by Mark Tufo
The sub ride for the most part was quiet, I found every excuse I could to spend time with Lieutenant Yarborough and it seemed to me she didn’t mind so much. Aside from the occasional glance, I caught her stealing at me, nothing significant happened. I wish it had, but nothing ever materialized, at least not on the voyage. I assuaged my feelings, knowing that if I so much as touched her side the crew would most likely know before I could put my hand back in my pocket. I figured she had to know that too and hopefully that was why what I considered to be a blossoming relationship didn’t happen. Who knew—maybe it was all just happening in my mind. I could tell in a millisecond how and when a man was going to attack but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out even the minutest thoughts of a woman. I was pondering this very question when I heard the commander summon me to the bridge, in not as steady a voice as he would have liked. I quickly put on my military attire and headed straight for him. I didn’t like what I saw, the commander had just turned from the periscope and his ashen face belied all the truth I needed to know.
“Mike, you might want to see this,” he said stepping away from the scope.
I had hoped to lighten the mood, it didn’t work. “From the looks of you, sir. I’m not so sure.” He didn’t answer.
I placed my hands upon the imaging handles and stared into the scope. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. I turned the handle to try bringing into focus the object the commander had wanted me to see. My view was obscured by what looked like gray ash and smoke.
“Commander, I don’t understand. What am I looking at?” I asked, concern starting to well up in my breast.
He never turned to me, his face buried in his hands. All the men on the bridge were working diligently even as they watched their commander. In all the years they had been under his command, I could imagine they had never remember him being so distressed.
“Look beyond the ash, Mike,” he managed to say.
I attempted to focus on the foreground as best I could, the auto-focus kept distorting the image and finally the computer compensated for what I was trying to gaze at. The first thing I noticed was the painted gas tower I had marveled at as a youngster, but this was different, only about half of it was there, and that was significantly more than the rest of the structures that had been my home for the past two decades. Boston the land was still there, but nothing else remained over a story or so high. Anybody who had lived or worked in the city was now part of the debris that had rained down. I couldn’t pull my gaze away, the sheer enormity of it threatened to overwhelm me. I felt that if I let go of the imaging handles I would fall to the floor in a heap. My stomach convulsed, my eyesight narrowed to pinpoints, the end had come. All I had known or ever would know was gone. Lieutenant Yarborough came up on my right side and grabbed my arm, I would have swatted her away if I didn’t think it would disturb my tumultuous hold on reality as I knew it.
“Captain,” she said. I barely looked at her, I looked through her. “Captain, please come with me,” she asked. She took hold of my forearm and led me.
My legs moved on instinct rather than any willful volition. Somehow she got me back to my quarters.
“What happened?” I mumbled
“Shh,” was her answer. Grief threatened to overwhelm all that I was, my very being was in harm’s way. And then a ray of sunshine struck my lips. Lieutenant Yarborough, Tracy, kissed me. From somewhere deep inside, I was able to recognize this fundamental part of humanity, I crawled back from the abyss. For the next couple of hours I wasn’t able to forget my grief but I was able to compartmentalize it. The love we made shook me to the core and more than likely saved my humanity. Her love was a rock that I tied myself to, the turbulent storm threatened to unmoor me, but she fought valiantly to keep me with her. When I finally planted my seed in her, I was beyond grief, I was beyond happiness, I had nothing left to give. The stroke of her hand on my face was my last conscious thought. I gave myself over to the void. Blackness enveloped not only my eyes but my heart and my soul.
“Sleep,” she whispered.
I would have but I was afraid of the nightmares that my psyche might conjure up. I went much deeper, a place to where no thoughts or feelings could touch me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Sir, the men from Dennis’ platoon have just returned,” Frank said.
“Why the long face?” Paul asked, wanting to know, but dreading the answer.
“They lost two men,” Frank answered flatly.
“What!” Paul exploded. “They were on a recon mission!”
