thought Quirk was, they were surprised to round a corner and find her there, buying a soda from a vending machine.
Between breaths, the two agents relayed what their superior had informed them.
Quirk at first appeared mystified, but as their story went on, her face darkened with anger. “Oh, that’s just great!” she snapped. “You drag me out here against my will and now you’re leaving me stranded? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the American government after all. Good for nothing except covering their own butts.”
“You don’t understand,” Hogan said. “You have to come with us.”
This news seemed to anger Quirk even more. “Fantastic! Well, guess what? Maybe I don’t want to go with you. Did that ever occur to your precious assistant director? I’ve searched my entire life for something of this magnitude and I’m not about to walk away from it now!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Swanson told her. “You’re coming with us now and I’m prepared to arrest you if that’s what it takes to get you to cooperate.”
“Arrest me? My dear sweet Agent Swanson, I can assure you that handcuffs will not get me to cooperate any more than your pathetic threats will. Do you think this is the first time I’ve dealt with the likes of you?”
She ranted on as Hogan checked his watch before interrupting her. “I’m sorry, Dr. Quirk, but we have to leave now if we’re going to meet that chopper.”
“I told you—”
Swanson didn’t let the older woman finish. In one fluid motion, she had the doctor against the nearest wall with her arms behind her back, cuffing her wrists.
“What are you doing?” His tone was flat, but he was actually kind of amused.
“You said so yourself, we can’t miss the chopper,” she said, spinning the squawking doctor around again. “We don’t have time for this.”
She pushed Quirk forward to get her walking. Over her shoulder said, “I’ll arrest you, too, if I have to.”
Knowing she was joking didn’t do much to ease Hogan’s mind about what had just transpired between her and the doctor. They would be lucky if the woman helped them at all—on anything ever again—but he had to admit, Swanson had a point and arguing with Quirk wasn’t going to get them to that chopper any quicker.
“Take these cuffs off me right now,” Quirk shouted. “I know my rights!”
Both agents ignored her, hurrying to get out of the hospital where more and more chaos was erupting. Along the way, they caught snatches of what was happening: ambulances had been sent out, but had never returned. More and more people were flooding the emergency room with injured or even dead friends and relatives. The sheriff’s department was no longer responding to calls and no one knew where any of the officers were. Someplace in the forest, along the edge of town, fire was burning, its thick dark smoke rising high into the sky.
Hearing all this made Quirk stop her complaining and caused the agents to exchange worried glances.
“This doesn’t sound like the time we should be leaving,” Swanson said.
“That’s not our call,” Hogan said, but he was thinking the same thing.
“If only this place was a little bigger, maybe they’d have a helipad on the roof,” Swanson said when they reached the hospital doors and stopped to look out at the parking lot.
“This is not good,” Hogan said as they watched dozens of people running around out there, some of them screaming while moth creatures swarmed the sky above them. Abandoned cars were parked every which way, the drivers long gone.
“How are we going to get through that mess?” Quirk asked. “It’s impossible.”
“Easy,” he said, swallowing hard as he rubbed a grizzled cheek with one hand. “We run.”
“I beg your pardon?” Quirk looked at him as if he’d gone insane. “Running doesn’t seem to be doing anyone else any good.”
“I have to agree,” Swanson said. “That’s probably your worst plan ever.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll run. I’ll get the car, pull it up as close as I can, and then you guys make a break for it.”
Before giving the women a chance to protest, he was off, barreling through the doors and into the fray, ducking as he ran, weaving around cars and other confused and frightened people.
* * *
Swanson cursed.
“Why aren’t those people trying to get inside?” Quirk said.
“I have a feeling I don’t want to know,” she replied.
“This is complete madness! Aren’t you people organized at all?”
“This isn’t something we go
through every day, Doctor.”
Quirk sighed with disgust. “You need to take these cuffs off me, Agent. If I’m to be running around for my life, I’d like to be able to keep my balance.”
She considered the request and decided why not? The doctor had a point, after all. They would have to move quick if—when, she admonished herself—Hogan got back. A moment later, Quirk was cuff-free and rubbing her wrists as though she’d just endured the worst torture imaginable.
“There he is!” Swanson cried as she spotted their rented sedan skidding to a stop on the far side of other vehicles blocking the entrance.
