“Don’t move buddy. We’re trying to help,” Mark said as he grabbed him by the shoulders.
Tim groaned louder then started to cough. He moaned and tucked his legs to his chest. Gloria tried to get another look at the bullet hole as Mark held him firmly to the ground.
Shaking, Tim spun onto his back and started hacking hysterically. Blood bubbled in his mouth and splattered into the air like a geyser. A red mist sprayed into Lenny and Gloria’s face.
“Fuck!” Lenny exclaimed and wiped blood from his forehead with a torn piece of his shirt.
“Can I see that?” Gloria asked and reached for the torn cloth. “I got some in my eye.”
“I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die! Mark, Mark please help me,” Tim suddenly cried out and reached for Mark’s massive hands.
“We need to get him inside,” Gloria demanded.
“Can we help? Benjamin here was a field medic,” Robert yelled to them as they moved closer.
“Who the hell are they?” Mark asked angrily.
“Who is that? Who is that on the ground?” Benjamin shouted.
Squinting, he gazed across the plateau. He stared at the body trying to get a better look, the image becoming clearer with every step. Suddenly, he took off at a run. His heart thundered in his chest and panic seized him like a vice.
“Tim! Oh my God no. Tim!” Benjamin screamed into the air.
Skidding to a stop Benjamin knelt at Tim’s side. He almost pushed Gloria to the ground as he leaned over him. He grabbed Tim by the hand and looked him in the eyes.
Tim smiled at him. “Ben, what are you doing here?” he mumbled. “I thought…I thought you were dead.”
“I’m right here brother. I’m right here,” Benjamin said with tears running down his face.
Mark looked on in confusion. He scratched his head then looked back and forth between them, the resemblance was uncanny. He didn’t understand how he hadn’t seen it before. “You’re, you’re his…his brother?” he mumbled.
Tim started to shrill in pain again. He shook violently and started to yelp. His screams sent chills through the air echoing down into the valley.
“Argh, it…it burns! Make it stop, please make it stop!”
Blood began to drizzle from Tim’s eyes. His skin felt like ice, but sweat poured down his face. Snot ran from his nose as he drooled a mixture of spit and blood.
“Help him! Somebody help him!” Benjamin yelled.
“I…I don’t know what to do,” Gloria mumbled in panic.
Rebecca reemerged from the cave carrying a small red duffel bag. She stopped short at the sight of Tim. His body was spasming and convulsing as he shrieked with every tremor.
“Jesus!” Rebecca muttered.
She dropped the bag and ran to Tim’s side. She grabbed his head and looked him in the eyes. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said. “Stay with me.”
Gloria stepped away with tears in her eyes. Her hands shook as she tried to catch her breath and compose herself. She glanced at Lenny then looked away and shrank into the background.
“When are we?” Tim asked as he looked up to Rebecca. “You know it…you know it. When are we?”
Benjamin turned to Rebecca with a confused face. “What does he mean? What is he talking about?”
“It’s the fever,” Rebecca said. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Rebecca ran her fingers across his forehead as her eyes welled with tears. “You’re okay…you’re okay,” she whispered over and over.
“When are we? When are we?” Tim continued to yell.
Benjamin gripped his brother’s hand tightly. “Fight Tim. Please fight.”
Tim shook and pulled away, but Benjamin squeezed his hand harder.
“I’m here for you,” Benjamin leaned forward and whispered.
Tim suddenly stopped screaming and smiled at him. His eyes widened and he stared right into Benjamin’s soul.
“Tim, Tim are you okay? I think it’s over,” Benjamin said.
Rebecca ran her fingers though his hair and rubbed the sweat from his face. She looked up at Benjamin and shook her head from side to side.
“Run!” Tim said with a muffled voice and then his grip relaxed. His brown eyes dulled as one last raspy breath expelled from his chest. His body shook again and then went still.
“No! No, help him! Please,” Benjamin pleaded, looking around to the blank faces that were watching.
