On the way back to my barracks, I see two flaming chunks of space debris light up the southern night sky, and then it’s to bed and lights out.
I’m dreaming about hearing my mother’s voice, as we’re on a ferry heading out to Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, when the ship’s siren cuts in and starts screaming and screaming and screaming.
I wake up, Thor across my legs, sheets piled up and I realize it’s the base warning siren.
Creeper attack.
I kick the blankets off, roll out of bed, fumble for a second with the matches at my nightstand, and light off a candle. Thor is already by the door, tail moving furiously, waiting to get into action. I dress quickly, but take the time to pack my battle-rattle gear, the rosary, family photo and Creeper toe joint; and buckling on my Beretta, I launch myself out the door, as Corporal Manning races down the hallway dousing the gas lamps.
Outside now, the rest of the troopers from my barracks are following me, buildings around us going dark, the only illumination coming from hooded lamps along the walkways and roads. By the time I get to the Armory its double doors are propped open, and there’s little talking as Colt M-10s and bandoliers of 50 mm rounds are tossed to us. To keep some sort of order, we yell out our last names as we pick up the gear, as overworked Armory personnel keep the weapons flow going.
“Ouellette! Magsaysay! Gagnon!”
I grab my weapon with one hand, bandolier with the other, shout out: “Knox!” and then run outside, as Thor races along with me, tail wagging, keeping quiet as I run to my attack duty station. All around me are the sounds of boots slapping on the pavement, and the click-clack of M-10s being loaded with the anti-Creeper rounds, as my fellow Rangers prepare for an attack.
This isn’t like the other night, when I was on my own, hunting for a Creeper. I’m with two other troopers from my platoon, Corporal Joyce Dunlap and Staff Sergeant Hugh Muller. Dunlap and Muller are dressed like me, with a mix of battle rattle and personal clothing; not much time for uniform. But we’re all in helmets and protective vests, even though Dunlap is wearing baggy khaki shorts and Muller is wearing light pink shorts that look tight and damn uncomfortable. I’m the only one with a dog, and Thor settles down in one corner of the battlement.
Muller picks up a field telephone, turns the crank a few times, and whispers, “Battle Twelve, up.”
He’s a year older than me, outranks me, and seems to take delight in reminding me of this most times we’re thrown together. He listens for a moment, nods, and whispers, “Battle Twelve, out.”
Then he tosses the phone receiver back into its slot. “Listen up. Two civilians separately called in a Creeper sighting. On approach out of woods adjacent to the interstate, then started moving northwest along Clinton Street.”
“On the street?” I ask. “You sure they weren’t drinking?”
Dunlap laughs and Muller says, “That’s what got reported. So here we are.”
I pick up my Colt M-10 and peer sideways over the battlement. Turning your head sideways exposes less of your skull, especially if you just expose one eye for a quick scan, then duck back down.
“Ain’t that the truth.”
It’s a hell of an understatement, but the Army had to adjust day to day to a new type of enemy, and one of the lessons learned was not making defensive bunkers. When your opponents had mortars, AK-47s, RPGs—even T-72 tanks—heavily fortified bunkers made sense. When your opponents were nearly impregnable exoskeletons with laser and flame weapons, heavily fortified bunkers were quickly called barbecue pits, and for good reason.
So the defensive perimeter of Fort St. Paul consists of moats, trenches OPs, and battlements like the one were in, scattered along the rim of the moats. Made of concrete blocks and bricks, it’s a good place to hide behind while keeping view of the moat, and the cleared areas of fire on the other side. Like the battlefields back in the Great War, early in the last century, before we started numbering them.
The plan, such as it is, is to hope that if a Creeper comes at us, it has to clamber down into the moat, come up, and expose the main arthropod to three troopers with M-10s. If any incoming fire erupts from the Creeper, it’s hoped that by ducking behind the brick and concrete, we’d have a chance to survive.
Hope. Chance. Hell of a way to run an interstellar war, especially when we’ve been on the losing side for most of my life.
