Aaro couldn’t stay still. He started to pace, flexing his hands. They were shaking, either from the frigid air, or the evil that they’d committed. The body of the pistol felt cold against his back, a dark reminder of its capabilities. He wanted to throw it away, into the woods, but that would be the dumbest thing he could do. He knew that.
He dug his hands into the pockets of his jacket to get some warmth into them — the jacket he’d stolen from a car on the bridge. His left hand fumbled over something familiar.
With a grim smile, he pulled out half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He let it stay there. He’d given up when Emelie had fallen pregnant. She’d said he had to. A heartless thought crossed his mind. Well, guess it doesn’t matter now. He blinked and tears came to his eyes.
Shit.
He pinched a cigarette from the top of the packet, and with quivering fingers lit it. He sucked hard and filled his lungs with smoke. As it always had everything fell away for a second.
Solace. He smiled and exhaled before taking another drag. He approached Lila and offered her one, feeling a little steadier now.
She shook her head. ‘Where are we?’
‘I don’t know,’ was Aaro’s answer. It was the truth.
‘Are we close?’
He checked his watch. ‘We’ve been riding for an hour. We’re probably about twenty kilometres out.’ He blew another fog of smoke into the night and looked at the cigarette, holding it up in front of his face. The ember smouldered quietly.
‘You really like smoking, huh?’ she said, watching him.
‘I quit over a year ago. This is my first since then.’ He paused for a second. ‘The long term effects don’t really scare me anymore,’ he half laughed.
She feigned a smile.
A crunch of twigs in the undergrowth behind them burst Aaro’s protective smoke bubble. He narrowed his eyes and stared into the darkness. It was useless, all he saw was a curtain of bottomless blackness. He hadn’t come this far to die on the roadside for no reason.
He flicked the cigarette into the dewy grass and ground it in with the toe of his boot. In seconds they were on the bike and moving.
He accelerated hard, only stealing a look in the mirror as he did. Nothing moved behind them but he had a feeling that just beyond the reaches of his sight, there crouched one of those villainous monsters, looking to snatch another life before the night was out.
Not this time.
It was all pines for a few more kilometres until the trees started giving way to small towns and houses. The streetlights illuminated doors and front lawns, not dusty roadsides and ghostly trunks. Cars were neatly parked and not just abandoned. It seemed that the horror hadn’t quite reached this far, or at least not in the same way that it had in the rural areas. And yet, things were still dead. Everyone should be home, but there were no lights burning. No curtains were drawn and most of the driveways were empty. The houses were all lifeless.
Aaro slowed, seeing a red notice stuck to the windscreen of a hatchback. An evacuation order was in effect this close to the city it seemed, and seeing as there were no meals hiding within, the monsters hadn’t seen fit to terrorise the houses. It was almost normality. Almost.
They passed a sign that said they were ten kilometres out and Aaro eased up to cruising speed. The hard ride had drained a lot of their remaining fuel. He didn’t want to run out and have to walk the last leg. If the Varas had ventured this close to the city already, then they’d be following the food, which was all ahead of them, he guessed. If everyone was retreating to Oslo, the beasts would be stalking them to the doorstep. The closer they got the more dangerous it would be. He knew that he and Lila had both probably come to that conclusion, but neither of them said it. He just proceeded watchfully.
His eyes began to ache in the orange of the streetlights. The houses became steadily more dense until up ahead, the lights of the city skyline loomed, the sky bloody behind them. He felt Lila shift against him, craning her neck over his shoulder to see.
He felt nervous. They were closing the distance fast. There was still no sign of any trouble, but it had to be any minute now, surely.
Headlights appeared on the road ahead and a convoy of military jeeps screamed past in the opposite direction at full throttle, gunners readied on the roof-mounted MGs. Soon after that, they passed the first nomads — people walking, laden down with blankets and belongings. They picked up their weary eyes and watched enviously as Aaro and his ward sped by on the bike. Then, the cars began, once again abandoned, but not in a mishmash as they were on the bridge. These cars were left in an orderly fashion.
