by A. J. Sikes
— 3 —
Gallegos and Reeve shared a quiet meal, tossing their empty MRE wrappers through a hole in the floor. They’d blown the hole with the last of their demo. She closed her eyes and rocked gently where she sat, remembering that night. It had been a nervous damn twelve hours of waiting for explosions out there in the city. The Air Force was letting something loose, and it was killing the sucker faces. But she’d seen some of them crawling away, like they were unaffected by whatever was falling out of the sky.
I thought for sure they would find us that night. Thought for sure we were over and through.
But they’d lived, and Mahton had been fast with the demo triggers, setting the charges off so the noise would be drowned out by the explosions outside.
That was doubly important with the collaborators only two blocks away. Gallegos was the first to spot the black truck driving slowly through the surrounding neighborhoods. The driver had to be braver than any man she’d ever known or just plain stupid. At least, that’s what she’d thought at the time.
Then Reeve spotted the prisoner swap. He’d called her and Mahton to the roof, and together the three Marines had witnessed the most horrific crime any of them had ever imagined. The black truck carried a fireteam tied up in the bed with hoods over their heads.
The driver stopped the truck in front of the bus depot and waited. A group of the sucker faces came crawling out of the ruins across the street. They were at least a dozen strong, and Gallegos thought it had to be a mistake, that the driver didn’t see the things. It was cloudy that day, and their greasy white flesh was covered in shadows, giving them a natural camouflage against the backdrop of ash and smoke.
How she had prayed the driver just didn’t know what was happening.
But whoever was in the truck clearly knew what was going on. They honked the horn twice, long and then short. That’s when the big fucker came out from the shadows and started grunting and barking orders.
It stood easily seven feet tall and it waved its arms as it commanded the smaller ones. The sucker faces all scrambled into the truck bed and hauled the prisoners out one by one, taking them back to the shadows from where they’d emerged.
Reeve had wanted to fire into the group, take everyone out if he had to.
“It’d be mercy, Sergeant. Am I cleared hot?”
Gallegos had wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t let him do it.
“Not now, Reeve. We can’t take them all, not from this range. Not before those fuckers know we’re here and come running for us next.”
Reeve was so mad, white spittle flew from his lips when he spoke.
“Someday. Tell me we’re going to make them pay for what they did here today. Someday and soon. Rah?”
Gallegos had given him what he needed to hear, and she believed it when she said it. Reeve’s eyes had burned with rage as he stood down. Gallegos had wanted nothing more than to clear her team to open fire. She could see it happening in her mind and felt the command rising in her throat.
But she’d swallowed the words. With their minimal strength, she doubted whether they’d be moving on the collaborators anytime soon.
Maybe never unless we get a miracle. Three Marines are equal to a whole lot more than a dozen sucker faces, but we don’t know how many we’re up against. Or how many collaborators are on their side. The monsters don’t shoot back, but the collabs…
Since then, nothing had seemed normal. Every time they were in the same room, she and Reeve and Mahton avoided mentioning the collaborators or the two successive prisoner swaps they’d witnessed. And now she sat on the floor eating dinner out of a plastic bag and pretending like it was the most normal thing in the world.
For us…me, Reeve, and Mahton? This is the new normal.
Gallegos stayed where she was, eyes closed, ass on the cold floor, and dry gristly meat between her back teeth. Her eyes snapped open when Mahton stepped into the room and set his weapon down.
“You’re supposed to be on watch.”
“Reeve’s out there now, Sergeant.”
Gallegos flicked a look to her left. Reeve had left half his meal behind. And the wrappers were still scattered around where he’d been sitting.
“Pinche— Fuck it,” she said and leaned over to scoop up Reeve’s trash and toss it down the hole.
The remains of their flashlights were scattered nearby. She scraped them into the hole, too. She had hoped the red lens lights wouldn’t attract the sucker faces, but she hadn’t counted on their vision being as good as it was.
Any kind of light at all. They’d see it and they’d come running.