Robert placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder and swallowed hard. Mark stood up and walked off. Rebecca still held Tim’s head in her hands, staring back into his empty eyes.
“He looks at peace,” she said. “He was in so much pain before.”
“He’s dead!” Benjamin shot back. “Dead! My fucking brother is dead!”
CHAPTER 11
THE PACT
“I trust them,” Robert whispered in the dark.
“Well, I don’t. Any of them…any of them could be one. How can we trust them with something like that?” Benjamin responded.
“They were in Florida for Christ’s sake and in Nashville. You know they have to be clean. Besides, we can’t do this without them, not now. They don’t need to know everything, but I have to tell them something.”
“Tell them what?” Rebecca asked as she emerged from the shadows behind them.
Robert was startled. He jumped and then quickly tried to recompose himself. “Hello Rebecca,” he said in a nonchalant tone.
“Robert,” she replied coldly then turned to Benjamin. “I know we...we’re not friends, but Tim was a good man and a great friend. I’ll miss him.”
Benjamin smiled and tilted his head. “We’ve all lost people, but I appreciate it.”
Rebecca stared at him for a moment longer. She looked like she wanted to say more, but decided not to. She turned back to Robert and raised an eyebrow. “Well, you had something to tell?”
Robert looked at Benjamin and then back to Rebecca. “It’s probably better if I tell you all at once.”
“Well let’s do that,” Rebecca said and started to walk off.
Benjamin and Robert shared a look and then stared after her.
“Keep up,” she yelled back.
With annoyed faces, they stood up and slowly moved forward. Reluctantly, they followed Rebecca down the dim tunnel. The moss, rock and dirt mixture that made up the floor muffled their steps. Silently they floated deeper into the abyss until the cave opened up into bulb-like structure.
Robert and Benjamin cautiously walked inside. The room was large and opened up like an igloo with a high ceiling and stone walls. A small torch was nailed to the rocks. The flame flickered brightly, projecting an amber glow that danced across the knobby walls.
Lenny, Mark, Crimley and Maddox were sitting on the ground, circled around a map. They were talking in hushed voices, pointing at different spots and drawing lines with a marker.
Lenny looked up when he heard Rebecca walk in. He smiled and looked past her to Robert and Ben.
“I guess you guys are ready to get on your way. We’ve been talking and Crimley here put together a bag with some things. I know you were pretty low on supplies.”
Robert smiled at him and stepped forward. “I have to thank you for all of your hospitality. Especially after everything that’s occurred. Haven’t met many decent people since this all started.”
“He’s actually got something he’d like to share with us,” Rebecca interrupted. “Go ahead.”
Robert looked back at Rebecca and smiled. He cleared his throat and swallowed. “Yes…yes, Rebecca is right. We understand your group is heading to D.C. Any reason for that?”
“Tim’s idea really,” Mark said. “Figured it might be safe there, government folks and all.”
“I see. Well, we happen to be heading to D.C. as well. Any chance we can tag along?”
There was a moment of awkward silence as Lenny looked to Rebecca and then Mark and Maddox. He cleared his throat and gave Robert a
smile. “I don’t see why not. There’s safety in numbers.”
“Plus your boy and Javier have become pretty close,” Gloria added as she appeared behind them.
Robert smiled back at her and then looked towards Crimley. He was holding a flashlight over the map that was laid out on the ground. His arms were wrapped up with gauze and he had a few healing scratches on his face, but beyond that he looked to be in decent shape.
“I never got to apologize for Scott. He was… he was a good kid, a good man. He and his mother were very close. Not all of us can handle these things so well.”
Crimley frowned and lifted his head with a sullen look in his eyes. “I, I wish things had gone differently,” he mumbled.
“As do I.”
“Was there more?” Rebecca asked with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Did you have more you wanted to tell us?”
Benjamin made a huffing noise then opened his mouth and closed it. Robert looked at him for a moment considering what he was going to say. He took a deep breath then faced Lenny and the others.
“The truth is we need your help. As you’ve probably concluded Benjamin works for me. He’s the last member of a Marine special operations team.”