“I haven’t completely debriefed the men, Paul, but there were other factors involved,” Frank answered in a calmness in direct contrast to Paul’s outburst.
Paul could tell by Frank’s demeanor this was not all the news that was to be delivered.
“Frank, now tell me what you really want to say,” Paul said as he turned his back to sit down.
“Paul, Dennis and his gunney are the two that are missing,” Frank said. His words hit Paul as hard as any sucker punch could.
“Frank, get the men some food and set up a debriefing in thirty minutes and keep them away from the rest of the population for now,” Paul said hurriedly before the reality of the pain set in.
“Yes, sir.” Frank departed.
Tears threatened to stream down his face as he looked back on his relationship with a friend who had been there through thin and increasingly thick. His loyalty had never wavered as Paul had demanded more and more from him. Paul smiled as he reflected back on the first time he and Mike had brought Dennis up on top of the supermarket and his sheer amazement when Paul had produced an icy cold beer from the refrigeration unit. They had sat up there all day in the warm spring-like sun talking about girls and baseball. How they had ribbed him for being a dreaded Yankees fan especially in the heart of Red Sox nation. They had touched briefly on their dreams of the future. Paul couldn’t remember any of their dreams involving battling aliens for their very existence. He thought of their first tentative steps onto Indian Hill. The exploration in all of their minds and the hill itself. Even when Paul and Mike had gone on to bigger and better things in college, Dennis always let them know that he was still back in Walpole and he would be there whenever they needed him. That wasn’t any more evident than when Mike had disappeared, Dennis had flown out on the next available plane, with considerable hardship to his finances.
“I will miss you and your friendship,” Paul muttered. He got up to go into his private restroom—he couldn’t let his men see him in that state, it would do no good to let them know he valued any one of them over another, even if he did. Hell, he sacrificed a capitol city and put dozens of his elite forces in direct harm’s way to save Mike. He knew Hell had a special place reserved for him, but Hell would have to wait until he was finished there. Paul washed his face and straightened up his uniform as he headed for the debriefing room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Beth rummaged around in the small pack she was carrying. She made a make-shift mask out of an old t-shirt. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept the majority of dust out of her mouth and nose. As she tied the shirt around her neck she glanced down at the straight line of footprints she had been leaving. She didn’t know why, but it disturbed her, it wasn’t so much that she was walking in the remnants of what used to be Boston, it was something else. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. And then the thought wormed its ugly head into her consciousness; she might as well be leaving a flare in the sky for anybody to follow. But not just anybody. Could he still be following her? She trembled with the mere thought of it. What were her options? The woods? Route 495 was lined with thick woods, he would know she wasn’t veering off into the woods, she basically had to follow the line of the highway and her going would be a lot tougher and slower in the woods Then what? He would just wait for her to emerge and get to her when she was even more tired. She pulled the shirt over her face and began again, this time at a slow and steady jog.
He might catch up to her eventually, she thought, but he was going to have to pay heavily to do so.
***
Two hours later Pegged was standing exactly where Beth had stopped to put on her mask. He looked at her footprints as she had turned to look back at where she had come from. The prints leading away were considerably more spaced apart than the ones leading to the spot he now occupied. Somehow, she knew. That enticed him. Good, he thought, she knows I’m coming for her. She has to rest some time. Pegged trudged on, having never been known for his running abilities. He never second-guessed his decision to ditch his ride. She was on foot so as a true hunter he felt he should be too.
***.
Beth kept up her pace for three miles according to the highway markers, but now she questioned the wisdom of her decision. She was tired, thirsty and as soon as the cramps went away she knew she would be ravenous. She found some solace in the fact she was able to run for three miles. It had been a long time since she had done so, probably a few days before she went to the concert she figured. One thing was certain; she wasn’t going to be able to run anymore, besides the fatigue factor, the fine dust raining down would choke her lungs. She looked back the way she had come, fear inched its way up her spine. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew the boogie man was coming. And then a plan began to formulate. Beth walked another quarter mile to a curve in the road that would hide her exit from the highway. She found a brief respite from the cloying dust under the trees, all was unnervingly quiet as she entered, almost like a church at High Mass. It was as if the forest knew something was going to happen and was waiting patiently for the outcome. Beth backtracked into the woods almost to the position she had originally come up with her idea. If the madman came no closer to the woods than her own footprints, she figured the shot to be about fifty yards. That was nothing for a marksman, she reasoned, but then she was no marksman.