The bumper to bumper queue stretched all the way to the city.
These people had decided to leave their cars. They hadn’t been forced to. That reassured him a little. He pressed on, sticking to the centre line, skimming passed the empty vehicles. And then, as always, when things seemed to be looking up, they changed.
Aaro was suddenly aware that the thickening crowd of walkers on the side of the road had stopped. They’d all just paused, poised like statues, staring into the distance.
The stop rippled back through the crowd and Lila turned to look at it.
Aaro stood tall on the bike and stared over the roofs of the cars, but it was impossible to tell what was going on. The noise of the bike was loud but as he slowed to idle, the reason for the crowd’s sudden change of heart became apparent.
Echoing howls drifted in the air. Between them and the city.
And then it all became surreal. Why were they heading to Oslo anyways? As if that would be some refuge. It had the densest population. The biggest food source. Surely that would be the first place hit?
Gunfire started to answer the howls. Lots of it. Barrages. Battalions. A roiling hurricane of it. An army firing altogether.
Maybe Oslo was a refuge. Maybe there was safety there.
The only problem was the sea of bullets, blood, and beasts between it and them.
TWENTY-NINE
PLAYING GOD
2106 AD
‘Get me the Command Centre,’ McPherson barked at an analyst already sitting in the chopper as he climbed in.
The guy nodded and tapped frantically on his laptop. ‘Okay, sir, we’re on.’
As he said it, background noise filled the cabin. Gertlinger hoisted himself in after McPherson and the chopper briskly lifted into the air, swinging steeply away into the sky. Gertlinger’s stomach lurched but McPherson’s resolve was, as always, steely.
‘Where is it?’ he called into thin air.
‘It’s just crash landed in Montana. We’re uploading the coordinates now. It’s about a hundred twenty kilometres north of Miles City,’ came an anonymous voice from the command centre.
‘Okay, and what’s our ETA?’
The pilot’s voice came through now from the cockpit just in front of them. ‘About thirteen hours, including fuel stops,’ he said it knowing it would disappoint McPherson.
‘Jesus, can’t we get there any faster?’
‘I can fly you to MacDill, scramble a jet for you from there and fly you into Glasgow. Could shave a few hours off,’ the Pilot said, picking up his radio.
‘Do it,’ McPherson grumbled, rubbing his eyes. ‘What’s the situation in Montana? Do we have flyover?’
‘We will within the hour,’ said the analyst in the seat opposite.
He sighed. ‘And how long before we have people on-scene?’
‘We’re mobilising teams from Vancouver, Washington, and San Francisco. Should be within three hours. Troops from Malmstrom AFB will be on scene shortly after the flyover to secure a perimeter.’
‘My god, what a clusterfuck.’ McPherson scowled. ‘If the press get wind of this before we get there, it’s going to be a crucifixion.’
Gertlinger said nothing. He just looked out of the window aimlessly. It was going to be a long night.
It was a slideshow of vehicle interiors. Gertlinger slept in fits and starts throughout the jour
ney. McPherson received updates constantly. Shortly after the troops from Malmstrom arrived, there was an incident. The reports were unclear as to what happened. Gunfire suddenly came over the airwaves, accompanied by screams and shouts of panic. Of the fifty troops on-site to secure the area, four were found alive, walking through the desert twenty kilometres away having escaped the carnage. The rest were found dead, and some were never found at all. The crash site was quiet after that. They were keeping the chatter to a minimum until investigators arrived.
Gertlinger was shaken awake in the back of a jeep. He cleared his throat and stared around, shielding his eyes from the mid-morning sun.
Twelve hours after the crash, the site was buzzing with people. The shuttle was encased in a huge white tent two stories high and a hundred metres across. Helicopters circled overhead, warding off press and spectators and jets did flybys every few minutes. Hundreds of vans, jeeps and armoured vehicles dotted the barren desert and the personnel count had reached almost a thousand. Investigators, engineers, analysts, technicians, scientists, pathologists, emergency services, and soldiers. Patrols walked constantly, rifles up, in case of any more danger.
