by John Shirley
With that, he handed out the files to everyone and slumped back in his chair. Peel turned to the man nearest him, a thick-necked bruiser with a cauliflower ear. “We have a motto?”
His accent betrayed his New York origin. “Be nimble. Be quick. Be saucy.”
Peel smiled, almost laughing. “I get it Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, but I’ve never heard of ‘Jack be saucy.’ Is that from an American version of the rhyme?”
The man called Millward slapped him on the back, “Naw,” he said in his deep Southern drawl, “it’s British, like you. You ain’t ever heard of Saucy Jack?”
“I’m Australian.” He quipped. “Saucy Jack—you mean Jack the Ripper?” Both men nodded, which explained nothing to Peel, who still looked puzzled
Major Millward finally offered a translation, “Be flexible, be fast, and kill if you have to, but don’t get caught.”
Peel slide back into his chair and repeated what Peaslee had said, “Welcome to the big leagues.”
***
October 19
If you could get around the batteries of guns, the navy warships and the constant air traffic, the beach inside the base was quite beautiful. The sand was soft, white and clean. The water was a crystal-clear blue that showed the vibrant tropical fish that darted beneath. The breeze cut the humidity and made the heat tolerable. In the distance there was a small boat moving toward the beach. A man waved at them. Peaslee waved back.
Peaslee sat down on a large rock and took off his shoes and socks. Peel did the same as the man briefed him about what was about to happen. “In a few moments, Major Romero of the Cuban Security Forces is going to show up; he’ll be accompanied by agent Romanova, of Soviet Army Intelligence. Romero will do most of the talking, but make no mistake: despite her appearance, Romanova is in charge. Do not tell them anything unless I tell you to. They are here to discuss how our team will get to Banes, and how many soldiers we will need to get us there.”
Peel looked around. “Shouldn’t we all be here? Where’s the rest of our men?”
Peaslee looked at his watch, “They left the base yesterday; they should be half way to Banes by now.”
It was just then that the small boat beached itself and the Cuban and Russian leapt into the shallow water and came ashore. Romero was typically Cuban, dressed in white linen shorts and a nearly translucent shirt. Beneath a thick mustache the remnants of a cigar were still smoldering. Romanova was wearing a sundress, which accentuated her wavy hair, allowing it to flow down around her shoulders and bare arms. It was hard to believe this woman was a spy, but perhaps that was why she had been recruited to begin with. She moved daintily through the shallows while Romero simply forced his way to shore, grinning all the way.
“Hola, Professor,” he bellowed. “It is good to see you again.” He wrapped two beefy arms around Peaslee in a kind of loose hug. Peaslee smiled and whispered a greeting back. Romero laughed and with an open arm introduced his companion. She didn’t smile, and barely made eye contact. “We have updates if you need them, Professor.” The old man nodded and Romero knelt down and with a piece of driftwood sketched out a crude map. “Banes is 100 miles north of here, on the coast between the sea and the bay, with mountains to the west and south. The main road runs south into the mountains. The terrain is covered with jungle, and is too treacherous for most people to traverse. We have forces on the main road, about ten miles away from town, and smaller units along the mountain road to make sure no one comes through the jungle. Aerial reconnaissance reports that the roads are littered with the dead. There are signs of movement, but visual contact with the source hasn’t been achieved. Whatever has happened down there it is muy malo, very bad.”
“There is still no radio contact?” asked the professor.
Romero and Romanova exchanged looks, knowing looks. There was a pregnant pause that Romanova finally broke. “We have had no contact with anyone in the affected area. There is a signal, however; really three intertwined signals. They are simple sinusoidal oscillations. As far as we can tell they aren’t coding any information, but they all originate from Banes.”
“Mr. Peel will investigate. He has a way with such things.” Peaslee was staring out at the ocean. “How soon do we leave?”
Romero was suddenly very serious. “We will leave in the boat after sunset, and head out into the ocean. A ship will pick us up and take us round the island to Barnes. We plan to land our forces just before dawn. That should give Mr. Peel plenty of time to analyze the radio signals.”
