by A. J. Sikes
“He’s got bad paper,” Gallegos said. “We know that much. But not what for.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means he got discharged for something. Kicked out. He said it was bad conduct. Could’ve been drugs. Or he should’ve joined the Army instead.”
“Why do you say that? If he got kicked out of the Marines . . . I don’t get it.”
Gallegos grinned and held up a finger for each part of her reply. “Ain’t. Ready. To be Marines. Yet.”
Jo took a moment to get it, and then her grin won the battle. She chuckled and shook her head.
“So it’s true. The different branches never miss a chance to talk shit about each other.”
“Rah. But at the end of the day, we’re all on the same side. It’s just doing the dozens, you know? Marines do it better, of course.”
Jo shrugged, , grinned, and mumbled something like I guess, as she took the last bite of her barbecue patty. Gallegos attacked her meal again, too, digging into the cold, mushy vegetables and stringy meat.
“This shit doesn’t taste much like chicken, but I’m not sure I even remember what chicken tastes like.”
Jo seemed about to reply when the telltale sound of two taps against the metal came into the room.
“That’s them,” Gallegos said, setting her meal pouch down. “I’ll be right back.”
Matty and Jed squeezed through the crawlspace. As soon as Jed’s feet cleared the hole, Sergeant G started pushing the desk back.
“Reeve’s coming in, Sergeant.”
A second later and Reeve’s goofy grin lit up the hall as he slid out of the crawlspace on his back.
“What’s up, Reeve?” Sergeant G asked. “I thought you had watch on the stairs.”
“I did. Then I figured I’d rather not die alone,” he said, pulling the detonator’s out of his vest pouch and setting them to the side of the crawlspace. The wires extended through the tunnel and around the hall. It had been Jed’s idea to do it this way, but he didn’t say anything to Sergeant G about it. Reeve kept it under his hat, and Jed figured it was best to do the same.
Together, the three Marines pushed the desk back into place before following Matty back to the Stable.
In the barracks, everyone topped off their water, emptying their last five-gallon jug. The firefighters each got a canteen from the spares that Sergeant G, Mahton, and Reeve had collected from the survivalist guy.
When everyone was saddled up, Sergeant G called them into a circle.
“Everyone get some rest. We take twenty-minute shifts in pairs. Power nap like you never have before. This might be the last sleep we all see for a while.”
☣
It felt like an hour or more had passed, but Gallegos knew it had just been a few minutes. She’d laid down next to the cases of chow and dropped into the deepest sleep she could remember. She’d snapped out of it just as fast. Across the room, Matty was lifting his face off his elbow while Dom was rocking his shoulder side to side.
“Looks like it’s go time, Matty,” he said.
Gallegos took a slug of water and tried to ignore how light her canteen was. She rubbed her eyes, strapped her helmet on and checked her squad. They’d all grabbed a little shuteye. She hoped it would be enough to recharge them for what lay ahead.
Reeve and Welch stood guard by the door. The firefighters stood in a line near Reeve’s bunk, with Dom at the back, leaning against the wall. Gallegos wondered if she was crazy to try and take back survivors from the sucker faces. Then she remembered who was down there. Her fellow Marines. And some soldiers from the Army units that had come in with them for Reaper.
All warriors, every last one of them. Man and woman. All my brothers and sisters.
“We have some ammo,” she said. “About two boxes for the SAW, plus those bandoliers. We’re low on serviceable magazines, so if we spot any of those on the street, we need to collect them. Don’t make that a higher priority than it needs to be. Keep your eyes out at all times, and never look at the ground for more than two steps. Suckers love to get the jump on you. Remember that.”
She looked into every set of eyes staring back at her. To the last, they all had the same determination coupled with an undeniable fear. Gallegos felt it herself and took a second to send the fear packing. Her platoon leader had called it Getting into your war mind. She looked back to her squad, remembered her mission, and let everything else take a back seat.
