The Invasion Trilogy Box Set [#1-#3]

by Lundy, W. J.

  Stephens lifted the precut pine boughs, handing one to Jacob. Walking backwards now, they swept the snow covering the trail, trying to conceal their tracks. The duo moved deep past their original hiding spots then separated, Stephens moving low and to the left while Jacob snaked back up through thick brush to a downed log.

  He spotted Jesse lying low with a rifle in his hands and the flame weapon nestled behind a large log to his front. Jacob approached slowly, walking low, and then dropped to his belly before crawling ahead the last few yards. The sounds of the approaching Deltas pushed him low and out of sight. Still second-guessing the plan, he felt the impending doom build in his stomach. He rolled to his back and raised the scoped M14 to his chest, letting his gloved hand squeeze the synthetic stock. “Embrace it,” he said to himself, remembering James’s words. Jacob rolled back to his belly and nestled up to the log, covering himself with the white linen left there to conceal himself in the snow. He moved forward, easing his weapon in front of him.

  He cautiously turned his head to the right, looking for James. He couldn’t see him but knew he was out there, dug into a high mound on the side of the sloping terrain. The heavy machine gun in front of him, James would have wide fields of fire once it all started. Jacob looked back to the front and heard the things on the far off lake view path pick up their trail; they were coming. The snow melted in the sun, causing a thick fog to form over the forest floor and blanket the ground to their front. He wondered if they would take the bait and make the turn toward them, or continue on past them.

  “Come get us, you sons a bitches!” James shouted from somewhere to the right. Duke’s excited bark joined the man’s challenge. “Come over here, I got something for you!”

  Jacob sighed as he put his head back down behind the cover of the log. “Guess that’s one way to embrace it,” he said just above a whisper.

  “What?” Jesse asked from his position, hidden to Jacob’s left.

  “Get ready, they’ll be here soon.”

  He rolled to his left side and eased the rifle ahead before pulling it back tight into the pocket of his shoulder. Lining his eye up to the scope, he scanned. He tried to relax, controlling his breathing, slowing his heartbeat. They were moving closer. He could see their movement as they were drawn in by James’s taunts. He saw them slowly appear from the lake view trail; they made the turn toward them while they followed the fresh tracks in the snow. This pack was more controlled, not yet affected by the dioxin. They were aware and they were hunting them.

  The pattern was different. They knew the team was here. They were on the attack; having already been alerted, no pair of hunters led the way. They moved in a long column stretching back. They were heavily armed, carrying all make and model of weaponry. This time would be different for all of them. This time, the Assassins were ready, and they arranged the meeting.

  He signaled Jesse with a tap of his boot to start the ambush. Marks had placed the two men forward to initiate the attack and to act as scouts after. He lay impatiently listening to his friend ready the M202 FLASH. Jacob lifted his own rifle, put his eye to the glass, and searched for a target. The largest threat was a tall creature walking out front, a heavy machine gun cradled in his arms. He led the man slightly in his sights, held his breath, and waited for it to start.

  Jacob pulled his rifle into the pocket of his shoulder and pointed it at the tall creature. Aiming just in front of the thing at shoulder height, he held his breath and waited. Four successive explosions propelled the sixty-millimeter rockets forward. Boom, boom, boom, boom… gray smoke twisted ahead, straight down the firing line they’d cleared with the Bobcat.

  Jacob pulled the trigger and watched machine gunner fall just as the white-hot shards of flaming explosive filled the trail. The forest exploded in flame and fire. James, in an overwatch position to their right, let loose long bursts of machine fire, shredding the enemy column. Blue smoke and fire covered the terrain ahead as Jacob searched for anything still able to shoot back and picked off targets.

  A whistle from Marks silenced his team’s weapons. They quickly reloaded and pressed their bodies into the earth, waiting and listening for the follow up attack. The screaming started on the trail just as it always did. The Deltas did as expected, their movement always the same. They would make contact and attack. As before, they would mass on their prey. Only now, Jacob’s group was ready—the plan was working.