“Sir?” Benjamin interrupted.
“There’s no such thing as top secret anymore Benjamin,” Robert went on. “My name is Robert Grimwold. I’m the deputy defense secretary. When the invasion first occurred I was sent to …”
“Wait…wait. Let’s start there, let’s start with this invasion. You can’t be serious?” Lenny interrupted.
“We can’t deny it anymore Lenny. A non-human life form is responsible for everything you see. This problem isn’t isolated to just Florida or Tennessee, the entire world has been affected. By all accounts the Southeast region of the U.S. may very well be the safest place.”
“Aliens?” Lenny mumbled and twisted his face.
“Call them what you will. They are not from this planet. What did you think was going on?”
“World War three? I don’t know. We’ve been trying to rip apart this planet for centuries. I don’t think we need help.”
“Unfortunately this war is on a much larger scale. China, Russia…they’ve already been eradicated. We’re barely hanging on as is,” Robert continued. He sighed and ran his hand across his face. “I know it’s a lot to swallow. But this is what we are facing.”
“What the fuck?” Lenny said angrily. “What about the military, the army, we have to be doing something.”
“We’re under attack!” Benjamin shouted. “First wave wiped out our damn military. When they come back the second time…”
“And we’re supposed to just believe you. You come out of nowhere talking about aliens and shit, and we just believe you?” Lenny started to raise his voice.
“I told you Lenny,” Maddox mumbled. “I told you we saw them in Atlanta.”
“What the fuck does that matter? You came back rambling crazy shit. Mark, help me out here. You’re not buying this shit are you?”
Mark sighed and bit his lower lip. He was normally very opinionated, but he just listened silently.
“You’ve seen it haven’t you?” Robert asked. “You’ve seen what they do.”
“Mark what the fuck is he talking about?” Lenny stammered. “Mark say something!”
Mark turned to Robert with a stunned look on his face. His mouth hung open and his eyes had a blank, dumbfounded expression. “We…we saw them before. Well I did, Maddox was right.”
Lenny couldn’t believe his ears. They’d kept Maddox locked up and almost convinced him he was crazy. Now here Mark was admitting that he was telling the truth, and they knew it.
“What the fuck is going on Mark?” Lenny asked in anger.
“Okay, yeah we’ve seen them. Tim told you before, but we didn’t need everyone going hysterical. This nutty bastard comes back screaming aliens. It was best to keep it under wraps.”
“Jesus Mark!” Lenny gasped.
“You were there, in Atlanta. You saw that shit. What the hell did you think was going on?” Mark spat.
“I don’t know what the hell that was. Some rabid bear, who the hell knows,” Lenny said in a frustrated voice.
“Scouts…there were scouts in Atlanta?” Robert interrupted them.
“What the hell is a scout?” Lenny asked.
“Those animals you described. They use them like we use hunting dogs,” Robert responded. “We think they’re targeting the populated areas.”
“For what?”
“Sir!” Benjamin said sternly.
Robert glanced at him. “They’re…they’re cloning us. Well, some of us. Others they’re using like slaves. We don’t know what they actually look like, no one’s ever seen them, but the first attack…they had soldiers turning on soldiers. It was horrible.”
Rebecca squirmed and looked away. Lenny stared at Robert with his mouth wide open. He grabbed Rebecca’s hand and she shook her head from side to side.
“I…I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
Lenny tried to think of everything that had gone on, all the things he’d seen. He was as confused now as he was so many months ago living in his underground bunker.
“So what now?” Lenny asked after a long silence.
“Now, we fight back,” Benjamin said proudly. “After our infrastructure toppled, the President sent a thirty man team down to Florida to find a way to hurt them. We thought that Florida was ground zero.”
“You thought?” Lenny asked. “Tim…your brother said that a nuke is what destroyed Florida. That you guys did this to us, you fired on your own damn people.”