“When we get to the high rise, everyone needs to be on top of their own shit and watching out for their teammate’s back. We don’t know how many numbers we’re looking at down there, and that goes for friendly and enemy.”
“Friendly?” Dom asked.
“The prisoners Tucker gave them. These are people who need our help, and some of them might need help dying. We all have to be ready for that.”
“I’m ready as I gonna get,” Dom said, holding up his pistol. They might have been tough words, but his eyes said he was about as ready as a sack of laundry.
“I mean ending a life out of mercy, Dom. You think you can do that? You need to tell me one way or the other. I can’t have any dead weight on this mission. Either you are in, totally and one-hundred fucking percent, or you are out.”
“What’s ‘out’ mean?” he asked, and she didn’t miss his eyes shifting side to side, checking everyone else’s reaction to his question. Matty and Jo didn’t seem to care, or hid their feelings if they did. They’d seen combat and were finally able to release the tension and adrenaline. Even Welch seemed cool with whatever Dom decided.
But Reeve put his eyes to the ceiling and moved his lips, like he was either praying or cursing himself. Given the mood of complacency from the others, Gallegos didn’t known which would be worse.
“Out means you’re staying here, Dom, with that pistol, by yourself, until we get back. And to be clear, I make no promises that we are coming back.”
Matty put up a hand and Gallegos nodded at him to go ahead.
“I can’t speak for Dom, or Jo either. But I’m good to go. I will say that I’d feel better if we had a full trauma bag with us. We have one IV, some bandages and iodine, one can of spray saline, a couple Sam Splints. Not much else. Any chance we could run for more first aid gear? There’s a hospital not far from here.”
“We can’t afford the time or the risk. The sucker faces were more interested in securing territory than taking us out, but that isn’t going to last. We all saw what happened with the two alphas. The one with the bone shirt came out on top, so we have to assume this neighborhood is back to the way it was before. Hunted and hopeless. I’m sorry we don’t have more first aid, and I know these weapons aren’t the usual tools of your trade. But it is what it is, no?”
The squad, including Dom, gave her their silent agreement.
“We have a few hours of daylight left. I say we go now, try to save whoever we can. If we make it out alive, we come back here with what we can grab from their cache. We get what’s left of our supplies here, whatever we can carry to the truck. Then we get the fuck out of dodge, find someplace safer if we can as long as the truck has fuel to carry us.”
“How long you think that is?” Matty asked.
“Not long,” Reeve answered. “We got a quarter tank in it, maybe. I didn’t spend much time looking at the dial, but when I did, it was well below half. If the damn thing starts again. Sniper put some holes in the engine and might have hit something critical.”
Dom cleared his throat and stepped forward from his position by the wall. “Let’s say we get back here with more survivors and we’re able to get supplies to the truck, and it has enough gas to get us somewhere. Great. Where do we go? This is the safest I’ve been in a long time. I have a gun in my hand and nobody is threatening to throw me to the monsters for dinner.”
“We could get on a boat,” Matty said. “If we can find one, I can pilot it.”
Jo answered that question. “My family had a fishing boat in the Jersey marina. Dad us
ed to . . .”
Gallegos let Jo collect herself before she asked, “How big was the boat?”
Jo’s face fell. “It’s across the Hudson from the cruise ship terminal on the other side of Manhattan. It might as well be in Egypt. The truck might get us there, but if it runs out of gas, we’ll never make it on foot.”
“Says who?” Gallegos shot back. “You have three Marines with you, and your home team. Dom, and Matty. I honestly wasn’t sure where we might go after this, but you just gave me the intel I needed.
“Now the mission changes. We get our people out of the hive underground. If we make it out of there, and can get back here for supplies, we move out with a purpose for the Hudson. When we get there, we find transport to Jersey or we die trying.”
When Gallegos was done speaking, Dom stood and stepped back from the group. He looked ready to choke. The others noticed the change in him. Matty reached a hand out, but Dom batted it away. Gallegos met his eyes and tried to see into his heart.