Reeve had smashed the flashlights while the flyboys were dropping the chemical bombs. He’d needed to smash something, and she figured why the hell not.
What’s left to care about anymore? Why not just smash it all to pieces? Isn’t that what we’ve done?
“I was gonna rack out, Sergeant. Okay?” Mahton asked.
“Errr,” Gallegos answered. The shorthand was easier now, even though she knew that open communication was the key to keeping them all alive. She worried about what would happen if they started grunting at each other and doing nothing else.
Is one of them gonna snap first, or will it be me?
After two solid days of staring at the same dead city and watching the same horrors play out on the street below, Gallegos wasn’t sure how much fight she had left. They’d lost the rest of their company in Operation Reaper. They’d lost most of their platoon finding this bus depot.
They’d lost Gunny Pacau running from the sucker faces, not five minutes after they got into the depot.
Now it was just her, Reeve, and Mahton.
Three US Marines against a city of the damned.
Gallegos reached for her MRE wrappers. Her hand automatically shifted direction and latched onto her weapon when a shriek ripped through the neighborhood outside. The pop of small-arms fire came next, and Gallegos was on her feet, racing to Reeve’s position and shouting for Mahton as she ran.
***
Jed rushed away from the wrecked cars and into the neighborhood around him, toward the firefight. He was done hiding out and knew that if anyone in New York City still had a weapon, they knew how to survive in this hell that had taken over his world.
Or maybe they’re just damn lucky.
The monsters still split the air with their violent cries and shrieks. He couldn’t see them anywhere, but he shot a look left and right, up and down, as he moved.
Nothing. Where the fuck are they? Where are they hiding?
Jed stumbled up against a storefront and thought about ditching into the building. The thought vanished as quickly as it came when he heard a man shouting.
“Pull back! Menendez, keep ’em down! Sustain—Shit, right flank! Right flank!”
The familiar cadence of a leader’s command, followed by the chatter of a SAW, spurned Jed to action. Another surge of strength pulsed in his veins. Someone who knew how to fight was still alive in this city, and they needed help. Spinning away from the storefront, Jed ran again toward the sounds of battle and soldiers in need.
“I’m coming!” he shouted, hoping someone would hear him. The firefight raged on and it had to be only a block away. Storefronts and bodies blurred in Jed’s vision as he ran. The pops and rattles of automatic fire came louder and more frequently now, mixed in with shotgun blasts. Grunts and shouts of pain followed. Then it suddenly went quiet except for an agonized moaning. A final pop of a handgun was the last sign that a firefight had taken place. Jed slowed to a jog and then a careful walk.
The monsters didn’t seem to be around anymore. They’d stopped shrieking at least, and all he’d heard was gunfire since then. Gunfire and shouting. But nothing that told him the pale-skinned horrors were nearby. Their claws always made a sharp scraping on the walls and streets when they moved, and their joints always clicked like a ratchet. He waited, straining his ears inside the CBRN hood, trying to catch any sound that would mean the cr
eatures were in the area.
Jed held his breath and willed his ears to pick up any sound that would tell him if they were near. The city gave him nothing but silence in return for his vigil.
Then he caught a sort of scuffling and scraping on asphalt. He flinched, hearing first another grunt and then a van or truck door being slammed shut. A heavy engine started up. Jed almost ran forward, but something in his gut made him stay put. The crunch of wheels over broken glass told him the vehicle, whatever it was, had to be big.
And it’s leaving.
Jed’s feet slapped the pavement as he poured everything he had into reaching the next corner. The truck engine revved once, rumbled into a steady rhythm, and faded into the neighborhood. Jed’s ticket out of hell was slipping through his fingers. He almost shouted for them to stop, but his gut again told him to chill and he kept his tongue. He pulled up at the next corner, beside the door to a now empty liquor store. Smashed bottles covered the floor inside and the reek of stale booze wafted out of the building; it was so strong it even made it through the breath filter on the CBRN hood. He also caught another smell, one that he couldn’t place. It was like the rotten fruit stench of the monsters, but the hood still blocked most of it.