  Jacob listened to the Delta scream deep in the smoke-covered trail amidst the crushing and breaking of branches as the mass gathered to their fronts. Marks blew the whistle again. It let The Darkness focus on their direction, allowing them to accurately mass to their fronts. Jacob could hear the bodies pressing together while they formed up, the clanging of their weapons, and the united breathing and beating of their feet on the trail as they coiled tightly for the attack.

  Then it happened… the roars—roars always preceded the counterattack. The Deltas charged forward en masse, supported by their own riflemen on the flanks. Unable to pinpoint Jacob’s men dug into the snow-covered ground, the enemy rounds went wild. The Darkness charged forward at a sprint. Hundreds of them, a horde of screaming, rage-filled faces armed with whatever they could carry. Jacob kept the tip of his trembling finger on the trigger but held his fire.

  “Cover!” Marks ordered.

  Jacob buried his face into the soil berm to his front, pulling up his gloved hands to cover his as the forest exploded around him and the ground beneath him protested and shuddered. He was levitated from the earth and then slammed back into it as a shockwave ripped through the ground. He felt clods of mud and ice fall from the sky onto his back. Branches cracked and popped in the distance, remnants of the trees now fully engulfed in flame.

  Jacob lifted his head and looked to the front. The once thick, pristine forest was now void of life, everything decimated by the blast zone. The rows of buried 250-pound bombs did their job; the column was destroyed.

  Jacob picked up his leader’s orders from a hidden position. “Jacob, Jesse. Scouts out.”

  Jacob nodded even though he knew the gesture would be unseen. He pushed himself up with his hands to a kneeling position and raised his rifle, covering ahead while Jesse pulled up beside him. Jacob twisted his long rifle on its sling and let it hang across his back as he readied a short-barreled, pistol version of an AK47. Jacob took a lunging step forward, moving ahead with Jesse covering the rear.

  Crouching stealthily, he moved into the kill zone where the stench of burning flesh and cordite mixed with the strong essence of pine and earth. Jacob moved between twisted trees and broken bodies, searching for threats. He spotted a tall, stretched out creature wearing a chest rig; a separated arm clutched an SKS rifle. Jacob knelt beside the figure and stripped its chest of magazines, placing them in a drop pouch on his belt. He searched its shirt pockets, finding nothing.

  Jacob dumped the man’s pants pockets, finding remnants of its previous life: a battered wallet, some folded currency, a set of car keys. Winslow stepped forward and knelt beside him.

  The Darkness didn’t communicate with written word, or even spoken that they could see. It was through touch and other non-verbal means. A faint wisp of movement pulled Jacob’s eyes back to the front as a mangled man scrambled to its feet and stumbled forward. It gripped a rusty machete tightly in its one good arm, while its other arm and part of its torso were missing. The black blood oozed from its wounds, and charcoal-colored foam dripped from its broken jaw as it limped toward them.

  Jesse rose to his feet and stepped forward, leveling his rifle. “Just die already,” he whispered. One pull of the trigger, and a round tore through the thing’s chest, ending it. “Why won’t they all just die?” he said.

  The forest came alive all around them. Roars and echoes of feet in the distance and a scream unlike any Jacob had heard before. He raised his head and whispered, “Something is wrong.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “Don’t stop! Keep pushing!”

>   The ground rumbled under his feet and the forest canopy retracted, shaking dried leaves with the concussions of explosions. The crack of grenades shaking his senses, Jacob stumbled back and looked down at the burn marks on his shirt. The torn fabric showed where bullets and shrapnel had ripped through his vest, coming dangerously close to his flesh. Crazed beings howling and screaming in agony ran in all directions, coming at him from everywhere.

  He’d lost sight of Jesse. James was firing rapidly, the M240 golf spitting rounds that cut close by his side and suppressing the enemy advance. How did they rebound so fast? Where are they all coming from? he thought, shaking off the explosion and taking a step to the side before staggering back and being caught and steadied by Stone’s tight grip.

  The forest was covered in smoke and flame. Dirt, bark, and ashes rained down, hitting his arms and face. It must have been another grenade. He remembered standing near the bodies with Jesse, then the explosion. He looked down; he was still holding his rifle and felt the AK pistol bumping against his side, still hanging from the sling. He couldn’t feel his body. He looked down at his shirt. Maybe I’m dying, and it will all be over soon. What will Laura think? Will they know how I died? What will they do without me? The old man grabbed Jacob by the shoulders, shaking him then spinning him around shoving him out of the kill zone.

