Skull's Shadows (Plague Wars Series)

by David VanDyke

  He crammed his feelings down hard again, forcing them into a tiny place labeled tomorrow.

  Yet tomorrow never came, and that was fine with Skull.

  The sirens continued for several seconds before ending, replaced by an intercom announcement.

  “Inbound planes detected on radar,” said the voice. “I repeat, inbound planes on radar. This is not a drill. Air defense personnel assume positions. All others report to assigned air raid shelters.” The announcement repeated several times, interspersed with more sirens.

  Air defense radars had arrived from Texas only the week before, along with several old Stinger shoulder-fired weapons, but that meant the men manning them also only had one week of training. Skull suspected the short-ranged Stingers wouldn’t be very useful at night in the hands of those with limited training and experience, especially if strike aircraft came in at high altitude. The Stingers would be most useful against helicopters.

  Someone switched on the lights in the tent, immediately followed by yells for the beating of whatever brain-deficient sonofabitch would be so stupid as to turn on lights during an air raid. The lights went black. Men scrambled in the dark, bumping into each other and their cots, cursing and fumbling. Some of the brighter ones switched on tiny red LED map-lights.

  Skull chuckled. All these men had navigated the dark tent at night flawlessly hundreds of times to get ready in the morning, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or sneak off to see the working girls, but with the added pressure of the sirens it was like they had been dropped into a crystal shop blindfolded.

  Most of the men were simply grabbing their assigned weapons and running out of the tent as instructed. Skull got fully dressed and grabbed his pack, which he always kept prepared, along with the M4 assault rifle they had issued him.

  He looked up toward the young brothers and saw the oldest already gone, the younger moving in that direction. Evans was still in his sleeping bag on his assigned cot. His confused eyes and tangled hair poked out above an open mouth.

  Making a fast decision, Skull strode over to Evans. “Quick, get up. Let’s go.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked in a slow voice.

  “Well,” said Skull looking up at the ceiling. “Since there are multiple planes inbound and not just one, I suspect we’re about to be bombed. Maybe the first in a series of strikes. Might be a long night.”

  Evans was finally moving. He pulled himself out of the bag and tugged on pants and shoes. “Where’s our air raid shelter?” he asked. “I forget.”

  “We’re not going to the shelter,” Skull answered.

  The little man froze and looked at him.

  “If you really want to get out of here, the time is now.”

  Evans face slowly registered a smile. He began moving faster, packing his own ruck and standing quickly. “Let’s go.”

  “Follow me,” said Skull walking away from the center of camp. They made their way down the main street, the one they’d taken into town. Lots of soldiers were running around, but in the confusion no one took notice of them. At the edge of town, Skull pulled Evans off the road and into the dense woods.

  “Wouldn’t it be faster on the road?” Evans asked.

  “It would,” answered Skull searching around for a good spot, “but this is safer.”

  He spotted what he was looking for - a small hollow in the ground with low-hanging trees over it. “Quick, get down in there.”

  Evans froze. “What for?”

  Skull hissed at him angrily. “Can’t you hear those bombers? If we’re above ground we’re dead. We have to survive before we run.”

  The little man tilted his head to the sky. “I hear them now.” He scrambled into the hollow.

  Skull listened carefully, although there was no aircraft sound. The power of suggestion, he thought with a smile.

  Once he saw the man lay fully in the depression, Skull climbed in next to him, drawing his knife. He used his body to press down on the little man and then, placing his hand on the other’s forehead, turned it to face him, wide eyes looking at him with surprise, but not yet fear. Holding him utterly immobile, Skull placed the tip of the blade at the other’s throat.

  Evans struggled weakly, but after a few seconds lay still. “Why?” he gasped.

  “Several reasons actually,” Skull said cheerfully. “All of them good. Would you like to hear?”

  The little man didn’t answer.

  “It’s impolite not to answer someone when they ask you a question,” Skull said. “With that said, it doesn’t really surprise me coming from you. Anyway, you asked why.”

