by David Peters
Caperson smiled as he saw the dog and the dead Hunter, “New recruit?”
“Not sure if he found us or we found him. Either way, this guy gets my next elk steak.”
Travis looked at the Hunter splayed out on the sidewalk, “Damn. You are a cowboy.” He turned to Caperson, “I’m going to set up my little parting gifts before we bug out, if that’s cool with you dudes.”
“Parting gifts?”
Caperson smiled, “The remarkable Travis here,” he patted the young man affectionately on the shoulder, “has managed to engineer a rather incredible little device that will make sure any ‘Rupts we miss will be taken care of.”
The five men moved back to the garage, Beau in the lead as he sniffed and trotted around happily but always making sure to keep Dylan in view.
“So the main problem I have with the Dust bombs is moisture. So I liberated some plastic storage bowls and sealed the detonators with bees wax.” He placed several small clear plastic bowls of dust around the inside of the garage. He then ran fishing line from the detonator to the far side of the room and pulled it taught with a slip knot. “If any ‘Rupt walks in here, visible or not, blammo! Dust city.”
“Why are you using so many?”
“What if they don’t come in together?” he walked over to the first device, “’Rupts walk in and hit this first string, wappah!” he made an explosive gesture with his hands, “Dust all over and a pile of ‘Rupts turning into goo. A couple of days later another group wanders in, kappow! Another pile of dead ‘Rupts. The third line is just because I was able to liberate three bowls and still had wax left over.”
Dylan waved his finger at Travis, “You, my friend, get my second elk steak.”
~12~
“It would appear that most of these pods were in some form of long term stasis,” Doc said as he flipped several pages of his notebook. He continued to flip through the pages and finally stopped, “The fluids in the majority of the samples you brought back seems to be similar to embryonic fluid but it has an unidentifiable chemical smell associated with it. Without more complicated tools, I simply cannot analyze the chemical and genetic makeup any further. The smell kind of reminds me of antifreeze though, very sweet with a hint of a chemical of some sort.”
“And what exactly does that mean, Doc?” Dylan asked. He held Daniel as the young boy took his morning nap, his small head resting comfortably on Dylan’s shoulder. Niccole sat next to him on the cot while Beau took up his normal position near the door, his eyes closed but his ears in constant motion as he listened to the sounds around him.
The Q-Hut had become the meeting place for information like this. The town meetings had gotten so large that Doc couldn’t get more than a sentence out before people began shouting questions and demanding answers that he simply wasn’t able to answer. Other questions were unrelated to the topic at hand and would send the entire meeting into a rat hole they could never recover from.
They had a little over a week before they expected to hear word of more Hunters in the area as the Massive hive that took out Folkesburg expanded yet again. They had yet to come up with a solution that didn’t involve a suicide run with slim odds of actually doing anything effective.
“They weren’t in any kind of definitive growth stage yet. It was like a seed that had yet to germinate. I think the food supply was the next step for the Corrupted. Establish a pool of food and begin the mass generation of embryonic pods.”
Caperson added, “That would explain why we saw more Hunters in town. They would need them in order to build stocks.”
“Correct. Without the local population to fuel the initial food supply...Well, I don’t know what they would do. At the stage most of them were at, they were nearly identical when examined. There is some other agent involved that dictates what they become, hence the colored bands and writing.
“We didn’t see any writing, Doc. They were just starting with the crap they put on the walls.”
“That’s because you didn’t use one of these.” He passed a small, portable black light over the egg coverings he had brought as an example. It was covered in their cryptic, flowing writing but appeared to have been hastily scrawled across them. “I’m no linguist and I’m not aware of one in the town so I don’t even know where to begin with this but it is clearly writing.”
“What about the Queen ‘Rupt?” Travis asked. “That egg was freakin’ huge compared to the others.”
“That one was growing at a normal rate. Another two weeks and I think we would have had a new Queen ready to build out a fully working hive. Once she consumed the other two Queens she would have started laying several thousand eggs.”
“You think they will try to rebuild the hive again, after what we just did?” Caperson asked.
“I think they will continue to try to rebuild the hive as long as they exist.”
Dylan rubbed his eyes, “What leads you to believe that, Doc?”
“Simply put, we are seeing a lot of behaviors that seem to be hardwired. Instinctual behaviors that occasionally don’t make sense. I’m not sure how to explain it. This area, this hive, I think they are all key to how they work as a cohesive unit. With this piece missing, part of their network is missing. They will continue to try and repair it as long as they are alive.”
Caperson shook his head, “So even though we blew the damn thing into vapor they are still going to do their best to put it back in place?”
Dylan shook his head, “Damn I hate these things.”
Chapter 6
Dylan spread his wings as he soared among the clouds. The warm air rushed past his body as he flew. The air rushing by didn’t sound as he would expect it to, it was nothing more than a faint breeze. He could still hear things on the ground far below him. The sound of water flowing over rocks as a stream made its way through a large open field. Hooves on rocks as a herd of mountain goats climbed on a small outcropping.