The women wasted no time, hurrying out and diving into the car.
“Good thing we parked close earlier,” Hogan said as the women slammed their doors. “Most of the people out here have already been attacked by those things. I think they’ve lost it. Minds just completely cracked.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” Swanson said as she fastened her seatbelt. “I feel like mine is about to crack, too.”
It looked like Hogan’s training in defensive driving came in handy after all as he had to maneuver the vehicle around stalled cars, as well as bodies both alive and dead. The creatures themselves seemed calmer than they had been the night before. They were almost leisurely in their attacks now, swooping low enough to slash at someone and then spinning skyward again.
“They’re acclimating,” he said. “The moth creatures are less afraid than they were before.”
“Stands to reason,” Quirk said from the backseat. “Most of them are probably a day older. Life is old hat to them now.”
“And killing, apparently,” Swanson said.
“Yes. And killing.”
Hogan looked at her in the rearview mirror. “But you said they were attacking because they were most likely afraid.”
“I’ve been wrong before, Agent,” Quirk said. “I’ll probably be wrong again.”
The three of them fell silent and no one spoke until they reached the high school. Hogan pumped the car up over the curb in the back parking lot, driving directly onto the football field where a combat search and rescue chopper already waited.
“They’re nothing if not punctual,” Quirk said.
A soldier in full military gear stood in the open side of the helicopter, blasting at a flock of moth creatures with an M-16. The creatures fell, but there were always more to take their place. A steady wave of them emerged from the forest at the back of the field.
Hogan drove right up to the chopper and the three occupants of the car bolted out, making for the safety within.
The soldier had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard. “Agents Hogan and Swanson?”
“That’s us.” Hogan flashed a badge, but Swanson couldn’t be bothered. She helped get Quirk inside and then followed after her.
“Some crap storm you’ve got here,” the soldier yelled, climbing in after Hogan.
Another soldier had taken up residence on the far side of the chopper and was also firing nonstop into the sky.
Once both soldiers were convinced their passengers were safely strapped in, they too hopped inside and slammed both doors.
“Go, go, go!” the first one shouted at the pilot. The pilot obeyed and they were airborne in seconds.
The second soldier turned to the agents and said, “For a minute there I thought you guys wouldn’t make it and be right in the middle of the tactical attack.”
“What?” Swanson yelled, thinking she must have heard him wrong.
“Would have been a shame to lose two federal agents,” the soldier replied as the chopper flew higher into the sky and over Lockwood.
“What is he talking about?” Quirk asked.
“Airstrike,” Hogan said, his face defeated. “We got pulled out so they could bomb the town.”
“What, you didn’t know?” the soldier asked. It struck Swanson how young the man was, probably twenty-four or so. Swanson wondered what the kid thought of the things he’d seen down there in Lockwood and how his life would be ruined, if not ended, if he opened his mouth about it to anyone.
“There are people down there!” Swanson shouted. “Living people!”
The young soldier shook his head as though puzzled and looked to the other soldier for understanding.
The second soldier, probably not much older, said, “Don’t worry, ma’am. We have F-22 Raptors coming in. Collateral damage will be minimal.”
Swanson looked at Hogan beseechingly. “We can’t let this happen.”
From somewhere below came the sound of a massive explosion. The chopper rocked slightly and Swanson leaned forward and grabbed the seat in front of her.
She watched out the window, saw two Raptors, two missiles, and one destroyed, burning town she knew was going to be said to have suffered a horrific terrorist attack. She could make out a few tiny figures scattering like panicked insects. More bodies littered the ground, some of them blackened and smoldering. They passed over what remained of the police station, its roof collapsed, walls blazing. Swanson felt something inside her harden. Other places they’d become familiar with-the hospital, leveled, the cars in its parking lot ablaze and offering their own smaller explosions to the night. The small neighborhoods-all in smoking ruins. She turned her gaze away, trying to shove the memories of the people she’d met in Lockwood--the people she’d done her best to save--from her mind. No witnesses, she knew. All in the name of national security.
The chopper flew higher over the forest, leaving the remains of the destroyed town behind, until all she could see were the tops of the surrounding sturdy pines and a bright, nearly full moon.
Many dark-winged shapes passed before it, flying east and away from Lockwood, towards a distant landscape and beyond.