  “Run, you fool,” he shouted.

  He looked at Stone’s blurry image, his nervous system overwhelmed with feedback. Jacob blinked hard, trying to focus on the old man’s words. Being pushed ahead, feeling slowly came back to his body as his muscles filled with blood. He closed his eyes tight and when he opened them, his body and mind finally responded.

  The way Stone fought, no one would have guessed he was in his late sixties and suffering from emphysema. He swung the rifle, catching a badly blistered Delta in the face. Jacob watched as the thing’s jaw exploded, teeth and blood flying through the air as Stone dropped back and delivered a swift kick to the creature’s chest. He then turned, firing a quick burst into the downed creature’s body. Jacob fell back, hitting the ground hard. He looked at the downed Delta beside him; the creature was suffering from the effects of the dioxin.

  Jacob’s head spun in all directions at the raging and charging monsters. They were all affected. Red blistered skin, screaming and lashing out at everything in all directions. The stuff they put in the lake was affecting them all; somehow, they were all connected to their seed pond.

  Rounds zipped and flew over their heads; tracers going by so close that Jacob could feel the heat from their pyrotechnic tips. Stone lifted his weapon and fired into another charging man—three rounds to the neck and face, dropping it onto the trail before looking back at Jacob. “Let’s go!”

  Jacob grabbed the dirt, forced himself back to his feet, and scrambled after the elder warrior. He looked left and right. Through the smoke and haze, he couldn’t find the rest of his team. Behind him, he heard the heavy machine gun rattling away and Duke’s frantic barking. There was another explosion to his right. They were caught in a bloody fight to the death, surrounded on all sides. To live, they needed to break out and get to cover. The Deltas were everywhere. No longer organized, they ran chaotically through the woods all around them.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw a three-man pack moving at them from the right. A Delta ran directly at Stone, firing from its hip. Jacob raised his AK47 and let loose a long one-handed burst, watching the first crazed man tumble as rounds stitched its chest. Jacob paused. Using the weapon’s collapsible stock to steady his aim, he squeezed the trigger, knocking down the two that followed.

  He looked ahead just as Stone staggered forward and dropped to a knee. Jacob was quickly at his side. He hooked one arm under Stone and lifted the old man to his feet, moving him into a depression beside the trail. Seeing another group of attackers rush in, he let go. Stone’s knees buckled under his own weight. Jacob pulled the AK to his eye, let off a short burst, and thwarted another Delta assault. Looking down, he watched as the crimson blood soaked the old man’s faded camouflage pants.

  “I’m hit. The rat bastard got me good!” Stone pushed Jacob off of him and fell back to the grass. The old man quickly removed his belt, wrapping it around his thigh as a tourniquet. Jacob lifted his rifle, firing up the trail and trying to cover the old man while he worked. With the tourniquet in place, the man put his own rifle back in action, firing a volley into approaching targets.

  Jacob ducked and flinched as a stream of rounds impacted a nearby tree, throwing wood and rock splinters into his face. When he looked back up, another Delta wave was moving at them. Stone shouted a warning before tossing a grenade and let loose a long stream of gunfire and obscenities in the wake of the grenade’s explosion. He turned back to Jacob. “Go, get back to the bunker. I’ll catch up.”

  Motion from the side caused Jacob to spin hard. He leveled his rifle, finger on the trigger. He was moments from firing when he recognized Jesse stumbling ahead, collapsing to the ground with them. The man crawled forward, bleeding from his neck, his shirt covered with powder burns and gore.

  “They’re everywhere,” Jesse gasped. “All around us.”

  Jacob helped pull the big man into their meager cover. Jesse collapsed and rolled to his back. Armed with only a pistol with its slide locked back, his face was pale. Frothy blood rested at the corners of his mouth. Stone took the pistol and loaded a fresh magazine taken from Jesse’s own armor. He let the slide go forward and put the weapon back in Jesse’s hand. “Welcome to the party, son, glad to have you with us,” Stone said, turning back to the front.

