Children Of Fiends

by C. Chase Harwood

  “Fine,” said Dean. His voice sounded perfectly natural coming over the speaker in front of his face. “A little disorienting.” From his perspective, he only had to think about the direction that he wanted to see and in his mind’s-eye he saw it with binocular vision, sharper than his own. Wanting to see what was behind him suddenly shifted the image to the monitor where he could see Sanders stretching to reach a spot between his shoulder blades. “Got an itch you can’t scratch, George?”

  Sanders stopped scratching and glanced at his hand in amazement.

  Wen’s head was overwhelmed with questions. He pointed at the things on the other side of the glass. “I mean, what about a bite from one of those things?”

  Tina brought up her hands up in a conceding gesture. “That would be a problem. Saliva injected directly into the bloodstream would likely produce infection. The results are the same as the original: a complete devolution of the brain, rendering it to its primal parts and a significant rewrite of the genetic code, particularly in the male sperm. Unlike Mr. Sanders and Captain Dean, Eliza is the beneficiary of the latest treatment. She is infected, but she is no longer contagious and no longer needs medication. The pathogen remains dormant in her cerebellum. As Elizaandra has proven, we think it’s safe enough for further experimentation.”

  MacAfee said, “And that’s the sweetener on this deal. You and your crew, Captain Dean, will be the next level of the drug trial.”

  Wen said, “So wait. How did she get infected?”

  “I was bitten,” said Eliza from the other room. “When the children where young. An accident.”

  “Accident?” said Wen, taking another unconscious step back from the glass.

  Dean unstrapped and lifted the helmet. “You mean we could return from exile?” He let a fleeting image of his son cross his mind.

  Tina said, “That will be up to the politicians and law enforcement. Despite the new drugs, Eliza hasn’t been allowed to set foot off this island.” She put a reassuring hand on Wen’s forearm. “No one has been bitten since.”

  Eliza appeared irritated and said, “Are we done?” She pulled Dean’s helmet back down. “ Listen carefully. They can be easily startled, so no sudden movements. It is in their nature to react swiftly, and sadly for one of our researchers in the beginning, lethally if provoked.” She spoke louder for Blakely. “Just like me. That accident was long ago.”

  Dean hesitated, “You’re not exactly filling me with confidence here, Doctor.”

  “Technically, I’m not a PhD. And it will be fine.” She gently steered Dean toward the door while opening it. Eliza gestured to the surrounding airlock space, “Just as it did when we entered the main lab, there will be a brief moment when decontamination would have taken place. You can ignore that. The system is shut off. Then we will step into the apartment.” She pressed on an intercom button. “Guy’s, I’m coming in now. As Doctor Freigh promised, I’m bringing a guest. You will treat him as you treat every guest.”

  From the observation room the others watched Hansel and Gretel stare at the entry door to their apartment with obvious anticipation.

  To Dean’s frustration, his heart skipped a beat as the door to the apartment slid open. He’d seen the worst of urban combat and yet…

  Gretel stood first, followed by Hansel who was now chewing on what looked like raw meat. The man creature had a gleaming white set of viciously sharp looking teeth. To Dean’s revulsion, as he focused on the teeth, his view zoomed closer and took in the gory details. He glanced away to reset his vision, instead concentrating on the unnatural shape of their legs: something between a goat and perhaps a frog. It made his skin crawl, but he refused to let it show in his bearing.

  Eliza gently said, “Gretel, please stay out of my head. You’ll find out who this is as I introduce you. Thank you. This is Stewart Dean. He is going to go on that trip that we’ve been talking to you about. He is the Captain of the ship we will be on. Captain Dean, this is Gretel and Hansel. They are sister and brother. They were found ten years ago not far from here on the eastern tip of Long Island. They have been staying with us since then. They both speak English very well.”

  “Um, how do you do?” said Dean. “I’m sorry, but did you just say trip we are going on?” He looked toward the two-way mirror, the question left hanging. Gretel said, “Very well thank you. You have a very athletic body.”

  “Who cares, Gretel?” said Hansel. “I am also well. Why are you wearing the helmet?”

  Eliza said, “He’s wearing –

  Hansel interrupted “I asked Stewart Dean, Eliza. Do you mind if Stewart Dean answers?”

  Eliza let her mouth fall open with barely hidden displeasure, then smiled. “Indeed you did, Hansel. Forgive me.”

  Dean hesitated then said. “I prefer it if you refer to me as Captain Dean or just Captain. The helmet… Um, I’ve been told that you have a great gift, but that it can be… troublesome for someone who hasn’t experienced it.”

  Hansel said, “We think it would be more reassuring to us if you removed the helmet. We promise that it won’t be troublesome. Captain.”

  Gretel gingerly stepped over to Dean and held out her hands.

  Eliza said, “Guys, I’m not sure the Captain is ready for –

  “It’s okay,” said Dean. “I can tell that these are good people.”

  Gretel offered a razor sharp grin to her brother. Dean unstrapped the helmet and pulled it off. He was immediately taken with a strong smell of musk followed by a taste in his mouth of some kind of meat. He almost gagged.

