by Aaron Hodges
She tried to run again, but the other two were on her now. A hand caught Liz’s hair and pulled her backwards. Screaming, she twisted and swung at her assailant. Her fist went wide as the man leaned back, but her second blow caught him square in the throat. He staggered, but his grip didn’t falter, and Liz shrieked as she was dragged down with him.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she yanked back her head and felt a clump of hair tear free. Something wet and sticky trickled down her skull, but she ignored it and tried to regain her feet.
A cry tore from her lips as the last assailant tacked her from behind. The breath rushed from her chest as his weight drove her face first into the ground. Choking, she thrashed beneath him, trying to break free, to gulp in a mouthful of air, but his weight pinned her down. Stars streaked her vision as she gasped, and finally managed to suck in a breath.
“Doctor,” came the man’s voice from right above her head, followed by the crackle of a radio. “We have her.”
“On my way, Commander,” a woman’s tinny voice replied.
Liz’s blood chilled at the voice. This was no drunken attack, no crime of opportunity. They had been waiting for her. Sucking in another half breath, she managed to croak out a pathetic cry for help. Iron fingers dug into the base of her neck and ground her face into the asphalt.
“Quiet,” her captor growled.
Liz stilled, even as her mind went into overdrive, seeking a way out. Her ears twitched as a distant tap-tapping echoed along the street. Her heart soared as she recognized the sound of footsteps. She cried out again, louder now, and received a blow to her head for the effort. Stars swirled in her vision again as the strength fled her limbs.
“Enough of that,” a woman’s voice came from overhead.
For a second, Liz thought someone had heard her calls.
“Yes, Doctor,” her captor replied.
Liz’s hope crumbled to dust as she realized the footsteps belonged to the woman from the radio.
“You’re sure she’s the one?” the woman asked.
“Matches the photograph,” came the reply.
“Excellent.”
The sound of leather scuffing against concrete followed. Cracking open her eyes, Liz saw a sleek black pair of women’s shoes beside her face. Presumably they belonged to the doctor, but Liz could see nothing more of the woman.
“Please,” Liz managed to croak, “you’ve got to help me. You’ve got the wrong girl.”
Neither of her captives deigned to reply. In her heart, Liz knew her words were a lie, that her past had finally caught up with her. She’d thought she’d covered her tracks so well, moving around, shifting from town to town, using a fake name, keeping off the records. On her brightest days, she’d thought they might have finally stopped looking, that they’d given up.
How naive she’d been.
She flinched as something cold pressed against her neck. Gas hissed and she felt a sharp pinch, then the pressure was gone. But now a strange warmth was spreading slowly down her spine, numbing as it went, and she realized they’d injected her with something.
Liz knew it was hopeless, that it was already too late and the drug would soon render her unconscious, but she thrashed all the same. The man holding her swore and his grip on her neck tightened, hurting her. She cursed him, calling them every filthy word she could remember, but it was no use. He had her pinned on her stomach and there was nothing she could do to free herself.
Then suddenly, the iron fingers were gone, the weight on her back vanished. Hope swelled in Liz’s chest, and she struggled to sit up, to scramble to her feet and race down the lane—back to the bar, to the cold, to the countryside, anywhere but these men and the doctor.
Instead, she found her limbs twitching uselessly, her body unresponsive, her mind falling away into a swirling darkness.
Too late, she opened her mouth to scream.
2
Chris let out a long sigh as he settled into the worn-out sofa, then cursed as a broken spring stabbed him in the backside. Wriggling sideways to avoid it, he reached for the remote, only to realize it had been left beside the television. Muttering under his breath, he climbed back to his feet, retrieved the remote, flicked on the television, and finally collapsed back into the sofa. This time he was careful to avoid the broken spring.
He closed his eyes as the blue glow of the television lit the living room. The shriek of commercials followed, but he barely had the energy to be annoyed. He was still at school, but he’d had to take on an afternoon job at the construction site down the road to help his mother make ends meet. Even with the extra income, they were struggling. His only hope was passing the entrance exams for the California State University and winning a scholarship. Otherwise, he would have to beg his supervisor for an apprenticeship.
“Another attack was reported today from the rural town of Julian.” A reporter’s voice broke through the stream of adverts, announcing the start of the six o’clock news.
Chris’s ears perked up and he looked quickly at the television. Images flashed across the screen of an old mining town, its dusty dirt roads and rundown buildings looking unchanged since the 1900’s. A row of horse-drawn carriages lined the street, their owners standing alongside them.
It was a common sight in the rural counties of the Western Allied States. The divide between rural and urban communities had grown in the thirty years since California, Oregon and Washington had declared their independence from the United States. Today, there were few citizens in the countryside able to afford luxuries such as cars and televisions.
“We’re just receiving word that the police have arrived on the scene,” the reporter continued.
On the television, a black van with the letters SWAT painted on the side had just pulled up. The rear doors swung open, and a squad of black-garbed riot police leapt out. They gathered around the van and then strode on past the carriages. Dust swirled around them, but they moved without hesitation, the camera following them at a distance.