Who knows? she thought to herself, maybe it’s all just an over active imagination that makes me think I’m being followed and I could actually get a little rest.
She had no sooner started to doze off, her head listing to the left, when something made her sit up with a start. Beth’s heart hammered, he was standing where she had stopped, looking around, sometimes into the woods, his eyes scanned over her exact location. She held her breath, He can’t see me. She hoped. Beth wondered with true concern how much her labored heart could keep up its pace.
***
Pegged knew something was up, he just didn’t know what it was. For years, his mind had been clouded with drugs and alcohol and only since the beginning of the end had his instincts begun to become clearer, his senses heightened. Without a doubt in his mind, he knew his quarry had done something to try to change the outcome that he had foreseen. He saw the girl’s footsteps heading in her same southerly direction, but the curve in the road did not go unnoticed.
Perfect place to set up an ambush, he reasoned. Was his prey able to bite back? He had been on enough hunting trips with his father to know that even the most skittish animal when cornered would turn and fight for everything it was worth. And she might not yet be cornered, but he could tell from her running that she was beginning to feel desperate. He could smell the fear, he knew she would not be able to keep her jogging pace up, especially in the dust. No, she had laid a trap, a crude one perhaps but a trap, nonetheless. Pegged squatted as if to tie his shoe, but in reality he was making a smaller target of himself. He scanned the woods closest to him, knowing that was where she would have to set up if she wanted to take a shot. He tried unsuccessfully to look over as nonchalantly as possible. Anger and revenge spurred him on, but he wasn’t a fool— those traits alone wouldn’t save him from a bullet. He got up slowly and exposed his profile, doing his best acting job of pondering his next move.
Beth slowly moved around the tree she had been leaning against, sweat pouring in her eyes. She brought the rifle up, it seemed simultaneously to weigh a hundred pounds and nothing at all.
He could feel his time running out, action was called for but of what nature he had not yet discovered. It was a good fifty yards away from where he stood to get to the dip in the green belt that separated south and north bound lanes. That would afford him some measure of cover. Even though he was probably in the best shape of his life, that would still give his prey a good seven or eight seconds of his completely exposed back.
“It might be a crude trap,” he muttered. “But she snared me by the short hairs. Fuckin’ bitch.”
In the unearthly silence that was route 495, Pegged heard the telltale click of a safety being disengaged. He bolted to his left for all he was worth as the sharp report of high caliber gun fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY - Mike Journal Entry 9
The trip in the zodiac boats was a blur. I can remember the swell of the waves and the spray of the ocean on my face but little else. I tried in vain not to look at what remained of Boston off to my right, but I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame or better yet a rubber necker on a busy highway to an accident. Though this was no accident, not some huge nuclear melt down, this was a deliberate act, an atrocity committed by an enemy that I had already resolved to fight with everything that I had. What else could I vow but that? The conviction left me empty, knowing that I could not do more than promise the complete destruction of an alien race or more likely my own death. I got out of the boat and took what I now knew was my last look at my beloved city. The commander’s accursed periscope could not truly prepare me for the devastation that was wrought there. I wished I’d never seen it and then I could live my life in plausible deniability. Well, I reasoned those one-and-a-half million Bostonians would have died no matter what I believed. It wasn’t to say it wouldn’t have happened anyway, but I was, at that moment, the sole reason that two major metropolitan areas had been destroyed. I hadn’t pulled the trigger, but I had definitely shown them where to shoot and because of that millions of my fellow human beings had perished. If I was ever given the chance to exact my revenge, I would have to take my own life afterward, knowing full well that I would not be able to bear the burden of the guilt, but to end my life now, pre-fulfillment was to cheapen the worth of those who had died for me. No, for now I would have to drag the guilt around until such a time when I could hoist it onto my shoulders and let it smother me under its oppressive weight. The march to Walpole was surprisingly peaceful as a new wave of determination washed over me. I couldn’t see how anyone or anything could stand in my way. Drababan walked up alongside.