Romanova was equally frigid, a state that seemed at odds with the beautiful beach, the sun, and the light cotton dress she was wearing. “Mr. Peel, Colonel Peaslee says you might be able to find a solution. I hope he is right. I am willing to give you time to prove why he has such faith in you, but make no mistake, if you fail, I will do what is necessary to protect the peoples of Cuba and the Soviet Union.”
“Let us hope it does not come to that,” Peaslee suggested, and with that he pulled Peel off the beach and back toward the base. Peel’s head was spinning, but even so he couldn’t help but notice the American soldiers who were making sure that Romero and Romanova were staying on the beach.
***
October 20
The morning wind was gentle and cool; flying fish would occasionally scatter as the ship cut through the calm sea. Earlier, a pod of porpoise had decided to ride the bow wake of the fast moving warship as she sped toward Banes. The ship was late—Peaslee called it “Latin Time”—and the sun was already rising as they came into the harbor. Peaslee, Romanova and Romero were still asleep in the cabin, but Peel couldn’t get comfortable and had crawled out onto the deck. Some of the crew, a mix of Soviets and Cubans found it amusing and had whipped out fat, greasy cigars that stank and turned him a different shade of green. The odd thing was that despite being sick he couldn’t stop thinking about the signal waves.
Once he knew they were there, they were easy to find and then isolate. One was quite strong, while the other two were relatively weak, and as he continued to monitor them seemed to be fading in strength. Meanwhile the third one seemed to be growing, gaining strength and dominance. What bothered him the most was that he recognized all three waves, well at least their visual complements. The weak ones he identified as belonging to the colors of red and blue. It was as if someone was transmitting an analog of these colors on a radio frequency, which was slowly fading away. In the meantime, the remaining wave corresponded to an entirely predictable color, one that was gaining strength and overriding the other two.
As he clung to the railing on the port side, he watched the first rays of sunlight break over the horizon and play out over the bay and the town beyond. At first he thought it was a trick of the tropical light, that something in the air was acting as a filter, but he knew that was simply impossible. The crew came up beside him, mouths agape in awe and fear. One of them dug into his shirt and pulled out a small rosary that hung around his neck and whispered, “Madre de Dios.”
The commotion served to rouse Peaslee and the others, who filtered through the hatch and clung to the side of the boat. The captain had apparently seen the horror as well, and decided quite on his own that he would stay as far away as possible. The ship changed course and headed back toward the welcoming blue-green ocean and the orange and pink clouds that framed the sun. As they turned from shore Peel threw up again, but he didn’t mind. Anything was better than what lay behind them, for the village of Banes had been transformed, altered, drained of all life and vitality, of all color, save for one. It was the color that Peel associated with the radio signal, the one that was growing stronger and eclipsing the others.
Romanova swore in Russian something that sounded like “Zhol-tee!”
Romero shook his head in despair and muttered, “Amarillo.” I swear there was a tear in his eye.
It was Peaslee that put a better name to it than Peel ever could, for while it was a shade of yellow, it was not warm; rather, it was pale and sickly. I
t crawled into the eyes and squirmed into the brain, infecting those who had seen it with a sense of loathing and dread. Even from this distance, it had damaged those who had looked at it. Peaslee seemed to spit as he said the word, as if it was an effort to name the foul hue that now stained the town and shoreline. He called it “Giallo,” and that seemed oddly appropriate.
***
October 21
The captain had moored more than two miles off shore, and he steadfastly refused to move any closer. No matter what Romero said, no matter how he threatened or cajoled, the captain would go no closer. Romanova tried to pull rank, and for a brief moment there were the sounds of Russian guns being brought to bear, but it was met with the sound of Cuban guns, and the standoff was brief. Romanova lost face, but nobody was shot.