He looked at his arms and saw the large, brown wings of an eagle. Clouds passed by in retreating wisps of white cotton. His eyes could see far better than his human counterparts could. Even the smallest details were visible from his throne of clouds. He banked and dove in the warm mid-day air. His wings felt the rising air from a thermal and he screeched with joy as he effortlessly rose higher into the sky. He alone owned the skies. It seemed there was no limit to how high he could soar.
Something dark moved across his mind. There was a sound from the distant horizon, faint and almost lost in the background sounds of the world but it was growing. His precise hearing could pick out the individual wing beats from the many that existed. They were coming. There were thousands of them. He listened intently, maybe tens of thousands. He banked slightly so he could see the horizon behind him, it was blackness, oozing and flowing across the land. The carpet of darkness was above him, below him, it was everywhere.
Dylan flew faster, pushing himself as he fled from the growing sound. The darkness created fear but he could not tell why. The darkness grew closer, he could not outfly it, faster and faster it came until the first of the beasts overtook him in flight.
They were winged, but not like his soft feathers. They had the hard wings of an insect, wretched and vile. They did not belong in his sky. They struck out at him with their needle like mouths, slashing his beautiful wings with their razor sharp claws. He struck back with his powerful talons, shredding anything they could connect with. Where he would tear one from the sky, two more would take its place. They were forcing him down to the ground. Several were on his back now, tearing and clawing. The pain was more than he could stand. He fought hard but his energy was fading. A claw raked across his wing and he felt his lift fade. His wing collapsed as the tendons were severed one by one. His damaged wings could no longer hold him aloft and he spiraled down to the ground as the Corrupted continued to tear into him. The light faded to darkness as he continued to fall toward an impact he would never feel.
There was a rush of wind as if a freight train had roc
keted past where Dylan was standing.
Dylan looked at his hands. He was no longer looking at the wings of an eagle nor were they the hands of a man that works a farm. He was looking at large, powerful paws, each the rich color of cinnamon. His claws looked powerful, he felt powerful. Dylan was stronger than he could ever recall. He pounded the ground with his paws in frustration. He was angry, borderline furious but he could see no reason for his rage. He lashed out at a nearby tree, tearing away a large chunk of bark and wood. He growled loudly then let out a roar. An intense anger was welling inside him. A storm of rage was boiling beneath his armored hide. He was furious. It was the smell in the air. It was everywhere in his land. His domain was polluted by them. He could not see them, his vision blurred when he looked into the distance, but he could hear them. Every soft step as they moved toward him. Hundreds of them were in his forest, moving through the trees. He roared at them angrily and bounced from paw to paw. He wanted them gone, wanted to tear them to shreds. Battle them in the open and tear them limb from limb.
The first Hunter burst through the weeds and brush, hissing as it charged at him. Dylan stood on his massive hind legs and roared another challenge. As the Hunter closed, he blotted it from the landscape with a single swipe. The broken Hunter flew several yards, not moving when it rolled to a stop, its back and arms broken like twigs. Two more jumped from the bushes and he easily dispatched the first one with another massive swing of his claws. He stood and crushed the next one with all of his weight. Several more burst forth from the bushes. One landed on his back and he roared in pain. He swiped out wildly with his claws. He could feel Hunters crumple under his massive power but there were too many. Several more were on him now. Their claws tearing through his defenses like tissue paper. One bit down hard on his neck and he roared with pain. His teeth found the head of a Hunter and he felt satisfaction as he bit down and crushed the thing like a toy. His strength was fading and still they came. They were fighting on top of the bodies of the fallen Corrupted now. Another Hunter landed on Dylan’s back and he felt his rear legs buckle. He dispatched several more before the weight became too great and his front legs gave out. Again the darkness came for him. He was beyond the pain as the darkness found him again.
Another freight train of wind and rain blew past Dylan.
Dylan exhaled heavily. A large cloud rising in the air before he pulled in another deep breath. The water around him was warm but quiet. He dove deep searching for schools of small fish. His large gray body cut easily through the water. The ocean, his home, was filled with the sounds of life but it was quiet. No longer did he hear the machinery from those on the land. No longer did boats follow them down the coast. He wondered why before diving again.
Dylan opened his eyes in the darkened room. He was bathed with sweat and his body felt as if he had been hit by a car. A face lowered out of the darkness in front of his. A Queen. Her yellow and red eyes glowed in the darkened room. She wavered from side to side, never blinking, never looking away from his terrified eyes.
She leaned in close and whispered quietly, “We will destroy it all. This world will be nothing,” she said as she plunged her talons into his chest.
Dylan sat bolt awake and reached for his pistol, “Damn it!”
He looked over at Niccole, half expecting her to be a Hunter, or a bear, or something other than his wife.
She rolled over and smiled at him, “Everything okay, Cowboy?”
“That depends, are you going to turn into a Hunter and bite my head off or am I really awake this time?”
Daniel cried out from his small crib.
Niccole stood and comforted the small boy, “Well unless you are in my dream, you are awake now.”
He rested his head back on the pillow and looked around the room, “You ever wonder what the end goal of the Corrupted is?”
Niccole rocked Daniel back and forth slowly as he drifted off to sleep again, “I figured it was to kill all of us off.”