“Hello, Mike,” he semi-hissed. The suddenness with which he came upon me startled me out of my new-found resolve. I knew it was not Drababan’s fault any more than it was truly mine, but that did little to ease the prejudice that welled up inside of me when I saw him. I bit back the words that threatened to tear from my mouth, the taste was pure bile. It was a long moment until I was able to come up with something more appropriate than ‘Fuck you and all of your kind’.
“Tonight is a good night for a march,” he added.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, I had been around the aliens for close on two years and I still had not a clue what they were really thinking. But I had the distinct feeling this alien from millions of light years away was attempting to do something very human. He was trying to draw me out of my obvious distress. I however didn’t know whether I wanted to thank him or shoot him.
Instead I answered, “Yeah, not too bad.”
“How long until we reach this Indian Hill?” he asked.
“At this pace Drababan, we should reach there sometime mid day tomorrow.”
“Will the hu-mans, there be more receptive to my presence than they were on the sub?”
I thought carefully before answering. “Actually, Dee, probably less. Most of those folks at the hill are civilians, uprooted from their lives, losing almost everything and everyone they know to your masters.” God, I would have sworn he was frowning as he looked down at me, maybe it was just a trick of the moonlight. “Where
as the men and women on the sub are military and they knew the inherent dangers they were exposed to when they signed up.”
“I will just have to prove my honor to them.”’
I know Drababan wanted the conversation to continue, but small talk was not what I had on my mind, I sped up my pace to pull away from him, again he surprised me, he understood the gesture and actually slowed his pace to increase the distance between us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Eastern Seaboard Ground Occupation - Location Southwest of Boston
“Sir, we have lost thirty-eight Genogerian shock troopers. And at least a quarter of our allocated supplies.”
“The Genogerians can be replaced, the supplies however are going to be a little more difficult,” the commander answered.
“Sir, we have captured one of the soldiers that was in on the assault,” the alien sub-officer added.
“Excellent. I was hoping for a late night meal.” The commander snarled. “Get as much information out of him as you can, then bring him to me.”
“At your command,” the sub officer answered as he slammed his fist to his breastplate armor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dennis had been blown more than twenty-five feet away from the explosion created by the gunships, only pure dumb luck had saved his ass and he knew it. He had landed squarely in the middle of a huge briar patch. The gunney had not been so lucky. The gunney’s travels through the air had been much shorter and he had landed well clear of the thorny plants and onto a small outcropping of exposed bedrock. Dennis more felt the patrol coming than heard anything, his hearing had not returned yet, if it ever would. Dennis rolled off his back, careful not to move too fast in case something was broken or out of alignment somehow. What Dennis saw both elated and scared the living shit out of him. The gunney was alive and about fifteen feet directly ahead. He could see the gunney’s chest rising and falling. And the thing that would give even the hardest soldier nightmares for life was the six Genogerian soldiers fifty feet away and coming fast. The sheer size of the monsters made Dennis shudder involuntarily, add to that the bright red body armor they wore and the superior firepower they carried, Dennis could do little more than stare in horror. The gunney only had moments before they were on him. Dennis felt around for his M-16, hoping to take down as many of them as he could before being overrun. It wasn’t anywhere within reach, he moved as fast as his battered and bruised body would let him, searching for his rifle. The soldiers now stood over the gunney. Dennis could do little more than watch as the closest soldier picked up his gunney with one hand and thrust his near lifeless body over his head.