It took the rest of the day for Peaslee and Romero to negotiate the use of a launch. The captain refused to order any of his men to go ashore, and none of them volunteered. The Soviets were more accommodating; two of them agreed to follow Romanova. She warned the others that they would be disciplined, but they still refused. Consequently, when Peaslee and Peel finally went ashore they went only with Romero, Romanova, and two Soviet soldiers who barely spoke Spanish, let alone English.
The trip aboard the launch was rife with anxiety. Romero was at the helm, while Romanova and her soldiers took up positions with their guns, Kalashnikovs that they were constantly touching, as if they were some sort of talisman. It reminded Peel of the man with the rosary, and he wondered which one was more valuable in this situation. The ocean gave way to the bay, and the bay to the harbor, and the harbor succumbed to giallo. As they approached the yellow line the anxiety built, for they all expected something to happen when they finally crossed that threshold and left normalcy behind, and entered the queerly stained realm that had succumbed to the infection. It was therefore somewhat anticlimactic when they finally crossed the line and absolutely nothing at all occurred.
“The water feels wrong” said Peel as he caught some of the yellow spray in his hand. “It reminds me of kerosene: it’s oily.” He shook his hand, but instead of flying off, the stuff just seeped off of his hand in thick, viscous drops. “I thought maybe it was a contaminant, a dye, an alga, maybe even spores or pollen, but it’s not, is it? It’s an actual physical change to the water itself.”
“I think it’s more sinister than that,” offered Peaslee. “I think perhaps it is a fundamental alteration to the matter itself. I think that whatever has happened here is changing the very nature of the building blocks of our universe, making our world into something else.”
“An interesting theory, Colonel Peaslee,” yelled Romanova over the sound of the engine. “Care to explain further?”
“I have an idea,” suggested Peaslee, “but I’m not ready to share. Not just yet.”
They made several passes across the water front searching for signs of life, trying to draw out some kind of attack, but there was no response. Eventually they picked a sturdy-looking dock that was sitting low to the water and cautiously tied up to it. Like the water, the wood, nails, steel and concrete that made up the harbor had all turned a sickly shade of yellow, with only shadows and texture providing any real sort of contrast.
They weren’t even off the waterfront when they found the first bodies: a cluster of middle-aged women who had been stabbed repeatedly in their abdomens and lower backs. There were defensive wounds on their hands. Blood ran from their bodies and mingled into crusty pools that dotted the street. The blood was yellow. The soldiers spoke rapidly in Russian, and Romanova responded angrily. The team pressed on, but every few steps there was another body. Some stabbed, some bludgeoned, some simply dead. One man had been decapitated by a hand trowel. A woman had been strangled by a silk scarf. An elderly couple had been pierced through their heads by a length of rebar. It made Peel and everyone else nervous as they moved through a silent city of the dead.
Only Peaslee seemed calm enough to make notes, which after about an hour he handed to Peel. “Do you see a problem with this, Mr. Peel?”
Peel looked at the numbers Peaslee had been writing down and the bar graph he had sketched out, a bar graph that hinted at something terrible. “Romero, is there a school nearby?”
Romero looked at his map, and then at the street signs. He pointed westward. “One block that way.”
Peel took off at a brisk pace with Peaslee following closely behind him. The others were momentarily confused but decided it was better not to argue, and fell in line as the two Americans suddenly took control of the team.
The school was as quiet as the rest of the town. It was small; a single-story building that sprawled around a simple playground. There were three bodies on the steps, all women. Peel leapt over them and ran inside. Peaslee stopped at the door and held the others back. They could hear Peel inside throwing open doors and pounding down hallways. He was crying, moaning in denial, really, and with each passing moment his cries grew louder and louder and louder.
Without warning he burst through the door, startling the others. One of the soldiers jumped and brought his weapon to bear. Romero pushed the barrel to the side as the man pulled the trigger and let off a single shot. They all stood there in silence in a dead yellow city as the man who had fired the shot tried to compose himself, and Peel tried to catch his breath.
“They’re all dead,” he panted. “There are six more inside. Four teachers, one administrator and an older man who I think was a janitor. No one else.” He put his hands on his knees and then crumpled to the ground. “There is no one else.”