What’s up, Dominic? What’re you holding back?
A screech split the air, echoing through the hallways and into the room.
“Blow the front door!”
Reeve sped from the room. Gallegos felt the shudder of two explosions. Suckers faces shrieked and screamed in the aftermath.
“Lexington guard room! Go!” Gallegos commanded the squad as she rose to her feet. Matty, Welch, and Jo were on their game already, weapons up and eyes out. “Matty, get with Reeve first! Welch and Jo, upstairs!”
The trio moved fast, disappearing into the hallway like ghosts. Still more howls and screeches came from every direction.
“Where are they?” Matty shouted from the direction of the barricade.
“I can’t tell where they’re coming from!” Welch yelled back from farther down the hall.
“Keep your eyes the fuck out, people!” Gallegos yelled through the doorway. “Watch the windows and your six. They might find the fireholes and come up in the middle.”
The stairwell door banged open, and Gallegos fought the urge to race out of the room to join the others, make sure they were safe. The heavy tromp of boots on the stairs helped her breathe easier for the moment. Her people were getting to safety.
She’d be with them in a second, but had one last thing to do.
Behind her, Dom shifted beside the wall. She turned away from the door and sized him up. He held his pistol by his leg like it was a lunchbox or some other mundane object that couldn’t possibly help him survive the next five minutes much less five seconds. It slipped from his grasp and clunked on the floor.
“Dominic, collect your weapon,” she said.
He reached down and lifted the pistol off the floor. “Only got two left in it,” he said, hefting it like was useless. Then he spit up a mouthful of what he’d just eaten, spattering the floor around his boots.
She’d seen it before in men and women who doubted themselves, or were just scared to death. And she did not need this shit now. But like her own leaders had done when she was a green recruit, Gallegos knew it was her task to give this man the right words. She had to say exactly what he needed to hear in order to get with the program.
“Dominic, hermano. You’ve done worse than this. You’ve been in worse places, doing more with less, saving people’s lives, sí?”
He nodded as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, but his eyes wouldn’t meet hers, even as she paced to the side, trying to catch his gaze with hers. She stepped over to the stack of MREs and reached for a bandolier beside it.
“I need you here with me, Dom,” she said.
Gallegos removed six flash bangs from the bandolier, one by one, and stuffed them into her vest.
Dom nodded at her again and eyeballed the grenades. She held one out for him.
“You need to carry this, too.”
He took it, pocketed it, and heaved another mouthful onto the floor.
“I need you on your game, Dominic. We need you.”
Dom straightened up, wiped his mouth again and rolled his neck and shoulders. But he looked more like a ragdoll than a fighter about to enter the ring.
“Okay,” he said. “Por mi corazon. I’m good to go.”
“That’s how you do it,” she said. “Do or die, rah?”
“Do or die. I—I got point,” Dom said as he stepped around her to the doorway.
“I got your six,” Gallegos said. “Tranquilo, hermano.”
More howls and shrieks were coming down the halls now, resonating out of every crack in every wall, and through every broken window and doorway. Dom moved into the hall and Gallegos followed.
In the Lexington guard room, Jed tried not to focus on the pictures hanging around him, but they all stared back with eyes above gaping mouths that almost looked alive. Mahton had done more than just sketch the sucker faces when he’d been on duty. He’d turned them into art. Their bodies twisted across the sheets of paper hanging on the walls. The muscles bulged and stretched, and the faces—Jed couldn’t help but think they’d already come to life and were the ones making all the noise now.
Shrill cries and barks of rage still roared through the building, sounding like they were coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. They would rise and fall in volume, but then go silent just as fast. It was almost like the suckers were toying with them.
“Why are they doing that?” Jo asked. She paced side to side, staying out of a direct path to the door, but trying to avoid corners, too, like she was afraid to get stuck in one. “Why can’t we see them?”
