by Lundy, W. J.
“Numbers?” Rogers whispered.
James shook his head side to side. “Hard to tell; Apaches fucked ’em up. I didn’t see any moving, but I didn’t hang out long either.” He struggled with his equipment, pulling a canteen from his hip. James took a long drink before pouring more into his palm and offering it to Duke. “We shouldn’t be here… this is the kind of shit that gets people killed,” he said. “They’ll be moving in to collect on their dead, and to collect our heads.”
Rogers opened his mouth to speak but held his tongue when he heard Clem and Masterson moving up behind them. The scarred man moved in close and glared at all of them. “Why are we stopped?” he asked impatiently.
“They’re just over the top,” James answered. “It’s not secure.”
Masterson grinned and rolled to his back before sitting up. He held his arms straight out and waved them up and down, signaling for his men to get on line. He dropped his gear and crawled ahead, pushing Jacob aside as he forced his way next to James. “Okay, we’ll cover you from up here while you all go down and check it out.”
“Fuck that! I ain’t doing nothing of the sort. You want to go down and say hello then have at it,” James retorted.
Masterson’s jaw clenched. He reached out a hand and grabbed the shoulder of James’ jacket. Clem chuckled from behind them. “If your boy is scared, I can go down myself,” the old man said.
Before Masterson could respond, there was a loud clanking of metal. James put up a hand, silencing both of them as he rolled back to his belly and crawled to the top of the hill. Not waiting for instruction, Jacob did the same, edging forward through the high grass. The snow was lighter here; in direct sunlight, most of it had already melted off.
Looking ahead, Jacob could see that the grass continued over the top of the hill then dropped swiftly down to meet the paved road on the far side. Stretching down the middle of the roadway was a column of destroyed and burning alien vehicles, black smoke boiling from the wreckage. He was surprised to see Rogers moving ahead of them; ducking down, he bear-crawled on all fours and waded into the thick grass, only his head and shoulders showing.
The rest of the men fanned out and followed his lead while Jacob stood in a crouched stance. He felt Duke brush against his side; the dog was still relaxed, its tail wagging feverishly. Jacob tried to let the dog’s temperament comfort him, Duke always being a fair gauge for danger.
Jacob paused in his movements and held his rifle’s optic to his eye, panning down the long roadway. He counted at least six of the destroyed hovercrafts, all burning, some brighter than others, the metal putting off strobe-like flashes of light similar to burning magnesium. Where the vehicle occupants tried to escape the inferno, there were charred bodies in the road. Jacob looked back and saw the patrol’s riflemen now lining the top of the hill; some knelt down, others stood. If they were shocked, their faces hid it well. The men were stoic, weapons out providing overwatch.
James stepped closer. He raised his rifle up and held it steady with his right hand while he pointed to a still body with his left. “This one’s still got all its parts. This what you’re looking for?”
Clem hissed and halted the others as he alone approached the blue-clad figure. The old man stepped beside it and nudged the body with his boot, getting no response. He leaned down and pulled the form over, its lifeless, helmeted head flopping to the side. It was one of the Yellow Sleeves, smaller than the Reds.
"Thing fuckin’ stinks, don’t it?”
Clem pushed at the thing’s chest with the stock of his rifle, the figure contorting with the pressure.
“Freeze!” James hissed, holding up a flat hand.
Clem stopped cold, his body instinctively crouching at the warning. “What is it?”
Jacob turned on his heels to look back at his friend. He saw Duke with his back arched, lips curled back revealing white fangs, a low growl slowly rising in volume. James was by the dog’s side, his rifle at the low ready, trying to follow the dog’s intense gaze.
“We’re not alone down here,” James whispered. “We need to move.”
A dry heat suddenly filled the air. Blue bolts of energy rushed at them from all directions. Jacob dove for the soft earth at the edge of the burning vehicles, hearing the sounds of the patrol returning fire from the hillside. Machine guns and deafening explosions joined the now familiar metallic voomp of the enemy weapons. He felt the tickling vibration in his ears and knew the alien vehicles were on the move. Fighting to his knees, he searched and spotted the first of the enemy hovercraft emerging from the far tree lines, their red turrets glowing as blue bolts raced in his direction.