I grab a pair of binoculars, scan the field of fire set up in front of us. There’s a range card, a simple sketch of our sector that lists exact distances to various terrain features, and highlights both “kill zones” and “blind spots,” fastened to the wall in front of me, but I have it memorized. The “mound” is 80 meters away. The “double stump” is 140. A slight depression running north-northwest from the moat is deep enough for a man to crawl through unnoticed, but not for a Creeper. Trees, brush and buildings long ago have been cleared out. Every couple of weeks, convicts from the local state prison come by to cut down the growth. There’s a road out there, Jefferson Street, and I note a few homes scattered along the length that I can see.
“Knox.”
There’s a tone to his voice. I say, “What’s up, Sergeant.”
“Mind telling me why you have a dog with you tonight? It should be in the K-9 kennels.”
“Guess he didn’t like the film they were showing in the kennels, Sergeant. I hear it was an old Rin-Tin-Tin movie. Thor thinks Rin-Tin-Tin is way overrated.”
Another laugh from Dunlap, which seems to piss off Muller. “Knox, you know the regs. Dogs are only issued for operational reasons. Not as playthings or toys or to be your best buddy.”
“Tell the truth, Sergeant, don’t like the term ‘issued.’ Thor isn’t a piece of gear, like an M-10 or a canteen.”
Muller says, “Don’t like your attitude, Knox. Never have. Just because of who you are, doesn’t mean that—”
Dunlap says, “Guys, shut up.”
Muller turns. “What did you say?”
Her voice tight. “Movement. Movement on the road, heading north.”
As one we move to the front of the battlement, and Thor gets up right next to me. I focus the binoculars, say aloud, “Tracking. Good eyes, Dunlap.”
Dunlap nods in appreciation, as she raises up her Colt M-10, rests the barrel on top of the battlement, brings her cheek to the butt stock, takes a sight, and scans her sector. I immediately hear her breathing change, become more measured, ready to pull the trigger—slowly—right in between the rise and the fall of her breathing. We all do it. It’s second nature now.
About 300 meters out the Creeper scurries from the left side and moves in a straight line, right along the road, its legs moving almost as one, the claws out, the main arthropod sticking straight out. My mouth dries right out. I hear the whir-whir of the field telephone behind me, as Muller reports in a harsh whisper: “Battle Twelve, Battle Twelve. Confirmed Creeper sighting. Battle version. Three hundred meters, walking speed, northbound on Jefferson Street.”
He listens for confirmation from the Command Post and then says, “Battle Twelve, out.”
I keep staring at the Creeper over the sights of my M-10. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one so clear and out in the open like this, going up the road like a damn tourist or something.
I whisper, more to keep the Creeper steady in my sights than because I’m worried about sound, “What’s the word, Sergeant?”
He joins us on the edge of the battlement. “Observe and report. That’s it. Observe and report.”
The Creeper stops. Its two main claws rotate in the air like cobras, seeking a target, seeking a meal. Dunlap finally says, “What’s the goddamn point?”
“What do you mean, Dunlap?” I ask.
“A decade ago the damn aliens come across light years to Earth, drown our cities, kill millions, zap aircraft and ships, throw us back to nineteenth-century technology . . . and for what? So they can crawl freely at night in the state capitol?”
Muller says, “Doesn’t have to
be a reason.”
Hating to admit it, I agree with Muller. “Staff sergeant’s right, Corporal. They’re aliens. There you go. Aliens. Whatever they do, however they destroy, it makes sense to them. Doesn’t have to make sense to us.”
She laughs slightly, but it’s a brittle sound. “You’d think after ten years, if they’d wanted us all dead, they could design a virus or plague to kill us all off. Why take all this time just to, what, burn a few cows and a dairy farm like they did the other day?”
Muller’s voice is sharp. “Stop thinking so much. Focus. Observe and report, and keep your damn weapon trained on that bug.”
I shift my weight slightly, slowly, from one foot to the next. It’s cold and damp out. Wish I had put a jacket on underneath my protective vest. “What I’d like to observe and report, Sergeant,” I say, “is that I wish we had an Air Force to call in some close air support. Or an Apache gunship. Hell, even a self-propelled howitzer. Sort of even up the odds.”