Romero cast a confused look in Peaslee’s direction. Peaslee raised a finger and then with his foot rolled one of the teachers over. There was a pencil embedded in her gut. Several other holes suggested that she had been stabbed with it multiple times. “These wounds, most of them are to legs, or the abdomen, some to the hands; very few are to the head or neck. All of them are upward thrusts.”
Romanova bent down and examined another body, and then cursed in Russian. She seemed to be thinking about something and then suddenly made a decision. “We need to find shelter, someplace we can use as a base, someplace defensible.”
“What have you learned, my friends?” Romero was on the verge of panicking because he hadn’t figured out what Peel, Peaslee and Romanova already had.
It fell to Peaslee to explain. “How many bodies have we seen? How many men? How many women?”
Romero’s face grew more confused, “Over a hundred, maybe a few more men than women. Why do you ask?”
Peaslee flipped his notebook in the air. “Not counting these people here, I’ve counted one hundred and six dead. Sixty-eight are men; thirty-eight are women.”
“So there are more men than women. The area we passed through was waterfront and warehouses, places men work. No place for women.”
“We didn’t come to the school to look for women,” Peaslee finally admitted. “We came to look for children. Tell me, Romero, where are the children?”
Romero was about to speak when there was a very unexpected sound. Out across the bay there came the undeniable boom of heavy gun fire. Just a single shot, but it made them all pause and turn back toward its origin. In the sky over the ocean a flare had been launched, and it was slowly falling back down through the sky.
Romero was cursing out the ship’s captain, “He was not supposed to launch that flare until we were late to report at 1800 hours. The man is a son of a dog.”
The Russians were scrambling to get their radio out and establish contact with the ship, but Peaslee was looking at the sky. “How long since we left the boat?” he asked.
Peel looked at his watch, “About two hours and ten minutes. Why?”
“I think we should leave this place now, while we still can.”
“What? Why?”
Peaslee grabbed one of the backpacks and started loading the equipment back inside. “We need to maintain radio silence. The captain didn’t make a mistake with the flare. Lo
ok to the west. The sun is going down. Apparently it is not only matter that is being rewritten, but time as well.”
They turned to head back down the hill toward the waterfront, and the avenue gave them a clear view of the harbor below, the bay and the shoreline beyond it. There was a city on the far shore where no city had been before, and it was unlike any human city any of them had ever seen. It froze them in their tracks for none wanted to approach it or its terrible beauty, or the thing that rose up out of the waters before it. It rose out of the yellow bay like a nightmare, a great globular thing that cast a pale light across the waters, replacing the sunlight, which was rapidly retreating. It rose out of the waters and into the sky, impossibly huge, and impossibly passing in front of the distant towers, instead of behind them. It was a hideously luminescent sphere, covered with a murky mist that hid whatever it was that was the source of the light.
“Please tell me that’s the moon,” begged Peel.
Peaslee shook his head. “Not our moon, I think.”
“Demhe,” spat Romanova. “The bay is no longer safe. There is a barracks not far from here. It should supply us with a more defensible position. We should go there, now.”
No one argued.
***
The Russian soldiers were dead. Nightfall had brought heat, and with it came a kind of lethargy. It seemed that they had drowsed for hours, but their watches no longer agreed. Some were off by minutes, others by hours—but that was the least of their worries. At night the dead city came to life. It had been unnerving, listening to the sounds of children running wild through the streets, their macabre laughter echoing off of the walls and windows. That children could play among the dead, that they were likely the murderers themselves, instilled an unsettling sense of dread within Peel, one that he felt sure had found a home in the others as well. In an attempt to remain calm he had begun listing the digits of pi. Unfortunately, his recitation had little effect on the others. Panic took hold of the two young soldiers, and against reason and orders they had left the security of the concrete barracks. Where they had planned on going hadn’t been an issue. They wanted out, no matter what. The shooting started just moments after the door slammed shut. It stopped not long after.
