Coleman threw the lights back on. The beams reflected off the distant beasts’ retinas as they bounded into view.
“Here!” yelled Lopez, pointing to the building on their left. Coleman immediately adjusted course, accelerating towards the door. Major Lopez leapt from the vehicle and ran into the building with Lucy hot on his heels, the two-way doors swinging wildly behind them.
“Come on!” shouted Lopez as he pressed forwards, Lucy looking over her shoulder as she ran. Coleman and Brooks’ sprinting figures flickered in the swinging door, but the pair were blindsided by the pack just yards from the entrance.
“Oh my god!” cried Lucy, turning her head forwards again and chasing after Lopez with all her might.
The doors clattered open as four of the beasts burst into the building, their powerful, four-legged strides closing the gap between them and Lucy.
“Grenade!” shouted Lopez.
Lucy barely reacted in time as the metal ball flew past her face and ricocheted off the floor with a clang, her arms pumping harder than ever as she counted down the seconds they had to run.
The shockwave threw them both off their feet and further down the corridor, the heat singeing Lucy’s hair and face. For a moment, the whole world was blotted out by the ringing in her ears.
Bit by bit the dreadful soundscape returned as she clambered to her feet.
“Move!” shouted Lopez, training his handgun past Lucy’s shoulder, his rifle long gone.
She threw herself to the side as Lopez began to fire. The first beast fell to the ground, but another instantly took its place, prowling into the corridor through the large rupture they’d just blown into the wall. Lucy’s rifle was out of ammo; she grabbed her handgun and fired as two more creatures entered through the breach, the smoke obscuring their positions.
With a snarl the creatures plunged through the smoke and bounded towards them. Lucy fired repeatedly, but it had no effect; the creatures were nimble and their movements erratic, dodging her aim as well as that of Lopez.
Lucy threw down her gun and pulled off her backpack, ripping out the tub of white powder. With a scream, she tore off the lid and threw the contents to the ground, showering the floor in powder.
The advancing beasts broke away suddenly, skidding across the floor and scrambling to halt their momentum as they recoiled from the swirling white powder.
“Quickly!” shouted Lucy, stepping forwards into the spilled powder and scooping it up, pressing it onto her wet cheeks and hands. Lopez copied, staring at the creatures in amazement as they hesitated, snarling, considering their next move.
Just then a guttural, ground-shaking screech rang out, reverberating in every direction, making the skin on Lucy’s bones quiver from her feet to her skull. The assembled beasts fell silent, their ears pricked up and hairs raised as their heads flitted around for the source of the noise. With a growl, the three turned and bolted the way they’d come, disappearing out through the ruptured wall.
“Let’s go!” hissed Lopez, as he began to back further away down the corridor.
Lucy grabbed her handgun from the floor and followed after him. More guttural screeches resonated all around as they weaved through a series of deserted rooms. The whole ground shook beneath them at regular intervals as the unseen behemoth closed in.
“Don’t shoot!” cried a familiar voice from the darkness.
Lopez froze, his gun trained at the doorway to the right – it was Jackson.
“What the hell, how did you get here?” said Lopez in disbelief.
“I ran, Major,” panted Jackson, meeting them halfway.
“You’re alive!” spluttered Lucy, incredulously, her eyes darting to the puncture mark on Jackson’s wrist, which was now covered by her uniform.
Plaster fell from the ceiling as the room shook thunderously once more, the vibrations much stronger now.
“Jackson, do you know what the hell that thing is?” urged Lopez, his squinting eye bulging larger than normal as he spun around in search of the source.
“No, sir!” she replied, as all three ducked down and rushed to the window, staying low and out of sight.
Lucy peered out into the darkness towards the convoy. There were no gunshots illuminating the night anymore. Only the sparse beams from upended trucks provided light, but it was untargeted, giving her only glimpses.
“Oh my lord,” said Jackson, looking out through her night-vision goggles.
“That’s not – that can’t be,” stuttered Lopez, as he pulled them from her and looked himself. He wiped a veil of sweat off his upper lip and passed the goggles to Lucy, who took her turn.