Dunlap eagerly joins in. “How about some M1-A1 tanks, with special Colt-made shells. With laser-resistant armor so that—”
A flash of bright light dazzles my eyes, and a flame blossoms out from one of the houses on the road. The house roars into visibility and the Creeper’s claws move in a sweeping motion, as the house explodes and flaming shingles and wood get tossed up in the air in a blossom of smoke, flame and debris.
Muller is quickly on the field telephone, “Urgent, urgent, urgent. This is Battle Twelve. Creeper firing civilian houses on Jefferson Street. Repeat, Creeper firing houses on Jefferson Street.”
I say to Dunlap, “We’re way out of firing range, Corporal, don’t you think?”
“That’s right, Sergeant. Way out of range.”
Another house explodes. Someone is screaming out there in the flaming darkness.
Our staff sergeant comes back to the battlement. “Are we good to go?” I demand.
Muller says, “Observe and report. That’s all.”
It seems like two voices are screaming in the distance.
“Sergeant, there are people dying out there,” I say. “Me and Dunlap, we can get across the moat, through the open space . . . be there in a minute or two.”
Muller’s voice is tight. “We’re to stay put.”
A third house is now a ball of flames. The Creeper is up on four of its eight legs, like it’s trying to gain a height advantage over the poor homes in front of it. “Well, did they say if a quick reaction force is going out there? Did they?”
Muller said, “I didn’t ask. I’m sure one’s gonna be dispatched, Knox, so hold tight.”
Right. Hold tight. Any quick reaction force means one of the precious few diesel trucks might be spared—doubtful, even in an attack like this—which means a steam-powered truck has to be lit off, which means long minutes as the firebox gets hot enough to make steam and—
I turn around and say, “Sorry, Sergeant Muller, my bum ear. What did you just say?”
“Knox, I don’t care who you’re related to, don’t you dare move!”
I move past Thor and say, “Come on, Thor, let’s roll. The staff sergeant just told us to move!”
I run down the steps of the battlement, Muller yelling after me.
An Excerpt From the Journal of Randall Knox
Keeping a journal is against regs, because supposedly it violates OPSEC, Operational Security. Yeah, right, as if the Creepers are going to grab a hand-written diary off a dead sixteen-year-old and use it for intelligence. Not sure if they can read English handwriting; only know that they can detect high energy use—cars, ships, computers, power plants—and blast them all to pieces whenever they feel like it.
Figure a journal like this will be useful once the war is done. If I live, maybe when I’m 25 or 35 or something like that. Books will be written, I’m sure, and the generals and the presidents who said they did all the thinking, fighting and dying, will write most of the books. This way, I can write a book from what it was like to be a grunt, BBQ bait, the ones slogging to kill the Creepers, face to face. Or face to arthropod.
Journals are for stories, memories, or so my English teachers said. So here’s a memory. Was in the Boy Scouts, when I was eleven. New Hampshire scout troop, since Dad had dual state citizenship because of a vacation cottage up on Bow Lake. Doing salvage work in some of the homes near the Boston tsunami strike that got soaked but didn’t get crushed. My patrol was in a Marblehead neighborhood close to where I had grown up before the war. Times have changed since then, Boy Scouts now make sure scouts don’t go to their hometowns, but that rule wasn’t in place back then.
Chore’s pretty simple. Break into an abandoned house, secure usable clothing, blankets, canned and bottled foods. Even if years have gone by after the stale dates on the food, it’s still edible, most cases. Mark the outside of the house with spray paint for pick-up crews to gather up the salvaged stuff. Go to another house. Sometimes you find remains, most often you didn’t. This far from Boston most people got out before the waves struck. A very few times you find survivors, folks who managed to hang on and didn’t want to leave their homes, even after five years of no power, gas or grocery stores.
