I grab my battlepack, shoulder my M-10 and the M-4, and grab Dad and with a deep lunge and burst of energy that I didn’t know was there, I get him out of the foxhole.
Balatnic races over, sees what’s going on, and without a word, puts her arm under Dad’s shoulder. We drag him up to the CP and at the edge of the trenchline, two medics grab him and bring him into the CP, and the overworked and swearing Dr. Pulaski.
I collapse into the freshly dug trench, exhausted and weeping.
Thor joins me, his legs and head across my lap, and this time, I rub his head and ears, and I lean back against the dirt and start crying, and everyone on either side just leaves me alone.
* * *
Balatnic comes across to me, with a cup of hot water that is barely tinged with the taste of coffee, and I take a heavy sip and she says, “I checked on your dad.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s alive. Unconscious but alive.”
I pass the cup over to her. “Finish it off, okay?”
“Sure, Sergeant,” she says.
I slowly get up, tell Thor to stay put, and then I get out of the trench and head into the CP.
* * *
Inside Hesketh and Wallace are looking over the map, setting up positions. Buddy is sitting, face impassive, quietly aware, taking everything in. I think again of anyway to bring out Buddy to help us, and I see my dad’s form and push that thought away. Dad is on a portable bed, while Dr. Pulaski works on him. His BDU trousers have been cut away and there’s an IV running into an arm, and he’s unconscious. Pulaski is spreading a salve over his cauterized stump and Serena is at the other end of the bed, wiping Dad’s forehead with a wet cloth.
“How is he?” I ask.
Dr. Pulaski ignores me and Serena says, “Still alive. The IV is putting in fluids and antishock medicine, as well as a sedative.”
“Okay.”
Serena says, “I’m so sorry, Randy. But still…his heartbeat is strong, his blood pressure’s coming back up.”
Of course, I think. Dad was about to tell me all, about Mom and Melissa, and what really happened, and Pulaski glances back and says, “Knox?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Just remember what I said,” she says. “When it gets to a point, send that dog away. Save him.”
“I’ll think about it, but—”
“Soon,” she says, turning back to my dad. “It’s gonna be soon.”
Wallace speaks up without lifting her head. “Stick to your job, Doc. Please. Stick to your job. Knox, I know you’re worried about your dad but he’s getting the best treatment possible, and I need you out with your platoon.”
“Yes, Captain,” I say, and I duck out of the CP and I’m ashamed to say, I’d rather be back with my platoon than inside, with the smell of burnt flesh, burnt hair, sweat, fear, and the scent of an approaching defeat.
The air outside isn’t much better. Sweat, smoke, piss, and the ever-present stench of cinnamon. I move up the trench line, checking in on my folks, until I run into Second Platoon, and then I reverse course, head back to Third Platoon. A Sergeant Miller looks to be running the show, and I ask, “Where’s Lieutenant Jackson?”
Miller, older guy in his thirties, says, “Scorched. You need something?”
“No.”
“Then leave me the hell alone, okay? Got a shitload of work to do.”
I just nod and work my way back to my platoon, check on their weapons, see I’m down to one cartridge for my M-10, and that nobody else has more than two. For those carrying the M-4, the news isn’t much better, the most being three spare magazines in reserve.
I walk back along the line, and Balatnic says, “Sergeant? We getting any help?”
“Captain’s working on it, Specialist, you know it,” I say.
She bites her lower lip, looks back down the slope. I don’t think she believes me, and I don’t blame her. There’s movement in the woods, and the click-click sound gets louder and louder. I stand next to Thor and think of what Pulaski had said. Get ready to say that word, the word that would send Thor back to New Hampshire and save him.
Asgard, I think. Asgard.
Say that one word aloud and Thor would go home, and I’d save him.
I rub his head.
Should I?
Thor rubs his head against my hand. What should I do?
He’s been with me for a long time, in too many battles and skirmishes, always at my side, always there.
Is it right for him to be here when we get overrun?