  Eliza put a hand on his shoulder while keeping her eye on the pucks. “Even if they don’t purposely try to enter your mind, they can’t help but release a certain amount of what their senses are experiencing. It will inevitably mix with yours.”

  Dean rubbed his tongue along the inside of his cheeks. “You don’t say?” He was suddenly sickeningly overcome by a feeling of deep foreboding. An old sensation he hadn’t felt since being overrun and bitten those many years ago. He felt a sudden loss of self-ownership. With feelings of pure shame over the unmanly nature of it, he felt his knees begin to buckle and he involuntarily blinked and yawned to clear his head.

  Eliza used her other hand to hold his elbow. “Captain?”

  “Um.” Dean rubbed his fists into his eyes. “I’m… I’m fine.”

  “Do you frequently begin sentences with um?” asked Hansel.

  “Um, no. Forgive me.” He stood straighter, forcing himself to attention. He needed to grab some initiative. “I can taste your lunch, young man. Among other things, I haven’t eaten meat cultivated on land in some time. Virtutrips haven’t captured it as well as I thought.” Slowly he got his bearings back. Like the bright lights, sounds, and smells of a carnival being turned down and then just fading away, his head cleared and he looked at the large owl like eyes of the beings before him.

  “You’re very handsome,” said Gretel. “Isn’t he handsome, Eliza?”

  Eliza looked at Dean as though for the first time, quickly taking in more than just communication through the eyes. “Uh, I suppose so.” She smiled warmly at Gretel like a teacher to the student. “That’s very kind of you to say, Gretel.”

  Hansel said, “It doesn’t require getting into your head to know that you are wondering if we know how different from you we are. We know our origin. We remember our days before this place. We remember the constant hunger.”

  Eliza said, “We have always felt it best to make sure that Gretel and Hansel are fully aware of what is going on. They know that they are here as subjects of research. They know that they are part of an evolutionary shift that we are still attempting to understand. They know that their parents were people just like you and me who succumbed to a disease that has both directly and indirectly destroyed at least eighty percent of the world population of Homo Sapiens.”

  Gretel said, “We know that there are others like us.”

  “Well, yes and no,�
� said Eliza. “There are others who are like you, but as to language, education, the basic elements of civilization…”

  Hansel interrupted. “We are excited to see the world.”

  “Yeah, about that” said Dean while glancing at the mirror.

  MacAfee’s voice came over the PA system. “Let’s wrap things up for now. Lots to discuss and sort out still. I believe Ms. Sherr has classes to conduct with these young folks.”

  The would-be explorers assembled again into the conference room where a soldier in her late-twenties sat alone at the large table typing on a piece of viewing paper. Even though she was seated, her athletic build was obvious. Dean, followed by Sanders (both again wearing masks), noted her but chose to ignore her while sitting down. “There is no fucking way those things can come on my ship!” barked Dean. “I experienced them face to face ten years ago. A mere toddler stopped us in our tracks. Took over our minds. You’re insane to let them out. They’re behaving now, but what’s to happen when they’re truly free? Nothing can stop them from messing with all of our heads, eating us for lunch. You feed them red meat for God’s sake! You know what real meat costs in this world!”

  MacAfee said, “Captain. Control yourself.”

  Dean shot a look at the superior officer and repetitive obedience to rank snapped him out of the rage.

  MacAfee pointed generally toward the wall as though to indicate the outside. “Captain Dean. From what we can tell, not only are the children of the infected surviving, they are likely thriving and reproducing. We know they build shelters. They use fire and from what you saw of Hansel and Gretel, they are very intelligent. Think of those two downstairs as our Plymouth Indians. We don’t know what we are going to meet out there, but wouldn’t it be prudent to have a couple of these beings with us who are on our side?”

  “You must admit that it makes sense, Captain,” said Tina.

  Schiller seconded her by adding, “It’s a chance for us to know how the others communicate out there. Hansel and Gretel may only be able to interface with us because we taught them how.”

  Wen said, “This sounds crazier every minute. You said this was going to be about trains.”

  MacAfee ignored this, saying, “Our pucks may be our only means of communicating.” He paused and said, “Chief.” The soldier set her viewing paper aside and quickly stood at attention. “Gentlemen, this is Chief Warrant Officer Gloria Hernandez. She is among a select few who have been observing the pucks on our border out past the Terminus.” Quickly cutting off any questions, he added, “Yes, they camp in small groups just on the other side of the Hudson. Chief Hernandez will be leading the combat side of the mission. She is up to speed.” He aimed his thumb at the small window where the projector beamed into the room. “She’s been observing while operating the protector.”

  Hernandez simply nodded at the angry men.

  Dean nodded back and said, “Well, Chief, I guess you already have a sense of us.”

  “Sorry Captain. I like to get the gist of the people I have to work with before saying hello.”

  Sanders made a sour face at Dean. “Spook.”

  “Green Beret, Mr. Sanders.”

  Sanders said, “Worse.”

  Wen said, “Dumb old rivalries aside, you haven’t told me yet how I’m supposed not get infected. And I’ll ask another question. What keeps them from coming? The one’s past the Terminus I mean.”

