by Sean Platt
Mary patted Luca on the knee and smiled. He smiled back.
The rest of the trip was mostly silent, though the air between Luca and Paola quickly thawed. They started exchanging stories and jokes like they had for the last three months, though there was a crackling current that had never been there before; a current that excited Luca.
The winter trees started fading from the landscape, and the passengers saw the first blossoms of pink and green dotting some of the branches outside the window. The driver turned to the passengers and said, “We’re almost here. Another 10 minutes, maybe.”
Exactly 10 minutes later, the line of cars drove through a guarded gate, then into a compound that made the house they’d come from look like Anna’s My Little Pony Show Stable. There was a large farm, though Luca couldn’t tell what they were growing, and a silo like the one back home. There were a couple of other buildings, too. A large one that looked like a garage, and another one that had a whole bunch of wires on top, along with something that looked like a flying saucer. Just past the gate, there were three large houses in a row, three stories each. A high brick wall that made Luca think of Humpty Dumpty encircled what the others had called “the compound.”
John’s car drove into the large garage, and all the cars followed. Luca felt butterflies flutter inside him as John stepped from his car and the other men followed. Luca looked up at the seat in front of him. Desmond’s face was mad, Mary’s was still worried. Luca took Paola’s hand, then followed Desmond and Mary from the car.
They were met by a large group of strange-looking people on the other side of the garage. The group looked nothing like the soldiers. Paola leaned into Luca’s ear and whispered, “I didn’t know the special place was Little House on the Prairie.”
There were four men and one boy, dressed in dark suits with hooks instead of buttons. Their pants had suspenders, like clowns, except not funny, just black. All their shirts were pretty colors. Light pastels that looked like Easter. Their boots were brown and scuffed, and their hats had wide brims, made of black felt. The men all had beards, but no mustaches, and their hair was long enough to brush the base of their necks. The boy’s hair wasn’t quite as long, but looked like it was cut with a bowl on top.
There were two women as well, probably a mom and a daughter. They both wore long hair parted down the middle. The mom wore it in a tight bun, the girl in pigtails. Their dresses were solid blue and fell all the way to their ankles, and their shoes were a shiny black.
They stood in a semicircle and said, “We’re well met to know you,” one at a time.
John met them on the other side of the strangers. In a soft voice, he turned to his old friends from the Drury and said, “This is home now. You’ll be safe here.” He gestured toward the house in the middle. “Come inside, there’s someone I want you all to meet. The man who saved my life, the man who helped me finally find the inner peace I’ve been seeking for so long.”
Luca could feel Desmond getting angrier, but he followed him, just like Desmond followed John. As they approached the house, an old man stepped outside, then climbed down the front porch stairs, each step creaking loudly beneath his weight. The man wore a long, ivory-colored robe. Something terrible must have happened to him because the skin on his neck was bright red and really wrinkled. It looked like leftover ham. A mask covered the left side of his face.
“This, my friends,” John said, “is The Prophet.”
Ten
Brent Foster
Black Island Research Facility
March 21
“Rise and shine, sleepy head,” Michael teased, standing in the threshold of Brent’s dorm-sized room.
“Fuck, what time is it?” Brent said, turning and looking at the clock. 5:15 a.m. His head was pounding. He’d been up too late, and drank a few too many beers in the dining hall when he got back from Jane’s. Today was supposed to be his day off.
“Early, but the guys are getting ready early and a spot’s opened up.”
“Huh? A spot for what?”
“We’re going into the city on an extraction run. Sanchez is sick, and I vouched for you.”
“Extraction?”
“I don’t know all the details, but they sent a team in last week to follow up on leads. Supposedly there was an infected sighting.”
“I thought you all shot the infected on sight.”
“Change in protocol, or so say the scientists. They want us to catch some live ones for observation. Only problem is we haven’t seen too many, not in a while. Most everything we’ve spotted was either a full-on alien or an infected that was already dead. At any rate, a couple of our guys managed to trap one of the infected in an apartment building and need us to extract them.”
“So, we’re gonna fly back with one of those things?”
“We’re bringing a second chopper with a cage, so we won’t be. The good news is you get to meet Ed.”
“Who’s Ed?” Brent asked.
“Commander Edward Keenan, one of the best we’ve got. He came on a bit after I got here, but shit if he ain’t the toughest sonofabitch I’ve seen. Dude is ALL business, and unlike some of the other captains I’ve seen in my years, actually gets out in the field and gets his hands dirty.”
“Sounds like fun,” Brent said as he sat up, his head still adjusting to the light that Michael turned on.
“He’s not a ball-buster or anything. Barely talks at all, in fact. But hell if you can’t learn something just by being next to the guy.”
“What time we leaving?” Brent asked, not wanting to let Michael down.
“Oh-six-hundred sharp. So, grab a shower and get dressed and ready.”
“Yeah,” Brent said, as he stumbled off to the shower, hoping he’d make it through the day on little sleep.
They flew a Blackhawk, with four Guardsmen and two pilots, into the city. A second chopper, another Blackhawk with the cage, followed with six more Guardsmen, including pilots.