The image changed as the police moved around a corner into an empty street. The new camera angle looked down at the police from the rooftop of a nearby building. It followed the SWAT unit as they split into two groups and spread out along the street, rifles at the ready.
Then the camera panned down the street and refocused on the broken window of a grocery store. The camera zoomed, revealing the nightmare inside the store.
Chris swallowed as images straight from a horror film flashed across the television. The remnants of the store lay scattered across the linoleum floor, the contents of broken cans and wine bottles staining the ground red. Pieces of humanity were scattered amongst the wreckage, torn arms and shattered legs lying apart from their motionless owners. Chris’s stomach twisted as he looked into the eyes of the dead and saw the terror of their final moments reflected back at him.
Finally the camera tilted and panned to the sole survivor of the carnage. The man stood amidst the wreckage of the store, blood streaking his face and arms, staining his shirt red. His head was bowed, and the only sign of life was the rhythmic rise and fall of his shoulders. The camera zoomed in on his face, revealing cold grey eyes. They stared at the ground, blank and lifeless.
Struggling to contain the meagre contents of his stomach, Chris looked away.
“The Chead is thought to have awakened at around sixteen hundred hours,” the reporter was saying now, drawing Chris back to the screen. “Special forces have cleared the immediate area and are now preparing to engage with the creature.”
“Two hours.” Chris jumped up as a woman’s voice came from behind him.
He spun on his heel, then relaxed as his mother walked in from the kitchen. “I thought you had a night class!” he gasped.
His mother shook her head, a slight smile touching her face. “We finished early.” She shrugged, then waved at the television. “They’ve been standing around for two hours. Watching that thing. Some of those people were still alive when it all started. They might h
ave been saved. Would have, if they’d been somebody important.”
Chris pulled himself off the couch and embraced his mother. He kissed her cheek and she returned the gesture, before they both turned to watch the SWAT team approach the grocery store. The men in black moved with military precision, jogging down the dirt road, sticking close to the buildings. If the Chead came out of its trance, no one wanted to be caught in the open. While the creatures looked human, they possessed a terrifying speed, and had the strength to tear full-grown men limb from limb.
As the scene inside the grocery store demonstrated.
Absently, Chris clutched his mother’s arm tighter. The Chead were a curse throughout the Western Allied States, or WAS as many called them, a dark shadow left over from the days of the American War. The first whispers of the creatures had started in 2030, not long after the fall of the United States. They had been dismissed then as a rumor, the new country eager to move on from the decade-long conflict. Attacks had been blamed on resistance fighters in rural communities, who had never fully supported the severance from the United States.
In response, the government had imposed curfews in the affected counties, and sent in the military to quell the unrest. But their measures had done nothing to stem the attacks, and eventually, accounts by survivors had filtered through to the media. Claims surfaced that it was not soldiers behind the butchery, but members of the community. The perpetrators were always different, but the story was the same. One day the assailants were ordinary neighbors or colleagues – the next, monsters capable of tearing their loved ones to pieces.
By the time the first creature was captured, rural communities had suffered almost a decade of terror at the hands of the monstrosities. The government and their media agencies had pointed the blame in every direction, from poor rural police-reporting, to secret operations by the Texans to destabilize the Western Allied States.
On the television, the SWAT team had reached the grocery store and were now gathering outside, their rifles trained on the entrance. One lowered his rifle and stepped towards it, the others covering him from behind. Reaching the door, he stretched out an arm to pull it open.
The Chead didn’t make a sound as it tore through the store windows and barreled into the man. A screech came through the old television speakers as the men scattered before the creature’s ferocity. With one hand, the creature grabbed its victim by the throat and hurled him across the street. The thud as he bounced off a concrete wall was audible over the reporter’s microphone.
The sight of their companion’s untimely demise seemed to snap the other members of the squadron into action. The first pops of gunfire followed, but the Chead was already on the move. It tore across the dirt road, bullets raising dust-clouds around it, and smashed into another squad member. A scream echoed up from the street as man and Chead went down, disappearing into a cloud of dust.
Despite the risk of hitting their comrade, the other members of the SWAT team did not stop firing. The chance of survival once a Chead had its hands on you was zero to none, and no one wanted to risk the creature escaping.
Roaring, the Chead reared up from the dust, then spun as a bullet struck it in the shoulder. Blood blossomed from the wound as it staggered back, its grey eyes wide, flickering with surprise. It reached up and touched a finger to the hole left by the bullet, its brow creasing with confusion.
Then the rest of the men opened fire, and the creature fell.
3
Doctor Angela Fallow squinted through the rain-streaked windshield, struggling to catch a glimpse of her subject in the lengthening gloom. A few minutes ago the streetlights had flickered into life, but despite their yellowed glow, shadows still clung to the house across the street. Tall hedges marked the boundary with the neighboring properties, while a white picket fence stood between her car and the old cottage.