“Cover!” Clem screamed.
Rogers reached down and yanked Jacob to his feet, pulling and nearly throwing him into the high grass as men above tossed smoke and tear gas canisters, desperately attempting to conceal their withdrawal. Jacob lunged at the hillside, falling and grabbing at the thick grass while scrambling up the steep slope.
“Pull back! Get to the woods,” Masterson shouted over the fighting.
Jacob lunged ahead, moving past Clem. The older man had dropped to his knees, howling “Don’t stop. Keep moving” as he bled off a full magazine from his rifle.
Earth exploded near Jacob’s face as blue vapor mixed with searing hot mud, the heat flashing against his exposed skin. Jacob looked away and clawed at the grass, following the report of the platoon’s rifles toward friendly lines. He crested the hill just as another blast of blue caught a trooper square in the chest. The man flipped backward, a dark smoldering impression burning into the man’s uniform. Jacob reached for him then pulled back in horror, seeing the damage the weapon caused—the blue plasma sticking and burning through flesh as it dripped from the soldier’s ribs, consuming his organs.
“Oh God,” he gasped.
Jacob forced himself away, following the others as they crawled for the concealment of the thick woods. Blue bolts arced over their heads, impacting with the treetops and showering them with burning debris. Jacob struggled on, the shouting and screams of agony mixing with the voomps of the enemy weapons. The now downward slope of the hill increasing his momentum, he followed the others crashing into the heavy brush. The men of the hilltop were now in a full retreat. Friendly gunfire ceased, the noise quickly replaced with the scent of spent rounds and a strange, charred, electrical stench.
Vegetation wrapped him like a thick blanket, giving a false sense of security as he fought his way forward. Lungs burning with every step, he sprinted down the hill to the next road. He could hear men crying out in pain ahead of him. He burst into an opening in the thicket, nearly falling on medics fighting to restrain a large soldier. Jacob recognized the wounded man as one of the unit’s machine gunners.
The man’s left arm was covered in the blue smoldering plasma. It sizzled and ate at his flesh, the skin and muscle appearing to melt and mix with it. The man’s arm flailed as medics wrestled him while others worked to cover the plasma with dirt and pouring the contents of their canteens on the wound in feeble attempts to smother and neutralize the strange blue flame.
Clem rushed into the space from behind and stole a quick glance at the wound. He drew a long knife from his belt and passed it to a medic. “Get that arm off him… now.”
The husky soldier struggled and attempted to right himself, pleading with them not to take his arm. “I’ll be okay, just wrap it up,” he gasped.
Clem dropped to the ground and pressed his face close to the injured man. “You need to suck it up,” he snarled through gritted teeth. “You’re giving away our fuckin position, now bite down.” Clem stuffed a handful of folded cloth in the man’s teeth. The soldier’s eyes clenched tight, sweat building on his forehead, tears breaking from the corners of his eyes. He chomped down and growled.
A young medic who’d already applied a field tourniquet above the wound, rested on his knees. Holding the blade in his shaking hand, he looked up at Clem with a deep worried expression and said, “I
don’t have anything for his pain.”
“Then do it quick,” Clem said in a matter-of-fact tone before leaving the clearing, pushing Jacob and the others ahead of him.
Jacob picked up on Duke’s panicked bark and the echoes of snapping branches. He moved to the sound in a hurry. At the bottom of the decline, he lost his footing and tumbled through the thick vines and thorny bushes. Falling face first, he broke from the trees and plummeted into a low ditch at the side of the road. Water from the melting snow splashed his face and snapped him back. He rolled to his back and scooted up to the roadside, once again facing the doomed civilian convoy. A soldier already on his feet hooked an arm under his shoulder and pulled Jacob up from the ground. “Sergeant, we need to get off the road.”
He resisted the soldier’s grasp, suddenly embarrassed by the momentary loss of conscious thought. Jacob stood and held his rifle to his chest, taking deep breaths and pushing the shock from his mind.