McPherson was already out of the jeep and storming towards the nearest encampment of analysts by the time Gertlinger even stepped into the Montana sunshine. He walked slowly, achily, towards the tent and when McPherson appeared at his side, they were beckoned inside. Fleets of men in white overalls scoured the wreckage of the ship while gigantic tubes sucked away the last of the lingering smoke. They poured over the hull and ground surrounding like ants. A man with a tablet, the head of the analysis greeted them warmly, but with a half smile that resembled a grimace more than anything else. He shook Gertlinger’s hand hard and said how much of a fan of his work he was, despite what had happened only hours ago.
Gertlinger didn’t know what he meant. The incident that left forty-six men dead was still a mystery to him, although a picture was starting to form.
The shuttle had broken in half on impact, leaving the hull with a huge tear in it, wide enough to fit ten men abreast.
When they were walked inside the huge titanium carcass, the situation became blindingly apparent.
The interior, now caked in dust and soot from the burning, was a vision of hell.
The cryotubes were in varyings states of disrepair. Some were intact, others were smashed, and some had been torn clean out of the hull and hurled about haphazardly.
Scientists worked on the ones that were whole while men in overalls inspected the others minutely.
‘My god,’ Gertlinger muttered. ‘They survived?’
‘Some, yes,’ The analyst said. ‘Out of the eighty-three that were alive and healthy upon reentry, we’ve counted fifty-one bodies. Some perished in the crash, some died during reentry, and the others…’
‘Escaped?’ McPherson spat, cutting him off.
‘Not necessarily. We think they could be buried under the wreckage,’ said the analyst hopefully.
‘So when you get this shit all cleared away, then you’re going to find thirty-two bodies, right?’ He rose to an indignant bellow, pointing at the ship.
‘We don’t know, sir. We’re waiting to have a sonar scanner brought in to tell us how many—’
McPherson was visibly seething now. ‘That wasn’t a question. I can tell you for a fact that there aren’t thirty-two under there. And do you know how I know?’
‘How, sir?’ asked the analyst begrudgingly.
‘Because forty-six good men died last night. They were eaten alive by those things, which, now, have disappeared. You understand? Get me that exact figure, and get it now. I don’t care if you have to get down on your hands and knees and dig in the sand like a dog. Just fucking do it.’ He turned on his heel and left, and Gertlinger left with him.
Outside, McPherson took a breath. The bodies of the Soldiers had been airlifted to a nearby hospital for autopsy, and now all that remained were their bloodstains in the sand.
‘My God, Florian, what are we going to do?’ McPherson sighed.
‘I don’t know.’
‘We didn’t plan for this. We didn’t have a contingency in place. We’re going to have to hunt them down.’ He sighed again and called two nearby soldiers over. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
‘Lieutenant Colonel Hicks, sir,’ One replied.
‘Get him for me. We need to start preparations immediately.’
The soldier nodded and ran off.
‘Tell me this is going to be alright?’ McPherson said to Gertlinger.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You made the damn things! If anyone knows how good our chances are, it’s you,’ McPherson said exasperatedly.
‘Honestly?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not good.’
Within half an hour, another tent had been set up and filled with people of importance. McPherson, Gertlinger, Colonel Hicks, ten Air Force pilots and six technicians. A map of Montana was laid out on the table between them with an X marking the crash site. Circles had been drawn around it, marking the potential distance that the Varas could have travelled by that time. They were in blue and red. Blue for minimum distance, red for maximum. By now, they could have been eighty kilometres away. The group were marking out a grid to search. Gunships were on their way and jets were already circling.
Over the next eight hours, reports began to come in of vicious animal attacks, which were all marked out on the map. And things only escalated. The attacks were sporadically placed, like they’d all split up. Everyone assumed they were travelling as one pack, which was quickly ruled out.