Leaning closer to the window, Angela held her breath to keep the glass from fogging, and willed her eyes to pierce the twilight. But beyond the brightly-lit sidewalk, she could see nothing but darkness. Letting out a long sigh, she sat back in her seat. There was no sign of anyone outside the house, no silent shadows slipping closer to the warm light beckoning from the windows.
At least, no sign that could be seen.
Berating her nerves, Angela turned her attention to the touchscreen on her dashboard. She had no wish to see a repeat of the casualties her team had suffered in Sacramento. She cursed as the soft glow of the screen lit the car, before she remembered the tinted windows made it impossible for anyone to see inside.
Angela pursed her lips, studying the charts on the screen one last time. It showed a woman in her early forties. Auburn hair hung around her shoulders and she wore the faintest hint of a smile on her red lips. The smile spread to her cheeks, crinkling the skin around her olive-green eyes.
Margaret Sanders.
Beneath the picture was a description of the woman: height, weight, license number, last known address, school and work history, her current occupation as a college professor, and marital status. The last was listed as widowed with a single child. Her husband had succumbed to cancer almost a decade previously.
Shaking her head, Angela looked again at the woman’s eyes, wondering what could have driven her to this end. She had a house, a son, solid employment as a teacher. Why would she throw it all away when she had so much to lose?
Idly, she wondered whether Mrs. Sanders would have done things differently if given another chance. The smile lines around her eyes were those of a kind soul, and her alleged support of the resistance seemed out of character. It was a shame the government did not give second chances—especially not for traitors of the state.
Now both mother and son would suffer for her actions.
Tapping the screen, Angela pulled up the son’s file. Christopher Sanders, at eighteen, was the reason she had come tonight. The assault team would handle the mother and any of her associates who might be on the property, but Angela had other plans for the son. Like the rest of her subjects, he would need to be taken alive—and unharmed.
His profile described him as five-foot-eleven, with a weight of 150 pounds—not large by any measure. Her only concern was the black belt listed in his credentials, though such accomplishments were rarely relevant when it came to a real fight. Particularly when the target was unarmed, unsuspecting, and outnumbered.
Then again, the girl had given them more trouble than anyone had expected.
Forcing her mind back to the present, Angela tapped the screen again, and a picture of her target popped up. A flicker of discomfort spread through her stomach. His brunette hair showed traces of his mother’s auburn locks, while the hazel eyes must have descended from a dominant bey2 allele in his father’s chromosome. A hint of light-brown facial hair traced the edges of his jaw, covering the last of his teenage acne. Despite his small size, he had the broad, muscular shoulders of an athlete, and there was little sign of fat on his youthful face.
After a long moment, Angela flicked off the console. She hoped this would be her final assignment. For months now, she had overseen the collection of subjects for the new trials, and the task had not gotten any easier with time. The children she’d taken haunted her at night, their accusing stares waiting whenever she closed her eyes. Her only consolation was that without her, these children would have suffered the same fate as their parents. At least the research facility gave them a fighting chance.
And looking into the boy’s eyes, she knew he was a fighter.
Angela closed her eyes, and shoving aside her doubt, she pressed another button on the car’s console.
“Are you in position?” she spoke into the empty car.
“Ready when you are, Fallow,” a man replied.
Nodding to herself, Fallow reached beneath her seat and retrieved a steel briefcase. Unclipping its restraints, she lifted out a jet injector and held it up to the light. The stainless-steel instrument appeared more like a gun than a piece of medical equipment, but it
served its purpose well. Once her team had Chris restrained, it would be a simple matter to use the jet injector to anesthetize the young man for transport.
Removing a vial of etorphine from the case, she screwed it into place and pressed a button on the side. A short hiss confirmed it was pressurized. She eyed the clear liquid, hoping the details in the boy’s file were correct. She had prepared the dosage of etorphine for Chris’s age and weight, but a miscalculation could prove fatal.
“Fallow, still waiting on your signal?” the voice came again.
Fallow bit her lip and closed her eyes. She shivered in the cold of the car.
If not you, then someone else.
She opened her eyes. “Go.”
4
The screen of the old CRT television flickered to black as Chris’s mother switched it off. Her face was pale when she turned towards him, and a shiver ran through her.
“Your grandfather would be ashamed, Chris,” she said, shaking her head. “He went to war against the United States because he believed in this country, because thought we could be the light to the madness that had overcome the old union. He fought to keep us free, not to spend decades haunted by the ghosts of our past.”
Chris shuddered. He’d never met his grandfather, but his mother and grandmother talked of him enough that Chris felt he knew him. When the United States had refused to accept the independence of the Western Allied States, his grandfather had answered the call to defend their young nation. Enlisting with the WAS Marines, he’d marched off to a conflict that had quickly expanded to engulf the whole of North America. Only the aid of Canada and Mexico had given the WAS the strength to survive, and eventually prevail against the aggression of the United States. Unfortunately, Chris’s grandfather had not.
“Things will change soon,” Chris said. “Surely?”
His mother crinkled her nose. “I’ve been saying that for ten years,” she said as she moved towards the kitchen, ruffling Chris’s hair as she passed him, “but things only ever seem to get worse.”