Captain Keenan was in charge of the mission, though he’d yet to say a word to the men, preferring stolid silence the entire flight. Keenan looked around 40 with a nearly shaved head and beard stubble. He appeared tough and fit, but world-weary and just as likely to take a long nap as he was to jump into a firefight.
“We’re here,” one of the two pilots called as they encircled an apartment building that was all too familiar to Brent – the building across the street from his old apartment; the one where he’d met the 215ers. Last time he’d seen the building, it was crawling with aliens.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as a chill ran down his spine. To be so close to home, to be able to see his apartment, right across the street, gave him the surreal sensation of stepping back in time. That if he could simply step through time and space, he could somehow find his way back to his family.
Keenan stood and opened the door, then leaned out of the chopper, looking at the rooftop. “Okay, I’ve got a visual on Alpha Team. Set her down.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the pilots said as the chopper lifted, then straightened before slowly lowering.
On the rooftop, Keenan barked orders over the chopper’s rotors.
“I want two of you, Schultz and Cooper, to stay behind. It’s your job to protect the pilots and the chopper. You see something alien, shoot it before it touches the chopper. For those of you who haven’t faced these things, remember your video training. Their movement is deceptively fast and unpredictable. Wait until you have a shot lined up before firing.”
They met up with Sanchez and Turner of the Alpha Team just outside the rooftop doorway leading to the stairwell.
“We’ve got two infected trapped in the elevator on the ninth floor,” Turner said to Keenan. “We dropped gas on them 15 minutes ago, so they should be out. We cleared most of the hostiles, but there’s a few we missed, so be prepared to shoot.”
“You got the gear?” Keenan asked Michael, who patted the big, black bag strapped to his back like camping gear.
/> “OK, let’s do this,” Keenan said, then stepped out of the morning and into darkness.
The emergency lights that once lit the hallways had burned out, so the men used lights attached to their rifles, which added to the claustrophobic feeling of the walls closing in around them as they navigated their way down the stairwell to the ninth floor. The sound of their boots echoed and carried the length of the stairwell, which was sure to draw the attention of aliens, were there any inside.
Once they reached the ninth floor, Keenan instructed Brent and Michael to stay behind and guard the stairwell door. One of the men took the backpack from Michael and carried it with his left hand, his rifle in the right as he and the remaining men headed down the hall toward the elevator, about 12 doors down.
“You okay?” Michael asked Brent. “You look sick.”
“I used to live across the street.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. And I know it’s crazy as fuck, but I feel like if we just went over there, maybe Gina and Ben will be in the apartment waiting for me.”
“You know that’s not possible, right? We haven’t run into anyone in a long time. The odds that anyone is left here are next to nothing.”
“I know,” Brent admitted, frustrated. “At least logically. Yet, being here, so close to home, it feels like I should at least try to go over there.”
“No way Keenan’s gonna let you do that. You’d be putting this whole operation, including all our men, at risk. So, unless you want us to leave you behind – and by the by, I’m not letting you do something that fucking stupid – you need to get your head in the right here, right now. Okay, buddy?”
Michael’s voice was firmer than Brent had ever heard it, but still compassionate, showing that he was looking out for Brent’s interests even if Brent was getting a bit loco.
“You’re right,” Brent said. Besides, Brent didn’t think he could take another disappointment so soon after yesterday’s helicopter ride over the dead city.
“FUCK!” someone screamed in the hallway. Gunfire exploded and echoed like thunder, followed by more gunfire and the unmistakable, unholy shrieks of the aliens.
“Shit!” Michael said, swinging the door all the way open and storming into the hall. As Michael lifted his rifle, dark arms and claws appeared in the gun’s light moving swiftly, ripping, tearing, and shredding, blood splashing the wall behind him as Michael’s cries faded into a gurgle. Michael’s gun fell as the doorway faded to black, even as the sound of chaos travelled into the stairwell.
Brent’s heart froze in his chest as he brought his gun and light up, illuminating the carnage. The alien deftly turned its slick, black head and opened its maw, shrieking and clicking.
For a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, Brent froze, unable to move.
The alien dropped Michael’s corpse to the ground, then turned, its body moving impossibly fluidly, raising its claws as it descended on Brent. His finger found the trigger and he squeezed off a burst of gunfire that sent the alien sprawling back against the wall.
The clip went silent but the chaos continued – more gunshots, screams, and alien shrieks. Worse, the unmistakable sound of more aliens approaching.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He struggled to pull the empty clip from the rifle and replace it with one of three more he had. The new magazine clicked into place just in time as another alien pushed through the door, held open by Michael’s corpse-turned-doorstop.
Brent screamed as he fired into the alien, tearing its head to ribbons. Brent finished loading another clip as he reached Michael and ducked down to grab full clips from the man’s belt, all the while trying to avoid looking at what was left of his body. Smoke poured through the hall just ahead of him; one of the men must’ve accidentally thrown a smoke grenade.