  Evans’ eyes jerked this way and that like a panicked rabbit, but he didn’t move.

  “First,” said Skull holding up one finger in front of Evans to accent his point. “You’d eventually try to run away, probably at a very bad time. You’d get caught and spill your guts, putting me in a very bad spot. Can’t have that.”

  He held up two fingers in front of Evans’ face. “Two, let’s say for the sake of argument you did successfully escape, you would make trouble for me back in Arkansas if I have to go back through there. You might even make trouble for me elsewhere if you have half a chance. Very inconsiderate on your part, given all I’ve done for you.”

  Three fingers were now out. “And finally, because you are a dangerous, pompous, arrogant, stupid, bullying, vindictive, little shit. Everyone will be better off without you and I’m doing the rest of mankind a major solid by leaving you here dead in the woods. I suspect there won’t be a soul on this planet that will miss or mourn you.”

  Skull felt a warmth spreading on his knee where it pressed into the smaller man’s crotch, but he ignored it.

  “If you weren’t going to be dead anyway, I’d give you some advice. I would tell you it never pays to needlessly treat people like crap. There may come a time for it, but it needs to have purpose and that purpose should never be to make yourself feel bigger and better. Do you understand?”

  Incredibly, the man nodded.

  “Good,” said Skull. “It’s rude on my part to leave you like this, but I’m afraid I have no choice. As a consolation I’ll tell you that you were correct not to trust me, but I bet you’ve already figured that out. Farewell.” Skull reached around the man’s head and quickly cut Evans’ throat, his razor-sharp combat knife slicing through the carotid arteries, the jugular veins and the esophagus. He rolled away quickly to avoid the spurting blood.

  Skull stood and covered Evans with fallen branches and piles of dead leaves, and then walked out of the brush and back to the road. If he didn’t leave within the next day or so, he’d need to come back and make sure the body was still hidden, but he would worry about that later.

  Jogging down the road, the streets of the town were much less crowded. The siren still blared loudly.

  “Hey,” yelled a voice off to his left. The sergeant major waved from one of the shelters. “What the hell are you doing out? Can’t you hear the sirens?”

  “Evans ran off,” Skull explained pointing in the direction of the dead man’s body. “I tried to stop him, but I lost him in the dark.”

  “Forget about him,” said the sergeant major. “We’ll worry about that later. Quick, get in here.”

  Skull kept running. “Thanks, Smaj, but I’ll go to my assigned shelter. Don’t want my platoon sergeant to worry and I have to tell him about Evans.”

  The sergeant major yelled at him again, but Skull ran out of sight. Racing to his assigned bunker, he hurried down the short flight of stairs and past the L-turn designed to keep out debris. Skull saw his assigned seat next to the two brothers, Anson and Kevin.

  Staff Sergeant Talbot barked from the other end, “Where the hell have you been?”

  Skull started to answer but his highly attuned sense of danger warned him what was coming. He stuffed his fingers into his ears, closed his eyes tightly, and opened his mouth to compensate for the overpressure.

  The ground exploded around
them. Skull was lifted off the rough bench and thrown into the two brothers before finding himself on the ground covered in dirt and bodies. He could hear yells and cries faintly through ringing ears.

  “Stay down!” Skull roared. “There’s more coming. That’s just—”

  The earth shook again, worse than before. A wave of energy washed over them and Skull could see the resultant ripples on the men’s faces and clothes as if in slow motion. He plugged his ears, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth again while trying to pull himself into a tight ball on the floor.

  The men in the bunker endured six more such impacts over the next five minutes, although the last few seemed to be farther away. After ten minutes passed without more bombs, Skull opened his eyes and climbed out from under a pile of stunned bodies and dirt. Wiping away a trickle of blood from his nose, he looked around.

  Vacant eyes stare back at him. It was hard to distinguish individual bodies from the dirt and fallen timbers, especially in the dimness cast by the emergency battery lights. Everything was covered in a thick sheen of grey dust.