The giant beast was every bit as massive as its shattering footsteps suggested. Lucy took in its composition as best she could through the green goggles’ display. The pack of beasts was attacking the giant creature en masse, and taking heavy punishment. The gigantic creature towered above them, at least six stories tall. Standing on its hind legs, it used its upper two arms to swat away the beasts, while its middle arms trailed outwards either side of it, making sweeping lateral motions high above the ground like it was slowly treading water.
A vast scorpion-like tail arched up and over the creature’s head, protruding outwards, and projecting a mist of sorts that the goggles picked up. A group of beasts seemed to vanish as the spraying scorpion tail was pointed at them, erasing them from sight. As the tail turned away to a new target, the creature’s lower arms swept over the area of the vanished beasts, where a plume of sorts formed between its paws and the ground.
“If we’re gonna go, it has to be now,” breathed Lopez, holding a hand out and gesturing for Lucy to return the goggles.
“Agreed,” said Jackson. “One of our carriers is up ahead, I think it’s truck six. The squad are gone, but the truck might still work.”
“We can’t go the way the convoy went, surely,” cautioned Lucy.
“Safest route is where that huge thing just came from. My bet is, there’s not much left behind it. Ready?” replied Lopez, squaring up to the emergency exit.
“Wait!” cried Lucy, intervening just before Lopez’s foot hit the escape bar. “If we go out in the rain, we lose our protection.” She pointed to the chalky paste on their faces. “Major, we need to eat the powder. I know that sounds insane, but you’ve gotta trust me. It kept Jackson alive, it’ll keep us alive.”
Lopez looked at Jackson, who pulled back her sleeve and showed him the small white dome on her black skin.
“What the – you got bitten?” gawped Lopez.
“If they’d bitten me,” replied Lopez, releasing her sleeve and shaking her arm out, “I wouldn’t have an arm, sir. I got struck by a tentacle. No other way to say it.”
“And the white powder’s stopped her from decaying,” explained Lucy. “It saved her – sir, we have to do this now!”
Warily, Lopez scraped the powder from his cheek and placed it onto his tongue, wincing. He slammed a hand to his mouth as he gagged. Lucy did the same and swallowed hard. It stuck in her throat as Jackson forced open the fire escape and ran out into the downpour.
Lucy and Lopez chased after Jackson’s sprinting figure, struggling to keep pace with her as she sped through the darkness towards the truck, aided by the goggles.
Lucy gasped as the colossus came into view properly for the first time, standing over an upended Humvee whose light illuminated much of the creature’s massive figure.
Its tail swished down and all around, spraying something faintly luminescent which was just about perceptible through the rain. It caused the attacking beasts to howl in agony. The creature picked up a beast and pulled it clean in two, while its lower arms continued to sweep around several yards above the ground – and now Lucy saw why.
Great spirals of Gen Water twisted through the air like liquid tornadoes, leading up into the palms of the mighty beast as it continued to spray from its tail. The chemical onslaught liquefied anything it touched, which the giant harnessed in the same fell swoop. Beasts,
humans, trees, plants, all were reduced with ruthless efficiency.
Out of its back sprouted two giant wings, with an incongruous delicacy to them; the structures gently wafted back and forth as the creature fed. The wings had the spindly, fan-like shape of coral, and the same dazzling myriad of colors, but moved with the flexibility of silk. Both wings ended in fine strands that tapered into invisibility.
“Young!” hissed the major, as Jackson brought the truck’s engine to life.
Lucy leapt into the truck. As they pulled away from the violence, she turned around to take in the great creature once more. It screamed again, but differently this time, as a group of beasts pierced its armor, tearing into the flesh of its calf. Gen Water gushed out from the creature, which suddenly swayed and staggered sideways, off balance, before crashing to the ground. The beasts swarmed across it, pressing their advantage and tearing further into the mighty creature as it screeched in anguish.