“But why? What do they do once we are all dead, then all the animal life is dead? They consume but don’t produce. Nothing they do is, what the hell was the word we were hearing all the time? Sustainable. Don’t they ultimately die out themselves?”
Niccole thought about it for several moments, “I guess I always kind of looked at it like a disease of the body. If you get some illness, some bacteria or something. It just wants to reproduce. It doesn’t really care that it will ultimately kill you and itself.”
“So the Corrupted are like a human disease? They strike me as slightly more intelligent than a virus. The virus killing you is probably a byproduct of what it does.” Dylan added with a chuckle, “So the Corrupted are intelligent but not long term planners.”
“No. Don’t laugh at me. Just think about it. I kind of think of them like the world has cancer. The cancer just wants to spread and consume, it doesn’t care that eventually the host will be dead and they will die with it.”
Dylan thought again about his dream. The Corrupted weren’t just killing people and destroying cities. They were changing the planet. Altering the ecosystem far faster than the life living in it could adapt. To ask why would be the same as asking why anything kills its host. It was a question that Dylan simply couldn’t answer.
~1~
“Get out of the way! Just move!” Dylan pushed the gate guard out of the way a little harder than he intended and the man stumbled backward to catch his balance. Two field workers carried a torn up man on a small stretcher. They moved through the gate entrance and made a straight line for the Q-Hut.
Dylan looked around as the guards stared, their mouths agape. He pointed to a man with a brown baseball cap, “You there! Do you think I could take you away from your busy day of staring and not doing a damn thing? Think you could spare a few precious minutes to go and get Doc?”
He looked at Dylan briefly and nodded than looked back at the torn up man.
“Hey!” Dylan yelled as he pushed the man backward roughly a second time, “How about you do it now! We can actually save him if you move your ass!”
The man stumbled off in the opposite direction of the Q-Hut then broke into a sprint as he came to his senses. Dylan watched him for a second to verify he was actually moving then sprinted toward the Q-Hut. He passed the struggling rescuers and opened the door ahead of them.
“Put him in the back room. Let’s get him strapped in and I’ll grab the cart.” Dylan found his key ring and opened the locked drug closet. The few medical supplies were locked up in the small room not for fear of theft but simply to add one more step in their use. If it wasn’t worth getting the key to the closet, it probably wasn’t needed.
When he returned with the wheeled service cart, the two men were tightening the final strap over the top of the wounded man, “What now, Boss?”
“You get any blood on you? Any scratches or cuts from him? You get any injuries at all?”
“Not a thing that I know of,” the man said as he held his hands up to look for any blood.
“Me neither, Boss,” the second said as he held his hands up for Dylan to see.
“Okay. I want both of you to sit on a cot out front, lie down and take a nap if you want to. Do whatever you want but you are not to leave this hut. I’m serious about this. You don’t walk out that front door until the Doc says you are good to leave. Is that understood?”
“Boss, if you are telling us that we have to take a break and lay down on an actual bed until we get the okay to leave then I hope that okay takes a long, long time.”
Dylan smiled, “And thanks for hauling ass to get this guy back here.”
They both looked one more time at the motionless man and walked out into the open common area.
“You think you can actually fix him? The guy is already starting to smell.”
Dylan shrugged his shoulders, “Take a load off. When Doc gets here, we’ll see.”
Dylan looked through the small medical cart next to the bed and pulled out a pair of rubber g
loves. Once he managed to get them on his filthy hands, he began to carefully cut away the clothing of the bloody man in front of him. He had two, savage slashes across his chest and several cuts to his forearms where he had attempted to fend off the attack. His left shoulder was the most concerning wound, a viciously deep bite. Already the wound was taking on a black hue and all of his bleeding had stopped. His short breaths were picking up the early hints of the horrible stench of the Corruption ripping through his system. He placed the back of his hand on the man’s forehead and felt the heat radiating through the rubber glove.
The young man’s skin was nearly as white as the sheets he was laying on top of. If he hadn’t seen this so many times before, he would swear the man was already dead. With an old, damp towel he attempted to clean some of the wounds along with the dirt and mud on him from the fight. The only thing that let Dylan know he was still alive was the heat. The man’s temperature continued to climb as the accelerated change in his body tried to dump off the excess heat.
Doc stepped into the room behind him carrying a large picnic cooler, “What is the current situation, Dylan?”
“This guy and four others were working the tree line to the west when they were hit by a Hunter. There was only the one but it was able to chew this guy up pretty good before anyone could get a shot off. They killed it but not before it had gotten a good bite on him. I feel bad; I don’t even know his name. I think he is fresh in from Folkesburg.”
“Looks like you got him in fast,” Doc felt for his vital signs and gave him a quick once over. “Get the suture kit out for me please. It’s in the bottom drawer there and it has a blue plastic top, looks kind of like fishing gear.” Doc pulled the Dust breather out of the cooler and began to measure off a dose into the small chamber with a small measuring spoon.
Dylan found the small plastic sandwich box with a crudely drawn spool of thread on the lid and set the kit on the side of the bed.