  He heard another distinct high-pitched whistle, and then nothing. Coming down right on top of us, Skull thought. He hadn’t been in many artillery or mortar attacks, but he knew that as long as you heard the whistle of the shell breaking through the air, you were fine. Once the whistling stopped, you were in trouble because the shell was coming down right on top of you, traveling faster than the sound waves.

  “Incoming!” Skull screamed and dove for cover again.

  A split second later, the earth erupted into deafening noise and a series of giant rumbles. Skull imagined them all in a giant snow globe with someone shaking it vigorously.

  The artillery bombardment took much longer, perhaps twenty minutes. This is preparatory fire, Skull realized. The aerial bombardment alone might be harassment, but combined with sustained artillery, it presaged the beginning of a full assault.

  He imagined the U.S. Army moving up to positions along the borders. Those troops were undoubtedly checking their gear for the hundredth time and awaiting the end of the artillery bombardment to begin their assault.

  We don’t stand a chance, Skull thought. They’re probably doing the same throughout the Arkansas Free State’s border. They intend to eliminate this pocket of resistance once and for all; that’s why they’ve waited so long to respond, gathering overwhelming force. They mean to finish this. To finish us.

  It took Skull minutes to realize the artillery had ceased. He picked himself up, pushing a fallen wooden crossbeam away from him. There were half a dozen bodies around him that were obviously dead. Several others had blood coming out of the ears and eyes and a few looked catatonic.

  He peered at the two brothers. Both were stunned, but seemed to be recovering quickly.

  Edens, he thought.

  Both were obviously scared and hurt. If they stayed to fight, they’d die or end up in one of those Eden torture camps he’d seen earlier.

  Why do you care? Skull asked himself. He wasn’t sure, but for some reason he did. Maybe it was the echo of the dream of Linde, the strangled promise of a life and family. Maybe it was simply instinct, and he was a man who’d learned to follow his instincts.

  “They’re coming!” Skull yelled out into the bunker. “Assume your defensive positions and prepare for enemy assault!”

  Blank faces looked at him, but slowly, men began to move and the inertia suddenly broke.

  “Come on,” one said, and another, “Here let me help you up,” and, “You all right?” farther away. Men and boys began climbing through the rubble toward the surface and Skull followed them, staying close to the brothers.

  On the surface the open air felt heavenly and cool. The annoying sirens had finally stopped and people stumbled around, many seeming to have no idea what to do.

  “Get to your defensive positions and prepare for assault!” Skull roared out again. He would need them to delay any attack, to give him time to get away.

  You’re going to throw their lives away to save your own? asked a voice in his head that sounded annoyingly like Daniel Markis.

  They already threw their own lives away, he answered himself. I can’t change that, but maybe they can at least go down fighting.

  The two brothers started to move toward the line of bunkers to the east, but he grabbed their arms. “Not you two,” he said. “You’re with me.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Anson.

  Skull checked his M4 before saying, “I’ve been given a special mission by the commander. I need you two to come with me, but you have to keep up. We’ll be moving fast.”

  “We can keep up,” answered Anson eagerly.

  “Why us?” asked Kevin suspiciously.

  Good question, thought Skull. You don’t know it yet, but you’re the smarter of the two. “Frankly, because you two are here in front of me right now. I don’t have time to hold tryouts or find the men assigned to me in this mess.”

  “We’re ready,” said Anson. “Where are we going?”

  “This way,” answered Skull and started jogging west.

  Chapter 21

  Skull led the two boys west, away from the growing sounds of gunfire from the north and east.

  “Come on,” Skull urged Anson for the tenth time. The boy kept stopping and looking back toward the fighting.

  “We should be with them,” Anson said, reluctantly walking again.

  “We’re exactly where we should be,” responded Skull.

  Kevin stumbled. “I’m really hungry,” he said.