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Hesketh comes out of the CP, joined by Wallace. She looks down at the wood line with binoculars, scans from side to side. She looks so tired I can imagine her just sliding to the ground and collapsing.
A kindergarten teacher.
She says something to Hesketh and he nods, yells out, “Platoon leaders, up here!”
I climb out of the trench, and I’m joined by Lieutenant Morneau and Sergeant Miller, and we go up to the doorway of the CP. Wallace says to me, “Your dad’s doing as well as can be expected. The rest of us…Well, who knows.”
She asks us questions about where we stand, and yes, the Second and Third Platoons are as depleted as the First, and she takes that all in and looks up at the sky.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Louder and louder. I don’t think I’ve ever heard them so loud.
Wallace says, “Looks like they’re massing for another attack, First Sergeant.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Damn.”
She looks through her binoculars again. “Also looks like they’re gathering to come up right this slope, no fooling around, no flanking moves, just straight on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Wallace lowers her binoculars and I can make out trees whipping back and forth, as a lot of Creepers are on the move in the woods. Damn. I’m cold now, thinking that yeah, the thought of running away when we’re overrun is a nice thought, but there are so many damn Creepers down there, I probably wouldn’t last more than five minutes.
Asgard, I think to myself. Asgard.
She says, “You know what Wellington once said?”
By now I think we platoon leaders and even the first sergeant are getting more and more terrified with each passing minute, and none of us say anything, until I cough and say, “Boy, this Waterloo place sucks?”
Some laughter, which is good, because it breaks up the mood, and with a smile on her face, Wallace says, “No. He said, ‘They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way.’ No worries, guys and gals. That’s what we’re going to do.”
I swallow and there’s nothing there. No spit, no saliva. My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth. Lots and lots of Creepers down there. How the hell are we going to defeat them with such low ammo? Maybe two or so volleys from our M-10s, and then that’s it.
That’s it.
“First Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get Specialist MacRae, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He leaps down into the trench, calls out, “MacRae! MacRae! Front and center!”
Motion and bodies moving around, and then MacRae comes back with Hesketh, carrying a black canvas bag in one hand. He’s plump, red-faced, with a scraggly red moustache and beard.
“Ma’am?” he says, in a young and squeaky voice.
“Corporal, so glad of you to join us,” she says. “You hear those bugs down there?”
He nods in their direction. “Hard not to.”
“You think its music, or some sort of talking?”
“Hard to tell. Lots of theories, you know. Communication, something going on with their limbs, a warning or a joyful noise. But it sure is loud.”
“Distracting, too,” Wallace says.
“You know it, ma’am,” he says.
“Think
a dedicated piper could drown them out?”
MacRae puts the bag down, zips it open. “Let’s give it a shot, Captain.”
“Good. Give us Cock o’ the North, if you please.”
I watch, fascinated, even being in the middle of a war zone, for I’ve never seen a piper at work before. A bundle of thick sticks connected to a brown leather bag emerges from the carrying case, and MacRae quickly and expertly slides the bag under his right arm. Three long black sticks fall against his left shoulder, and he places a thin pipe into his mouth, starts inflating the bag with deep puffs. Below the bag is a holed pipe that he manipulates with his two hands.
There’s an ear-splitting screech, and then the sticks on his shoulder—one long and two shorter—emit a steady drone, and then MacRae kicks into a loud tune that I swear to God sweeps across our battered hilltop and travels down the slope to the woods where the Creepers have gathered. The tune goes on and on, damn near making my hair stand on its end and my arms and neck tingle, and now I know why the Scots have marched into wars—all the way through history and up to today’s Creepers—with bagpipes leading them on.