  “That is the question, Mister Blakely,” said MacAfee. “It doesn’t require that much to cross the border. It was built to stop a half-witted Fiend, not something like...” He pointed down at the floor “…them.” He began to pace. “Why they haven’t tried to cross the border is one of the mysteries we hope to solve. Bringing Hansel and Gretel will hopefully help answer that.” He said the last part as though it was the last word and casually looked at each of them, letting his authority soak into their eyes. “I don’t know about all of you, but I’m hungry. I believe that we have some dinner coming. Doctor Schiller. Why don’t you explain to Mister Blakely how he will be protected?”

  Schiller said, “There is no protection. The people working at this facility take a certain amount of risk. It’s a small risk, but it is unavoidable. Until Captain Dean’s crew has been inoculated, you and the Colonel and his soldiers will need to take precautions.”

  Wen held up a hand saying, “I’m out. Thanks anyway.”

  “The antidote, if you will, exists, Marshall,” said MacAfee. “In the unlikely event that any of us gets infected, we have access to the same therapy that Elizaandra had.

  Wen started toward the door. “Like I said. I’m out.”

  “Sit down, Marshall.” MacAfee’s voice was like a clamp on Blakely’s neck. Wen stopped, but didn’t sit. MacAfee continued, “You have peeked inside Pandora’s box. There is no putting back what you have seen. You are on an island. You aren’t going anywhere for now.”

  “I have rights.”

  “In the name of national security, your rights have been rewritten.”

  Dinner was brought into the conference room. Details were pored over. When they were again looking at the old satellite image of the ship that held the wind turbines Sanders asked, “So we find this ship. How do we transfer the parts to the train? I mean those things are huge. Are these cranes working? Will an old tank engine be able to pull a load like that?”

  McAfee typed on a keyboard and brought up a schematic of the ship. “We won’t be unloading her. We’ll confirm that she is still operational. No reason she shouldn’t be. This is a Norwegian built vessel. A company that had an outstanding reputation for making things that last.” He then typed some more and brought up a map of North and Central America. “We will take her out and sail down the coast to Nicaragua where we will pass through the new canal. Technically the reduced sea levels of today will still work for us. The canal is deep. No locks. I passed through her in a submerged submarine back in the day.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” interrupted Dean. “You’re ‘hoping and praying’ that the Nicaragua Canal is still passable?” He pointed at the map. “That’s a hell of a long way from home if the thing is full of silt.”

  MacAfee smiled. “It’s all a long way from home once we’re on that train and across the country. Worst case, we go around the horn.”

  Dean and Sanders laughed together. “Right,” said Sanders flatly pointing at the schematic. “I don’t see that this ship is also an icebreaker.”

  Dean added, “She was likely built to handle some North Atlantic sea ice, but not break through it.”

  MacAfee said, “The scientific consensus is that the weather around Cape Horn likely precludes the chance of permanent sea ice. Nevertheless, we shall anticipate using the canal.”

  As night fell and the humans upstairs continued to plan and argue, Hansel and Gretel were lying down in their separate bedrooms. Without really being aware of it, the pucks thought together in the same way an individual human would while working out a problem on his own. As long as they were within a space of perhaps two hundred square meters, and or in sight of each other, no matter how distant, their thoughts would blend as if from a single brain. Since their time in the womb it had been so. They shared firmly embedded memories from birth to the present. They also kept the memories of others who were like them – toddler pucks - back in the time before they were captured and brought to the island. They were confusing memories, invariably contrasting with the time they had spent with the “Fresh Ones”, as their brain-addled parents had referred to uninfected humans. Before their capture, the twins had been part of a collective mind of psychopathic humans brought together by their telepathic offspring. They had rampaged across the land in an unchecked quest to kill, eat, torture and rape those who weren’t yet infected. The memories of that communal chaos still ran deep in the domesticated puck’s minds. Rather than being a source of terror, the memories of that mayhem were a source of profound pleasure. It took every ounce of their l
earned self control not to try to recreate that pleasure by assaulting their keepers. Now that they had been told that they would be leaving the island, that they were to go to the lands of their fellow pucks, a conflict arose within them, and they found themselves trying to solve it day and night. They never spoke out loud of their combined thoughts. They were aware that they were being recorded. Instead, like anyone who might weigh the pros and cons of a situation, they bandied their ideas back and forth like two halves of the same brain; neither of them differentiating between which brain originated which thought.

  On the one hand, I would very much like to eat Eliza’s liver. Eat it while she watched.

  But I love her and like her smell.

  She does smell so good. Like the mother when we were living in the woods.

  I want to see Schiller scream in agony. I remember this thought from the times he put the electrodes on our heads and made us take all of those tests.

  Yes that is a good thought. I can see his face contorted.

  He is such a nice man. Funny to want to see him in agony.

  It makes me feel warm inside.

  But also bad.

  Yes, bad.

  Like wanting to pluck out Tina’s eyeballs and feel them pop on our tongue as we bite.

  Yum.

  Stewart Dean. I like him.

  Yes.

  I don’t want harm to come to him.

  No.

  Why do I like him?

  He is of us. I can smell it, feel it.