“Probably don’t want us to,” Jed said. “I think they’re fucking with us. Trying to freak us out.”
“It’s working. I feel like I’m buzzing all over, and I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or that I’m just scared to death.”
“Probably both. But if it helps, I’m feeling the same way. I think they’re trying to draw us out instead of fighting in here. They know we’ve got better chances inside, where we can control their avenues of approach.”
“They know? How do you know that? What—”
“They’re smart now. Whatever the Air Force dropped on them, it killed the dumb ones and left the smart ones alive.”
Jo shook next to him and turned to look at the wall. She spun away from the pictures, shook herself again, and stepped closer to the window overlooking Lexington Avenue.
☣
Gallegos caught up with Reeve and Matty at the stairwell. They’d stayed back while she got Dom into gear. When he saw her, Reeve slapped a hand on Matty’s shoulder. The firefighter swept into the stairwell and banged up the steps to the next floor. Reeve hung by the door and motioned for Dom to go ahead of him.
“I got him, Reeve,” Gallegos said. “Move out and keep up with Matty.”
“Rah.” Reeve was halfway up the stairs before the word left his mouth. The door on the upper landing banged open and the telltale sound of boots stomping into the hallway sounded back down the narrow space to Gallegos’ ears.
The monsters’ cries and howls kept coming in from everywhere, but Gallegos had stopped worrying about them. They could have come into the building at any time. Now that she and her squad had been discovered, she figured they had seconds to live. But the sucker faces weren’t attacking.
They’re trying to drive us out. Well fuck this sucker face psy-ops bullshit. They want to play head games, fine. We’ll play head shots.
“Dom, you still good to go? I’m taking point if you got any doubts.”
“I’m good,” he said. His sagging shoulders and slumped spine told a different story, but she’d rather have him falling down in front of her than falling out at her back.
“Move out then,” she said.
He entered the stairwell and took lumbering steps upward. Gallegos held her M4 ready and flashed a look ahead and behind with every step, double-checking that her man was still in the game and making sure nothing caught them by surprise.
At the next floor, Dom rolled his neck and shoulde
rs again. His moment of weakness seemed to have passed. She joined him on the landing and saw a new man behind his eyes. This one had some fight left, and she was glad as hell to see him.
“Lexington guard room is through that door and to the left,” she said.
Dom held his pistol up by his cheek now, sighting as he moved to the door and reached for it with his free hand.
“You’re breach man, Dom. On three. Pull the door open, step aside. I’ll rush through and post on the opposite wall. You come in tight behind me. Check right as you go through the door and post this side of the hallway. If you see enemy, you fire. Don’t tell me you see them. Just light them up and know that I’ll be right behind you with more firepower. Rah?”
He nodded.
“Let me hear you say it.”
“Rah,” he said.
“You mean that, Dominic?”
“Rah!”
“Let’s move, then. One. Two. Three!”
☣
Jed had the SAW oriented on a zone of fire that included the window. Jo was beside him, staring at Mahton’s art on the far wall now. She seemed to have got over whatever freaked her out about the pictures before.
A long screech cut through the air outside, but none of the scraping claws or clicking joint sounds followed it.
It’s goddamned cat and mouse with the sucker faces now. And they’re the cat.
Thumping footsteps led a trail down the hallway, coming closer to the guard room. Reeve and Matty came into the guard room and posted by the door.
“Sergeant G’s back there still,” Reeve said. “She’s in the stairwell with Mr. Green Jeans.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Jo asked.
“That Dom ain’t pulling his weight,” Jed said. “You know? Green.”
“Like the fucking grass in springtime, man,” Reeve added. “Wait—here they come.”
Jed moved so he could get a look down the hall. Jo came to stand near him.
Sergeant G was back pedaling down the hall with her weapon up. Dom was even with her on the opposite side of the hall with his pistol up and ready. The hallway was empty except for the two figures moving as a team.