  Jesse coughed and spit blood on the trail. He tried to laugh, but instead he turned and extended his arm over Stone, firing and knocking down a Delta staggering toward them from the old man’s blind spot. Stone reached out and squeezed the big man’s shoulder before looking back at Jacob. “Go; get to Gloria and the kids. We got this.”

  Another dove at them. Jacob raised the AK47, looking into the twisted face of a teenaged Delta. The creature showed no surprise—only hate and vile rage. Jacob steadied his weapon and pulled the trigger, watching as the heavy rounds tore through its cheek and face. He shifted his fire as more ran at him from farther back, the steady rounds cutting them down and dropping them hard on the trail. Stone’s rifle barked as it fired rapidly into the wood line. A round came close, hitting the side of Jacob’s helmet, spinning his head back like a blast from a baseball bat. When he turned back to the front, the assault had ended.

  Jacob looked down at his friends, wondering how things had gone so wrong. The ambush plan was shit. They underestimated the Delta numbers and their reaction to the dioxin. The first ambush, the placement of the bombs, it all went off without a hitch. But the numbers were far more than they had anticipated, and they didn’t slow down.

  Hitting them hard after the initial strike, wave after wave they fought them, bounding back until the Deltas managed to flank them with grenades. Jacob and Jesse were caught too far forward in the middle of it all, trying to find cover. They were hit on three sides. A mass ran at them as if blinded and crazy, their faces swollen with bursting blisters, the dioxin making them mad. Grenades flew from every direction.

  The team tried to maneuver and counter the assaults. Eve’s voice was on the two-way radio; the Deltas found the hide and were surrounding the barn and cabin, forcing her to retreat below to the bunker. Yellow smoke filled the air. It was Marks’s signal to break contact and hide. They would rally back at the bunker. James fought his way to an overwatch position, laying down suppressive fire with the heavy machine gun and allowing the others space to break contact.

  This wasn’t conventional warfare. The Deltas were no longer predictable and they weren’t fighting as a team. After the initial contact, the massive charge, and the explosions, the order ended. Now they scattered and filled the forest like hornets from a squashed nest, frenzied and chaotic.

  “Go, dammit,” Stone yelled again, waking Jacob from his sudden stupor.<
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  Jacob handed the AK47 to Jesse then removed the scope from the M14, letting it drop to the ground. He rose up to his knees and fired into the distance, knocking down two more attackers.

  “I’ll see you at the cabin,” he shouted, not knowing if it was true. He turned to run down the trail, racing for the bunker. His lungs burned with every footstep. The intense minutes of combat overloaded his system with adrenaline and were crushing him. He was exhausted and shaking with energy at the same time. He rounded a corner in the thick trees, surprising two Deltas with their backs to him. They spun around as he fired the M14. The 7.62 rounds hit the nearest square in the back. The other spun and closed the distance, pushing the rifle to the side as it attacked.

  Jacob rolled with the impact, taking the creature with him to the ground. He forced the rifle between them and used his boot to dig into its thighs, trying to gain leverage. The creature reared back and pounded down with both fists. Jacob looked up into its blister- and pus-covered face. The thing snarled, drooling in agony as its empty hands punched down at him again, the blows deflected harmlessly off his helmet. He turned and twisted, releasing the rifle as he drew the MK III pistol from his jacket. He clicked the thumb safety and fired into the creature’s abdomen, not stopping until the pistol was empty.

  The Delta relaxed and collapsed on top of him. Jacob could hear another set running down the trail, snarling and screaming as they approached. No time to react, his lay motionless faking death as they passed him by. He closed his eyes, failing to shut out the battle. He could still hear the steady rhythm of James’s machine gun in the distance. He must be nearly out of ammo, Jacob thought.

  The feet passed him by. He could hear them screaming and shouting as they swarmed the cabin just ahead and down the trail. Pushing the body off him, he rolled back to his feet and leaned over to grab his rifle, determined to retake the cabin or die trying. He pushed out of the heavy brush then moved into the clearing. He forced himself to slow down, to assess the situation, and not run head on into danger. He saw a group of them charging at the cabin wildly. They ran right at the wire, every one of them catching it and tripping before being tossed face first to the ground.