The creature’s flailing arms smashed into the upended truck, blacking out the turmoil. From the distant fields a fresh, piercing screech reverberated across the camp. The ground began to shake once again. Jackson hit the accelerator, wheeling the Humvee around on the spot and forcing it away at maximum acceleration. The thundering rain flooded the windscreen as the wipers battled the deluge. Lucy turned back and peered out of the rear window as they fled the scene; darkness had claimed the chaos, but the screeches continued to pierce the night. Facing forwards she swallowed hard, again, forcing the remnants of the white powder down her throat. With the roar of the engine, the three fled into the darkness beyond.
TRIBES
Convulsive Part III
ONE
Freefall
___________________________________
Lucy peered through the night vision goggles and scanned the road. She perceived movement in every shadow, jumped at every waving branch, flinched at the slightest creak. She was exhausted. Freezing. Hungry. Longing for the dawn.
Her disturbed sleep was an uneasy series of nightmarish flashbacks to the hours before; General Whitaker’s Jeep tumbling across the tar of Camp Oscar, his broken neck, the swarms of beasts tearing through the convoy. She wondered if they were the only ones to have made it out alive. Major Lopez had vetoed further discussion of the topic as a distraction – as far as he was concerned, their sole aim was to get to DC alive and regroup with whatever remained of the nation’s armed forces.
Lucy placed the goggles on her lap and blinked at the darkness. Drifting clouds obscured the moonlight, leaving only scant illumination for the fields and trees. Lucy wished snow could cover the windscreen and simply shut out the world outside. The windows were already covered so it would’ve completed their camouflage, but Lopez had been adamant: they needed eyes on the road in case another convey passed by on route to the capital. The snow had stopped, anyway, presumably sometime during Jackson’s shift, meaning they could stop the intermittent wiper blades and save some precious power. Private Jackson had woken Lucy up thirty minutes ago, plucking Lucy from a guilt-ridden nightmare about her estranged mother, and handing her the goggles all too gladly.
Lucy consulted the dashboard. It was 4:31 AM. Dawn was a long way off. She shivered and rubbed her hands together, blowing onto her numb fingertips. Her breath misted inside the freezing truck. The AC was useless with the engine off, and they had to conserve fuel.
She swiveled in the front passenger seat and looked at the other two. Major Lopez’s mouth hung open as he quietly snored. Jackson’s lips, by contrast, were pursed, and a frown lingered across her unconscious face.
Lucy’s eyes hesitated on the empty driver’s seat. She felt a pang of grief. What she’d give to hold her Dan again. To feel his arms around her, his cheek against hers. She played his voice over in her head, imagining him greeting her with the warmth and love they’d shared. Tears filled her eyes. Her hands twitched, remembering the touch of his broken body in the wreckage. It had been so heavy. What were his last words? What would they have been, if she’d been with him at the end? She flinched, swatting her arm, then brushing it furiously as the memory of Dan’s disintegration resurfaced like an electric shock. She remembered the flecks of his liquefied flesh spraying her. Lucy broke down, clutching her hair and stifling her sobs in the confines of the static Humvee, trying not to wake the sleeping soldiers.
She grabbed her backpack and pulled out her notepad. Struggling to grip the pen in her frigid fingers, she scrawled by the slender moonlight.
Why me? Why was I the one to live?
She paused and looked at the page. She couldn’t see the words, let alone the lines. It didn’t matter. All she could see was the train crash.
If I’d been standing anywhere else, I’d be with you now, wherever you are. Maybe oblivion. Anything is better than life without you. I was your Lucy. You were my Dan. And I let you go. I didn’t protect you. My soulmate. I failed you.
She thrust the notepad back into her bag and squeezed her eyes shut, stemming the fresh wave of tears. As far as she knew, Dan’s father was waiting for them in DC. What could she possibly tell him?
***
BANG.
Lucy awoke with a jolt. Lopez was looming over her, livid.
“Sorry, did I startle you?” he said, aggressively.
“What the fuck?” said Jackson, drowsily, from the back.
Lucy froze. The cold tip of Lopez’s pistol was pushing hard up under her chin.
“What’s happening?” said Lucy, blinking him into focus. His head was silhouetted in a white glow.