MacRae keeps time by gently pumping his right leg up and down, and Wallace wipes at her eyes, nods to me and Lieutenant Morneau and Sergeant Miller, and we go back to the trench and our respective platoons, and the piping grows and grows, wailing and sighing and most of all fighting, and the music stirs our blood and I see nothing but firm and determined faces to the left and right of me, my soldiers, my platoon, my boys and girls and men and women, we Americans and humans, and we steady on as the Creepers come up at us on the line, the loud and stirring sound of the bagpipes behind us thankfully drowning out that damn clicking sound.
* * *
They move quickly, and just as quickly, a barrage of M-10 rounds fly out and take down a good portion, and the rest keep on approaching. I keep mine in reserve, the cartridge spun out to ten meters, because I want to make mine count and I want to kill one more, right in front of me, one for Dad and Tanner and De Los Santos, and Mom and my sister Melissa, and hell, even for Major Coulson, the father of Buddy and Serena.
Thor is whining and barking, and even after I say, “Thor, settle!” he won’t listen to me this time, and he paces in a circle, still needlessly warning all of us about the approaching danger.
Up near the CP I hear a boom/whoosh sound, and mortar rounds fly out, landing in the tree branches in the wood line, causing large limbs and trunks to shatter and fall, upsetting and trapping some of the Creepers, and then there’s a heavier BOOM/WHOOSH sound, and it’s the Company’s closely kept antitank missiles, being fired in one more last desperate attempt. Two of the missiles strike home, causing two of the advancing Creepers to fly up, like some large hand of God or invisible Big Child has flipped them over like beetles, their articulated legs frantically moving and getting no traction. The Creepers are now down to four, and their weaponized arms are firing out quick flashes of lasers, and long tongues of fire, and a couple of soldiers down the line, in the Second Platoon, are scorched and they run out of their trenches, engulfed in flames, running up the hill, like mechanized dolls caught on fire, and they run and run until they stumble and burn and die.
Three Creepers now. The M-4 fire is rattling off, and the near Creeper is close enough to me for a good firing solution, and it starts to approach the painted stake marking ten meters. I fire and I kill the buggy bastard.
That’s it.
I’m out of M-10 rounds.
I drop my M-10, pick up the M-4 that was Tanner’s, that briefly belonged to Dad, and that’s now mine, and I aim and fire carefully at the exoskeletons of the two remaining Creepers. I can hardly feel the gentle recoil of the M-4, as I ration my shots, firing two or three round bursts. I aim as best I can but it’s hard work, with the dust and smoke rising up, making my swollen eyes water.
Two are marching right up to the center of the trench line, and in my mind’s eye, I can see what’s going to happen next: the Creepers will overrun the trench line and one will pivot left, and the other will pivot right, and in less than a minute, K Company, “Kara’s Killers,” will be a smoldering mess of flesh, boots, and scraps of uniform.
MacRae is still there, outside of the CP, piping away. Hesketh and Wallace are by him, near piles of dirt and sandbags, both now with pistols in their hands, carefully shooting with both hands.
The piping is loud, and so are the yells and screams and cries of “Medic! Medic!”
Another BLAM! of an M-10 being fired, and the near Creeper is engulfed in the gas cloud and it dies spectacularly, so close that when it collapses and rolls, it nearly tangles up the last advancing Creeper, and Wallace stops shooting and puts her hands together by her mouth and yells, “K Company, hold the line! Hold the line! Hose that bitch! Hose that bitch!”
And hose her we do, firing and firing our M-4s, bullets racing in, bouncing off, ricocheting, and I glance down at Thor, and I think of the word, Asgard, and in a few seconds, I know I will, for when that Creeper reaches the trench, it’s over.
And I won’t let my boy die next to me.
I look up.
The Creeper is almost upon us, ugly as sin, the dark blue-gray exoskeleton marked up and dented, which means it’s a vet of the war, and there’s probably one smart and wiley buggy bastard inside. The weaponized arms fire one more time and the roof of the CP bursts into flames, and now it’s coming to the trench, I could practically throw a stone at it, and—
“Thor!”
My boy sits at attention and I start to form the words, and I stop.
The Creeper has halted.
It’s not moving.