A groan came from around the corner and Jed stepped out of his hiding place to take in a scene of horror and carnage. But this was nothing like what the monsters had done to the city.
Seven dead soldiers were spread around the street, slumped against cars and buildings. Two were up against the wall of the liquor store. Jed went to them first. They had their battle rattle on, but both had taken head shots. And their weapons were missing. Another fireteam by a car on the sidewalk had taken shotgun blasts from close range. Their weapons were gone, too.
Thinking about how the creatures liked to ambush, Jed ducked down and scanned the rooftops around the street. Emptiness and silence greeted him again. The narrow street was like something from a slasher movie, nothing but shattered windows with smears of blood on the sills, bashed in doors hanging off their hinges, and broken flower pots tumbling down stoops. Something had gone down in this neighborhood, but it wasn’t the monsters that did it.
The groaning came to his ears again and Jed snapped his attention back to the battlefield, scanning the area for wounded. Across the street, behind a smashed-up SUV, two soldiers lay on top of each other in a tangle of limbs. The one on the bottom moved his leg. Without a second thought, Jed sped across the open street to help the wounded man.
The one on top was dead with two bullet holes in his back. He hadn’t been wearing any armor. Jed moved the body off the wounded soldier and found a young man lying on the ground. His face was dark with grime and blood. A dark pool slowly spread under his back and stained his uniform around his left shoulder. Jed quickly put his hands on the bloody jagged hole under the soldier’s left arm.
“Hey man. Hey, I’m Welch. PFC Welch. You’re gonna be okay. What’s your name?”
Jed felt the blood’s warmth as it flowed between his fingers. He pressed harder, but he knew the wound was too severe for him to be any help. The soldier’s time had come, and Jed couldn’t change it.
A weak voice croaked out of the young man’s lips.
“Pivo—Pivowitch—”
He coughed twice and blood frothed around his lips. He didn’t look much older than Jed himself. But the scars of war ran in deep lines around his eyes, like he’d had to squeeze them shut too many times. Jed kept pressure on the wound and did what he could to make it easier for the man whose life he knew he couldn’t save.
“You been in the sandbox, Pivowitch?”
“Yeah. Used to be.”
“What unit you with? I was in the corps.”
“You a jarhead?”
Jed chuckled. “Now ain’t the time to be talking shit, rah?”
The wounded man tried to grin, but it slid off his face as he said, “Hey man, can you—”
A spasm pulled Pivowitch away and Jed had to lean forward to keep his hands pressing on the wound. The blood still flowed and Pivowitch’s face looked almost as white as the monsters’ skin. Jed nearly let go, but he fought the impulse. Pivowitch wasn’t turning. He was dying.
“What do you need, man?” he asked, scooting on his knees to stay close to Pivowitch in case he jerked away again.
“Can you pray—for me? Don’t wanna die without that.”
“Yeah, of course, man,” Jed said, wondering if God would hear a single thing he had to say. It had been years since Jed bothered thinking about prayers much less making them.
“He don’t…” Pivowitch said.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Tucker. Heard them call him Tucker. He don’t…he’s the one…did this—”
Another spasm sent Pivowitch’s head rocking back on his neck, flexing his shoulders. In that position, Jed couldn’t keep his hands tight over the man’s wound, but a second later that didn’t matter. Pivowitch flopped onto his side and went limp against the asphalt.
Jed sat with the dead soldier for a while, just staring at his face and the creases around his eyes and mouth. With a sigh that he felt all the way to his toes, Jed gently closed Pivowitch’s eyes and rolled him onto his back. He set his hands over his heart and said a silent prayer for his soul.
Taking his time, forgetting about the monsters and half-wishing they would show up and take him, too, Jed went to each of the dead soldiers around him and performed the same act of last rites. He set them into a pose of peace and calm, and whispered prayers for their salvation. He may not have been a priest and may not have done much in his life that could be called holy, but for these seven men, Jed felt it was his duty to help them to the next stop on the road.