More screams and flashing lights echoed off the walls through smoke as Brent stepped into the hall, coughing as he aimed his rifle into the cloud of darkness, trying to make sense of the movement. It was impossible to grasp the scene; there was simply too much smoke, too many bodies moving, and too many gun lights dancing all over the place. Brent sank into the corner of the hallway, fear an electric current surging through his entire body, as he lifted his gun and held it shakily in front of him, waiting for anything to move toward him and hoping not to accidentally shoot another human.
Bodies continued to hit the ground until the gunshots finally fell silent.
Lights littered the ground, at least five of them, as the smoke began to dissipate.
Is everyone dead?
Brent’s heart pounded in his chest as he strained to hear anything other than the ringing in his ears from the gunfire. His light shook up and down as his hand refused to stay steady, casting a shaky beam through the smoke.
Something moved ahead. He blinked his eyes and held the gun tighter, only to have it shake more dramatically, afraid to speak or even breathe.
“Identify yourself,” a man’s voice said as a shadow moved through the smoke, light aimed waist-high, scanning the hallway.
“Brent Foster,” he said, his voice shaky as his hands.
“Anyone else?” the man said, stepping through and into view. It was Capt. Keenan, brow sweaty with a streak of blood across his left cheek, likely someone else’s.
“Anyone else alive?” Keenan repeated.
Nobody answered.
“Jesus Christ,” Keenan sighed.
Both radios crackled to life. “Beta Team, do you read?”
“Beta One,” Keenan said, “We have massive casualties. Send someone from Delta Team in to help. Beta One out.”
“How many casualties? Do we need the medic? Alpha One out.”
“Almost everyone,” Keenan said. “No medics are necessary. Beta One out.”
As the smoke cleared, Keenan flashed his light across the hall to reveal the fallen comrades and alien corpses littering the narrow passage; blood, both red and black, smeared the walls, floors, and ceilings. There were at least six of the creatures from what Brent could see.
“Looks like a nest,” Brent stammered.
“Or an ambush,” Keenan countered as he located the Guardsman he was looking for and retrieved the black backpack from his body. “Come on; help me get these elevator doors open so we can see what the hell was worth killing all our men for.”
Keenan dug inside the bag, brought out a pry bar, and slid it between the elevator doors at the center. Ed held his rifle in one hand and turned back to Brent, “I’m gonna stick this in and pull, which will trigger the pneumatic release and open the doors, either partially or all the way. But we won’t be able to close them again. So, be ready to fire, but only if they come at us. We want to take these things alive if we can. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Brent said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Keenan applied all his force to the pry bar, opening the doors about 60 percent. Keenan trained his light inside on the two infected bodies, face down in the darkness, seemingly asleep. Hopefully, asleep.
Brent thought of Joe and how dangerous he’d become once infected. How inhuman. Though he was sad Luis was dead, he was glad he didn’t have to watch his friend devolve into a zombie-like creature.
“Friendly coming through,” a man announced from the stairwell as he and a second Guardsman from the second chopper entered the hallway. “Jesus Christ,” one of them uttered when he saw the bloodbath. Keenan pushed the doors the rest of the way open. Once the elevator doors were fully open, he instructed the two men to go inside and pull the bodies out.
Brent stepped back, gun ready, light shining into the elevator as his eyes kept watch for more aliens from either direction.
The Guardsmen pulled the first body out. Keenan dropped to the ground, quickly handcuffing the infected. He then tied a hobble restraint strap around the feet and connected it to the handcuffs, locking the infected’s limbs behind them.
Keenan turned the body over to reveal the face. Instantly, Brent felt
as if someone had punched him in the chest, knocking all the breath from his body.
No . . . it can’t be.
He inched closer. The face was scarred, slightly dark, but there was no doubt it was her.
Gina!
He looked into the elevator and saw the smaller body, face down, wearing dirty, blue pajamas.
“Ben!” he cried out and ran inside the elevator, pushing past the Guardsmen.
Brent turned the boy over to expose the blue Stanley Train shirt covered in dirt, grime, and blood, then picked his son up and cradled him in his arms.
“Put him down!” one of the Guardsmen commanded, putting a hand on Brent’s shoulder.
Brent turned. “This is my family!” he said.
Keenan held up a hand to tell the guard to stand down then turned to Brent.
“You can’t kill them,” Brent begged Keenan, tears streaming his cheeks as he stared at his son’s face, scarred, a cruel mask of the child he once was. His eyes were closed, eyelids darkened. Nearly black. God only knew what his eyes looked like beneath the lids.
“Please,” Brent begged. He looked up and found Keenan’s eyes. “Please,” he repeated. “We can’t bring them back to Black Island.”
TO BE CONTINUED ...
::Episode 8::
(Second Episode Of Season Two)
“THE VANISHED”
Prologue
Oct. 15
Kingsland, Alabama
2 a.m.
The Prophet had been waiting decades for this night.
The Dream would become reality, and a new world would be ushered unto the righteous. A world created by Him, free of the secular, the wretched, the sinful, and all the creeping evil that had slithered through the soul of this great nation and sunk its fangs of depravity into the good and the pure.