The firing is continuing, until the first sergeant screams out, “Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire!”
I lower my M-4, my hands shaking.
MacRae pipes one more flourish and then stops.
Smoke and dust and everything else kicked up drifts by.
A bloody miracle it is, for it seems like a golden BB, a magic bullet, some spectral round from one of us has penetrated between the armor plating in this Creeper’s exoskeleton, and has killed it.
The Creeper exoskeleton slowly collapses, its legs losing power, and the front end of the arthropod collapses across the trench.
I scratch Thor’s head.
“Not today, bud, not today,” I whisper, and then something from one of my military history classes comes back to me, and I remember another Wellington quote, from right after the battle of Waterloo: It has been a damned nice thing—the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life…
I can’t say anything better than that.
* * *
We platoon leaders straggle up back to the CP—where the fire on the roof has been extinguished—and an exhausted Wallace says, “First Sergeant…smoke rounds and flares, if you please,” and that simple phrase nearly makes me halt in my tracks though damn it, it does make sense. We have exhausted our M-10 rounds and what was left of our mortars and antitank weapons, and we can’t stay up here anymore. The concentrated and close-up M-4 fire of this depleted Company was lucky enough to kill one Creeper. We won’t have that luck again, especially if the Creepers form up for another mass attack. Hell, one Creeper coming at us from the north and another from the south would be enough to do the job.
Which means a dispersion is our only option, with the Company melting away, each soldier going on his or own path, with those damn Creepers on the run, and clouds of smoke to help us just a bit in camouflage as we make our escape, the flares sending out heat to mess up whatever thermal sensors the Creepers might have.
Damn it.
There have been whispered stories from the first bloody and desperate years of the war, when the regular Army, Reserve units and the National Guard bravely mobilized and deployed to fight the Domes and Creepers and were simply massacred. When they broke and some ran and others dispersed, Creepers would chase them down, almost as sport, killing and burning them, chasing them like they were Englishmen on horse
s, running down foxes. It makes me want to throw up to think we’re getting ready to face that.
“Captain,” I say.
“Knox.”
“Ma’am, I still say the Creepers are here after me.” I can’t believe what I’m thinking so I blurt it right out. “I think if I surrender, the Creepers will leave the rest of the Company alone.”
“No,” she says, violently shaking her head. “You’re part of Company K, and I won’t allow anyone here to voluntarily give themselves up.”
I hate to admit it, but my bravery evaporated when I said what I said, and I’m relieved—though still scared out of my wits—to hear her turn down my offer. She says, “Pulaski?”
The exhausted doc is sitting on a chair, looking down at Dad, and she turns and Wallace says, “How many of the wounded can travel?”
“About half.”
“Get them ready, if you can.”
She says, “All right, but I stay with the non-mobile wounded.”
“No,” Wallace says.
“Captain, I—”
“Out of the question,” she says, voice quivering. “The Army needs your skills. You help get the mobile wounded together but when the time comes, you get.”
I say, “Doctor, my dad, can he move?”
“No,” she says. “He’d die within minutes.”
“Captain,” I say, trying to choke out the words, “I—”
“Damn it,” she yells, “We all follow orders, got it? You platoon leaders, sixty seconds after the smoke rounds are fired off, you get your people moving. No more than two in a group. Make sure all M-10s are picked up and taken with us. Try to head on foot back to—”
A private whose uniform and face are blackened with dirt and soot bursts into the room and shouts, “Cap’n Wallace, Cap’n Wallace, I saw it! I saw a blue flare! Just like you said!”
Wallace leaps up from her stool, pushes by us and goes outside, and we all follow, and the excited soldier points to the west, and I see something dribbling down from the darkening sky, and maybe it’s a flare, maybe it’s blue, or maybe it’s just space debris. Just below us the smoke grenades have been lit off, and gray-white smoke is clouding up the churned-up battlefield, and then flares sputter their hot yellow-white flames.
Red Vengeance Page 30