“That’s not true!” Robert suddenly raised his voice. “The NSA decoded a message over a year ago. We knew they were coming. We didn’t know when and we didn’t know how, but we knew they were. When satellites first picked up their ship we didn’t know what to think. Were they peaceful? Were they aggressive? We had no clue. We got our answer pretty quickly when they started jamming our radars. Then several of our nuclear facilities had reactors go online. They forced core meltdowns. We lost thousands and half of our nuclear subs were disabled.”
“I don’t see how bombing Florida fixed any of that,” Rebecca said and rolled her eyes.
“We were crippled. Hell, we were dead in the water, literally. We had no way to fight back, no way to protect ourselves. Their ship was entering the atmosphere over Florida so we did the only thing we could. We detonated one of our tactical nukes.”
“And what good did that do?” Lenny asked.
“You’re still alive aren’t you?” Benjamin replied.
“Benjamin,” Robert frowned then turned back to Lenny. “I can see how from your perspective the decision seems ill-conceived at best, but we had to do something.”
“So what’s your next great idea?”
“Now we need to get back to Washington. We need to brief the President on what we’ve learned and hopefully pay these bastards back.”
“And you need our help to do that?” Rebecca asked. “What happened to your thirty man team?”
“You’re looking at it,” Benjamin said grimly. “We were decimated by those, those scouts. I barely made it out alive. I got back to the FOB, picked up the deputy secretary and his son, and we took off.”
Lenny sighed and scratched his head. “It’s a lot to take in Robert, a lot to take in.”
“We’re in,” Maddox suddenly blurted out.
Lenny and Mark both looked at him simultaneously. Rebecca cut her eyes and growled.
“We were heading to D.C. anyway,” Maddox said. “The more guns around the better, right?”
“There’s something else,” Robert added. “We’ve decrypted their last transmission…we have less than one month before they strike again.”
CHAPTER 12
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Lenny sat on a rock and started field stripping his rifle. He had a torn shirt and a half empty aerosol can sitting in front of him. Robert�
��s admission last night was a lot to take in and Lenny’s mind needed a distraction.
“Can I help?” a soft voice asked.
Lenny turned and found Javier standing behind him with beaming eyes. He shifted from side to side and smiled eagerly.
Lenny grinned and waved him over. “Don’t tell your mom,” he said, shaking his index finger.
“She’s with Robert,” Javier responded.
“Oh. They spend a lot of time together?”
Javier nodded.
“You like him?”
“He’s okay.”
Lenny smirked. “Well, right here is the firing pin. See all that black stuff, we gotta clean that off.”
Lenny handed Javier the rag and he started wiping off the small, silver pin. He grabbed the can and sprayed it into the air then giggled. Lenny shook his head at him, but let him continue to do his own thing.
“Lenny?” Benjamin’s unmistakable voice barked.
“How can I help you?”
“Can I have a word…in private?”
Lenny took a breath. “Sure.” He grabbed the rest of his rifle and left the pin with Javier. “I’ll be back, make sure that thing is shining.”
He followed Benjamin into a tunnel and stopped just far enough that Javier couldn’t overhear.
“So, what’s up?” Lenny asked.
“Well I wanted to um, fill you in on the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
“Robert gave you an overview, but I felt you needed a better idea of what we’re facing. These things…these aliens, they are ruthless. They strike fast and hard and can be anyone.”
“Anyone?”
“They use people like pawns manipulating their minds and making them do whatever they want. We think it’s in the blood, but we’re not sure. Just keep your people close, because if they go missing they’re good as dead. Just because they come back doesn’t mean they’ve come back.”
Lenny immediately thought of Maddox. He’d been missing for days before they found him. But Lenny had a hard time seeing him as some alien in a human suit.
Benjamin sighed, seeing the skepticism in Lenny’s face. “Look, I know it’s hard to believe. Hell, if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it myself. But it’s out there Lenny and this is happening. You’re a fighter, you’ve kept your people safe and if we’re gonna stop this then we need you.”
Escape: The Wasteland Chronicles Book Two Page 11