  Skull looked down at the boy. He could still see the dried blood from where his eardrums had burst. The Eden virus had obviously healed him, but his body now craved calories because the healing had depleted all the stored fat and was now catabolizing the body’s protein.

  Stopping and opening his bag, Skull pulled out a large ziplock bag of jerky he still had from Arizona. Both boys pounced on it and Skull stepped back out of the way as they eagerly devoured all the dried meat.

  “Got any more?” asked Kevin.

  “Not for now,” answered Skull. “You need to space this sort of thing out. Besides, we need to keep moving.”

  “What sort of thing? And what needs to be spaced out?” asked Kevin.

  “Eating. Healing. I’ll explain later,” answered Skull. “We have to keep moving if we’re going to meet our objective.”

  “Exactly what is our objective?” asked Anson.

  “I’ll tell you when the time is right, but we need to keep moving.”

  The older boy looked around at them. “Wouldn’t it have been faster for us to take a vehicle?”

  “Faster, but not as quiet. We’ll pick up something later.”

  “What type of mission has us leaving right in the middle of the fighting?” asked Anson. “I thought maybe we were going to circle around the enemy and hit ’em from behind, but we keep moving away.”

  Kevin looked at Skull with wide eyes. “We’re not on a mission, are we? We’re running away.”

  Smart kid, Skull thought. “Trust me, boys, we just need to keep moving. It will all make sense soon enough.”

  Anson’s face scrunched up and he began to shake his head stubbornly. “I’m not running. I’m no coward.”

  “All of us are cowards when we need to be, and we’re all courageous heroes when we need to be. There’s nothing any of us can do for anyone back there.”

  “How can you say that?” said Anson. “I thought you were a Marine.”

  “I am a Marine,” Skull answered. “I’ve seen more fighting and blood and death than either of you can imagine. But I’ve also seen senseless battles turn life as cheap as dirt. Everyone back there is dead, or by nightfall will wish they were. It was always a fool’s cause. Always.”

  “I’m going back,” said Anson.

  “Don’t be stupid, son,” hissed Skull. “I’ve heard you two talk about that family you left. Don’t you think your duty lies with them now? You’ve learned some
important skills here, but they need your help. There’ll be time enough to throw away your life down the road if you want to, believe me. Just make sure you do it for a reason.”

  “Listen to him,” said Kevin. “Let’s just go find ma and pa and our sisters.”

  “Listen to yourself,” countered Anson. “Run away from our friends who are fighting for their lives, just when they need us most? We signed up to fight, but we’re running away.”

  So idealistic, thought Skull with frustration. He and Markis would make a wonderful pair. Or they might kill each other. After all, only one side of an argument can seize the moral high ground. At least Markis knew when to retreat.

  “None of that matters, son,” Skull said. “All that matters is—” He stopped and turned to his left, sensing something.

  “None of it matters?” asked Anson. “How can you say that?”

  “Shut up,” commanded Skull in a low voice, easing sideways and circling toward the sound. “Get down on the ground and stay there.”

  Both boys saw the look on his face and obeyed.

  Pulling his rifle up to the ready position, he crept obliquely right and forward. Just in front of him, low to the ground, he saw a nearly invisible man in a camouflage uniform and face paint. Skull could only make out one eye, but it was enough. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see a line of men spread out behind him. Fortunately, the man hadn’t seen him, and seemed focused in the direction of the boys, where he’d undoubtedly heard their arguing voices.

  Light infantry, thought Skull. Rangers, probably. They’ve been sent to attack the rear and cut off escape. They won’t take us prisoner. They have to move fast and quietly. Probably try to kill us without firing in order to maintain surprise and secrecy.

  All of this occurred to him in flash. After all, he had performed this exact mission many times in Force Recon.

  There was only one way out of such an ambush: aggressive speed and accuracy. Skull pulled the rifle up to his shoulder in one fluid motion and drilled the point man in the forehead, then shifted his aim to the second in line, shooting him too. Then the third.