“Sergeant, what do we do?”
Jacob stood stunned, not realizing the soldier was speaking to him.
“Sergeant?” the young soldier asked again.
Jacob shook his head and squeezed his eyes tight before looking back at the soldier. “Get everyone together; we’ll be moving soon.” He spotted Rogers standing on the road and quickly rushed to his leader’s side. Rogers was pointing down the road in the direction of the cabin.
Jacob felt his blood run cold when he spotted the thin stream of black smoke. “No…”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Laura pulled the straps tight on the nylon backpack. “I think we have everything. Now we just wait for Daddy to get back,” she said, smiling down at her daughter beside her.
“And Duke,” the girl replied.
“Yes, and Duke.” Laura laughed, pulling Katy in for a hug. She hoisted the pack to her shoulders and gripped the M4 rifle in her left hand. Looking down at Katy, the girl grinned and reached up to her. She gripped Katy’s hand and walked through the cramped space of the block house and out into the cool morning air.
Laura had never visited a place like this before. Some stops at manicured, resort camp grounds, where they would rent a well-furnished condo on the lake shore, maybe a night in a friend’s beach house, but nothing as sparse as this. Camping was Jacob’s thing, a sentimental connection to his father, reminders of fishing trips they took together when he was a boy. Jacob tried to pass the same lessons on to Katy. “No daughter of mine will have to depend on a man to bait her hook,” he used to joke.
She moved into the sunlight and watched the soldiers actively prepping the helicopter. The old man in the cowboy hat was fussing with them as they loosened ropes and readied equipment. Other people, refugees who came in with the soldiers, were sitting impatiently waiting; some argued with the soldiers and pointed at them accusingly.
The news of their departure to a possible safe area at first caused excitement, but when rumors spread that there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone on the first flight, fights and heated discussions broke out. Everyone became suspicious of how the lucky passengers would be picked. Families of the soldiers, then women and children seemed the obvious choice, but families didn’t want to be separated. And there wouldn’t be seats for everyone.
A soldier with a notepad looked directly at Laura; he’d already stopped to talk to her earlier that morning. “Ma’am, I really think you and the little one should be on the first flight. As Sergeant Anderson’s family, you have priority.” A year ago, Laura would have never thought of speaking to a soldier—or even meeting one for that matter. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the closest she ever got to the military was a local parade, or a patriotic TV commercial. Now, they came to her like she was part of the family, each of the soldiers feeling a responsibility to look after her.
Laura looked past him to the others—the refugees that stared at her suspiciously. They eyeballed her rifle, her backpack, even her boots. She knew they had nothing; they’d left everything behind, and she could easily be in the same position if things played out differently. She looked up at the soldier and shook her head no. “We won’t leave until my husband returns,” she said.
A man she recognized, husky with a bloodied bandage still clinging to his neck, moved past the others and stepped between her and the soldier. He frowned and leaned in close. “Ma’am, please, we heard gunfire down the road.” Jesse paused and lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “There might not be a second flight. I owe it to Jacob to make sure you get on board.”
“Not without my husband.”
Gunshots echoed in the distance, causing them to look off to the east. Jesse dropped his gaze, not making eye contact while he spoke in a hushed tone. “Okay, but I have… well, I feel I have a responsibility to tell you… if they come… Mrs. Anderson, we won’t be able to stop them.”
Laura gave him a reassuring smile and put a hand on his forearm. “It’s okay, Jesse. Let one of them have our spot. We’ll be fine.”
She led Katy away to a quiet spot farther from the helicopters and the soldiers. She set her pack on the ground and sat atop it while Katy kicked at the leaves and tossed small pine cones. Laura watched the soldiers selecting a young woman holding an infant from the group. The woman looked in Laura’s direction and waved as she was led to the waiting helicopter. Katy stood close to her mother’s side and returned the woman’s wave.
“Momma, look, the baby is going on a helicopter,” she said.