Two small packs were found and gunned down by an Apache by the time the light faded on the first day. But that was only seven of them — three in the first and four in the second. That still left twenty-five out there. At night, the search was called off. The thermal cameras couldn’t pick up the Varas’ body heat. They were cold-blooded and couldn’t be tracked like that.
By the end of the second day, more than two hundred aircraft and satellites had joined in the search. All roads had blocks on them and a national warning had been put out.
Floods of calls were now coming in saying that people had seen them from the Lewis & Clark National Forest to the Flathead National Forest. Yellowstone Park, Bismarck in North Dakota, Regina in Canada were all claiming sightings too. They had spread out at a phenomenal rate and were becoming more difficult to track by the hour. The hunt continued to grow, but the Varas had effectively disappeared. The containment action was failing and as the days and weeks passed, casualties were continuing to be reported. Mostly farmhouses and other remote residences.
The circles were ever expanding with the days.
The situation was deteriorating at a disastrous rate, and only got worse as time dragged on.
THIRTY
THE VEIL
2122 AD
‘Okay, we’re just coming into the hot zone now,’ Sam called through the intercom. On the map on his lap, he’d marked out several rough rings around Murmansk in varying sizes. ‘This is the first tier. The radiation here is elevated above normal, but isn’t harmful, especially not inside the truck. Another ten clicks and it will start to change. That’s where we’re going to hunker down for the night. Nothing can survive outside in those levels for an extended period, so there shouldn’t be any activity. The lead lining of the trailer should be sufficient to keep us safe. It’ll be a quiet night.’
But it wasn’t. They reached the threshold and stopped on the road. Ek engaged the hydraulics and the trucks settled down. He and Bjork retired quickly to their cots. Aaro and Sorina weren’t so tired.
Sorina stood and walked over to Aaro. He was sitting against the wall, the rifle still slung across his lap, his arms spattered in blood. He was staring absently into space.
‘Jesus, you’re freezing,’ she said surprisedly, laying her hand on his wrist.
He was cold. Inside and out.
She snatched a bla
nket off his cot and slung it around his shoulders. ‘Come on.’ Her voice was soft as she pulled him to his feet. He got up reluctantly, still clutching the rifle.
She led him through to the back portion of the trailer, the housing for the core, and closed the hatch. They’d have some privacy in here at least. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’
She sat him against the outer wall and disappeared for a second, reappearing with a bowl full of water and a rag.
She spent the next half an hour sponging the caked blood off his arms and face. All the while he never broke his gaze with the wall. She sat in silence until he was clean, and then wrung the rag into the reddened water and laid it down.
She sighed and shuffled next to him. His knuckles were still white and locked around the rifle. She tried to pry it from him but his fingers wouldn’t give.
‘Hey, Aaro,’ she whispered. ‘Time to give up the gun, yeah?’
‘Why?’ he replied flatly after a second.
‘You don’t need it. Not in here.’
He looked down at it and his grip loosened a little before tightening again. ‘I don’t want to give it up.’
‘You’re gonna hold on to it all night?; she asked sarcastically.
‘Yes. And all day tomorrow.’ He pulled it against his body now and folded his elbow over the stock.
‘I don’t understand.’ Sorina shook her head.
‘Things are going to change tomorrow — the way things work,’ he said with a strange calmness. ‘It occurred to me, watching Bjork and Ek talk. You see, there’s no reason to keep us around.’ His eyes were glazed. Like he wasn’t really there.
‘What are you talking about? You heard what they said earlier, the hierarchy — you’re indispensable.’
‘For now. Until they get that core back on board, but then what?’ He looked at her now with sorry eyes.
‘And then we all go home,’ she said reassuringly, cupping his face with her hands. His skin was pale and cold to the touch.
‘No. I see it playing out another way. Maybe that was the plan at first, but now, things have changed. We’re more than two-thirds of the way through our ammunition, and we’re going to be travelling back at a slower pace than before, not to risk damaging the core. Our fuel is more than half gone from the pace we had to keep, getting here. I saw the readouts on the screen. I’m sure of it. We’re not making it back, Sorina, not as planned.’
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