As he knelt by the seventh body, he noticed the butt of an M4 underneath the car the soldier had been sheltered behind. He did a quick scan of the area, suddenly snapped from his sense of sacred duty. What if the monsters were out there and were just watching him? Or what if whoever had killed these men was still nearby?
He’d thought his courage had abandoned him ever since he washed out of the corps. And the past three weeks hadn’t done much to change his mind. He’d run from the first battle and was ready to keep running until…
For her. For Meg, you gotta be a better man now, Jed Welch. You gotta do what’s right instead of what’s easy. You couldn’t help her, and you couldn’t help these men here, but you know there’s people who need you in this city still. Somebody needs your help.
Jed performed the final prayer before snatching up the M4 from beneath the car. It still had a magazine in it, and from the weight Jed guessed it was about half full. He popped it out and confirmed he had close to ten rounds left. Jed went around to the other bodies, hoping to find more ammunition.
“Y’all don’t need it where you’re going. But I might.”
None of the soldiers had anything on them. Their ammo pouches were empty, except for Pivowitch’s. He still had one magazine. Jed took it, then the man’s weapon sling, and his helmet. He strapped the brain bucket over his CBRN hood, and thought about putting Pivowitch’s tactical vest over the suit.
He looked at the dead soldier’s face again. His unmasked face.
None of the men had any protective gear on. So, whatever had turned the people of New York City into monsters, it wasn’t happening any more.
That stuff the Air Force dropped must have killed the virus.
Jed set his M4 on the ground by Pivowitch’s body, removed his helmet, and slowly lifted his hands to the CBRN hood. He took a deep breath and broke the seal, then removed the hood and let it fall to the ground. Letting his air out, Jed breathed in and nearly heaved up his guts. The city stank of death and ruin, and a sickly-sweet stench of rotten fruit cut through everything. The reek of old hooch drifted from the liquor store, too. Jed took a minute to calm his gut and then, with rapid movements, he stripped out of the suit. He wadded it up and stuffed it under the car near Pivowitch’s body. He looked at the dead man’
s vest again, but couldn’t bring himself to take it off the body.
Strapping on his helmet, and taking up his M4, Jed set out in a crouch going west along 99th Street. He followed the path of the heavy vehicle that had been there earlier. It was easy enough to spot the wide tracks of a dual-wheel truck in the broken glass and rubble. Whoever was in it had a few crimes to answer for, at least seven by Jed’s count, and probably more than that.
At the end of the block, he found three more soldiers who had been shot in the back. They’d probably been part of Pivowitch’s platoon, maybe the first to get taken down by the people with the truck. Jed performed a quicker version of his ceremony for the three men, pausing every few seconds to scan the area with his weapon at the ready. From this point on, he wasn’t taking his finger away from the trigger guard. Not until the weapon was taken from his hands.
And they’ll be cold and dead before that happens.
After finishing up the last of his prayers for the fallen men, Jed did a quick recon of the area. Another M4 was lying on the sidewalk, half under a car that had run over the curb and wrapped around a tree.
Jed wondered whose weapon he’d found. Nobody had been sheltering behind the car, at least nobody that had died there. Then he spotted streaks of blood, where someone had been dragged away. The stains abruptly ended at the sidewalk.
They’re killing soldiers and taking prisoners? What the fuck is this all about?
Jed’s mission changed in his mind then. He would find the people who had been taken, and whoever or whatever was responsible for these soldiers’ deaths, Jed was going to call their asses to account.
***
The dual-wheel tracks led around the next corner. Jed kept to his crouch and moved as quickly as he could. The monsters weren’t around as far as he could tell. Their stink lingered in the air, but he hadn’t seen or heard a sign of their presence. The truck tracks continued onto Lexington Avenue, but disappeared shortly after the intersection. Jed crossed Lexington and paused by the entrance to a bus depot. Two buses were turned on their sides in front of the building. They’d been knocked over as barricades. Their roofs were peppered with bullet holes and one had a hole that looked like a LAW rocket had been fired into it.