Anyway, was working one day, when our troop’s Senior Patrol Leader—a real dick named Calhoun—came running up to this ranch house I was working at, out of breath, big smile on his face. Hey, Knox, he said. Didn’t you say your older sister, her name was Melissa? I dropped the green plastic trash bag I was carrying. Yeah, I said, Melissa. Calhoun jerked a thumb behind him. Three houses down, real doll living there, said her name was Melissa.
I ran out after Calhoun, legs pumping, lungs burning, got to a two-story Colonial with faded blue paint, door wide open, mind racing, thinking of Melissa, thinking about what I’d tell Dad, maybe she knew where Mom was, oh my God, and—
Inside the house. Dark. No furniture. Rug rolled up. A fireplace and—
On the mantelpiece, a doll, about two feet tall, sitting there, plastic smile, yellow hair, and a scrawled tag attached to her toe.
MELISSA.
Behind me I heard Calhoun and others laughing at me.
Eventually it took three of the other Scouts to get me off Calhoun, but not after I nearly slit his throat with my Scout knife.
Year later, when I was twelve, I left the Scouts and joined the New Hampshire National Guard.
How’s that for a story?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thor and I race down the steep slope of the moat, across the swampy and thicket-filled bottom, and then clamber up the far side. Thor seems happy to be with me, and I know it’s stupid, running across an open field like this, but those screams . . . I can’t let it go.
The brush and the grass whip against my shins and knees as I get closer to the flames. Three houses are now burning along, and the screaming has finally stopped. My booted feet hit pavement, and breathing hard, I advance up the road.
That’s when the stupid part hits home. I’m alone with Thor, with no flare gun at my side, with no back-up waiting to roar in and help me out. It’s just me and my dog. I advance up the road, Colt M-10 straight out, hoping that once Staff Sergeant Muller gets over being pissed at me, he’ll tell the CP that I’m out here by my lonesome, so that maybe other soldiers can be peeled away from the nearby battlements to join the fun.
The light and the sound of the flames and the stench of things burning are all overwhelming me. Thor keeps stride with me, as I pace up the road, looking, scanning, not seeing any target.
Up ahead. First burning house. Then the second. And the third. They look like small Capes, homes built here during the 1950s after the last real big war, nice homes for the returning veterans, full of piss and vinegar and a G.I. Bill after destroying fascism on both sides of the globe.
At the first house, a body is halfway out of the doorway, collapsed on a brick set of steps. It’s charred so badly I can’t tell its age or sex. I take a deep breath, move along. At the second home, bodies are scattered on the burnt fr
ont lawn. Three small shapes, two larger shapes, smoke wisping up from the blackened corpses.
Mom, dad, and the kids. Killed in view of a military base supposedly dedicated to their protection. Some job we’re doing.
I look up. The night sky is its usual chaos of moving dots of light and flares as debris comes back home to earth.
Thor is right next to me. If it weren’t for him, I think I’d turn around and run back to the fort.
Third house, burning along. A bearded man with a ponytail is standing on the lawn, staring at the flames roaring up from what was once his home. Two young boys are at either side, holding onto him. They are all barefoot, the boys wearing pajama bottoms, their dad in a patched pair of jeans. The boys have their heads burrowed in dad’s side. Dad turns to me, eyes wide.
“It’s gone,” he says, voice raspy.
I lower my Colt. “Do you know where it went?”
He tries to move but it’s hard to do, with his sons holding on so tight to him. He raises an arm and points it to the northern end of the road. “It . . . it hit the Crandall house, then the Johnson’s, and then ours . . . me and the boys, we ducked into the woods. My wife . . . Thank Christ she’s working the night shift at Concord Hospital. From the woods, I saw the damn thing move fast . . . I mean, real, real fast . . . could be miles away by now.”
My legs are quivering and I sling my M-10 over my right shoulder. Thor sits down and he doesn’t seem to sense anything alien in the neighborhood. Poor civilian seems right. Creepers can creep right along at the speed of a lazy cockroach, hence the name, but when they want to, those eight legs can move fast and they can be over the horizon in a manner of minutes.
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