Laura pursed her lips and nodded, already feeling a tear form in the corner of her eye, wondering if she was making the wrong decision. She watched the soldiers make a final pass around the helicopter. They gave the old man a thumbs up then stepped away. The man removed his hat and moved into the Blackhawk. The turbine whined and the blades began to rotate.
The spinning of the blades increased; Laura leaned over, pulling Katy in to shield her from the wind. Soldiers moved around her, gathering in a cluster as debris began to blow, the Blackhawk fighting against gravity to leave the ground. The helicopter slowly lifted away, the tree tops swaying away from the blast of its rotors. Shielding the wind away with her hand, Laura looked up. She watched as the aircraft’s nose dipped and, gaining altitude, slowly moved away.
Her stomach dropped, and her muscles constricted. Four thick bolts of blue arced up from nowhere. Time slowed as she watched them drift through the sky. The pilot must have spotted them; the helicopter banked hard to its right, dipping precariously close to the treetops. Three of the bolts arced high, missing it; the Blackhawk’s nose dipped and the aircraft rotated clockwise before thrusting forward in the opposite direction. The third bolt scraped across the tail-rotor, launching the helicopter into a violent spin. The Blackhawk’s turbines screamed for power as the pilot struggled for control.
Laura wanted to look away, but her eyes were glued to the sight. The helicopter tipped back, nearly inverted, before falling to the far end of the grassy field in a ball of orange and yellow flame. The force of the explosion and the heat from the burning fuel pulled her back, Katy still tight in her arms. She tumbled back, landing heavily in the thick grass.
Before she could open her eyes to recover, a soldier with stripes on his helmet was beside her, lifting her back to her feet. Finally her head cleared, and she heard yelling. Men were running among the scattered group, trying to direct the fight. “Get back, get back. Get the civilians to the woods, everyone else form on me,” she heard the man with the stripes order.
The pack was gone. Katy, clinging to Laura’s chest and arms locked around her neck, began to cry. Laura tried to lift her arms, realizing she was still holding the rifle in her left hand. Jesse swooped up her nylon backpack and steadied her. “Please, ma’am, we need to go,” Jesse shouted, ushering her ahead.
Still stunned, she stepped back, Katy’s screams clouding her thoughts. She stumbled for balance. The surrounding soldiers’ weapons were firing, and the refugees screaming—some running to the block house; others aimless
ly into the woods. Blue streaks of light raced across the field to her front.
“Ma’am,” Jesse yelled, his face now inches from hers.
Laura swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay, let’s go,” she said in a dazed expression. Not afraid, she wondered, Is this what shock feels like?
Jesse forced a smile and led her forward. A bright flash of blue turned Laura’s head in time to see a running man’s body engulfed in a splash of blue. It looked like he’d been swallowed by illuminated jellyfish. How beautiful, Laura thought for a split second before the man’s body was again revealed, nearly naked and stripped to the bone by the blue blaze.
“Oh shit,” a crouched soldier shouted, looking down at the maimed man. He raised his rifle and fired at unseen targets to Laura’s rear. She pushed forward, adrenaline spiking her senses, heart beating frantically, and Katy’s tight grip around her neck. With clarity came the fear—she was now eager to escape. She ran the trail, struggling to keep up with the retreating soldiers and civilians ahead of her. They rounded a corner near a row of tiny cabins. Jesse stopped her with a tug at her elbow and pointed deeper into the woods to the north. Civilians ahead of her continued down the trail, others rushed through the thick vegetation in the direction Jesse indicated.
“Keep going, and don’t stop. We’ll hold them here,” Jesse said.
“Where do I go?”
“Just run. Run until you can’t hear the fighting, and then hide.”
Laura hesitated, gunfire thundering in the distance. She pleaded with Jesse to go with her, to show her the way. He gave her a knowing nod and strapped the nylon backpack to her shoulders. He snatched her rifle and checked the action before placing it back into Laura’s hands. “Go, stay quiet, and hide. We’ll find you—Jacob will find you,” he said solemnly, turning away. She went to follow in his direction when a blue bolt of energy splashed against one of the small cabins. The roughhewn pine boards were quickly swallowed in flame.