“Ditto that,” said Jackson.
“Great question. What is happening? We have no idea, because Young here fell asleep on watch,” said Lopez, holstering his pistol and taking the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry,” said Lucy, sitting up, squinting.
Daylight poured through the windscreen and bounced between the snow-clad windows.
“I don’t want to hear ‘sorry’. Sorry’s too late. Sorry’s the sound of us getting killed. Sort your shit out, Young, We’re late for DC, and time is critical,” said Lopez.
“Lay off, Major, she’s just a civvie,” said Jackson.
“The hell she is. She’s in uniform, she’s a soldier now. Time to start acting like one.”
“Right, cos that’s how it works,” said Lucy.
“That’s exactly how it works. We’re at war, Young. In war, civilians die. Soldiers fight. Choose which one you’re gonna be, and choose fast, because we don’t have room for deadweight. I’m gonna check the house. Jackson, the engine’s out. Get it working.”
With that Lopez forced the door open, breaking the seal of icy-snow. He climbed out, letting in a blast of frigid air.
“God damned summer Hummers,” said Jackson climbing into the driver’s seat. She depressed the clutch and toggled the engine switch several times. “Great. Just great. Hope you like pushing, Young,” she said. Jackson stuck the gear into second, left the switch on, and hopped out.
Lucy followed her out onto the powdery fresh snow, which formed a panoramic blanket. Daylight bounced between the clouds and the snow. Adjacent to the Humvee was a darkened bungalow. Lopez smashed the glass of the front door and let himself in.
Lucy copied Jackson in kicking snow away from the front of the truck’s wheels until they’d created a series of gullies. She followed Jackson to the rear of the vehicle.
“Push,” grunted Jackson, as the pair leant into the snow-clad vehicle. The Humvee didn’t budge.
“Come on,” groaned Jackson, straining.
Lucy pushed harder still, relying heavily on the traction of her boots. The truck crunched forwards over the powdery snow.
“That’s it!” croaked Jackson, wincing with the exertion.
The engine spluttered into life and the truck jolted forwards, now moving under its own power. Jackson tried to chase after it but stopped, bent over, wheezing.
“Get it!” she insisted, motioning Lucy to stop the truck.
L
ucy scrambled across the snow, chasing after the trundling vehicle. She hauled herself inside the driver’s seat and shoved the gear into neutral. The truck slowed to a halt and Lucy crunched on the handbrake, then revved the gas several times until she was confident the engine wasn’t going to falter. She left the engine running and jogged back to Jackson, who was still bent over.
“You OK?” Lucy said, catching up.
“It’s nothing,” said Jackson, waving her away. “Just low blood sugar and dehydration.”
“This oughta help,” said Lopez, emerging from the house. He chucked Jackson half a bottle of concentrated orange juice. “Don’t drink it all – that’s gotta last the three of us,” he added.
He had three blankets tucked under his arm, and two large plastic bags – one containing jumbled winter-wear accessories, the other full of empty sports bottles.
“Wrap up,” he said, handing Lucy and Jackson a woolly hat each. While the pair rummaged through the bags for scarves and gloves, Lopez popped the Humvee’s snow-covered hood and placed three aluminum parcels on top of the engine, before resealing it.
Once wrapped up Lucy copied Jackson, who was filling the sports bottles with snow. They filled the lot while Lopez scraped the Humvee’s windows clear. The three of them reconvened inside the truck.
“The road’s bearing south-south-east. Ideally, we’ll find a freeway which can get us to the nearest city,” said Lopez.
“Is that sensible? I thought the convoy was avoiding cities?” said Lucy.
“Look how well that worked out,” said Lopez, taking a swig of orange juice and passing it back to Jackson.
“Was that full when you found it?” said Lucy, eyeing up the juice.
“You saying I took more than my share?” said Lopez.
“It’s just a question,” said Lucy, receiving the carton from Jackson.
“How about next time you go find provisions, then you can answer that question yourself,” retorted Lopez.
“I’mma use the bathroom before we move out,” said Jackson.
Convulsive Box Set Page 31