by J. F. Halpin
“So, not even going to try talking our way out of this?” Summers looked to Nowak.
“We’re strangers, and we killed their own. I don’t like our odds.” Nowak looked at the patrol getting closer. “Besides, Asle’s a smart kid, but I don’t think she’s up to defending us for murder.”
Summers swapped out a magazine and checked his rifle. If they were going to do this, then they were going all in.
“Cortez, I need a show of force!” Nowak called over.
“Oh, not a problem, Sarge.” Cortez hopped down from the front and aimed her weapon at a very large, very old tree near the front gate. Summers heard a thump, followed by an ear-splitting explosion. What remained of the tree was now a trunk surrounded by a few smoldering piles of splinters. A guard that had been within twenty feet of it was on the ground, holding his head.
“Tell them to stand down!” Nowak shouted, pointing his weapon at the archers on the wall. “Anyone draws on us, we will kill them!”
Summers aimed his gun at the wall, watching for movement through his scope.
Asle relayed the message, but one of the guards ignored them and pulled an arrow from his quiver. Summers fired a burst into the man’s leg almost instantly.
“Repeat what I said, Asle!”
The girl screamed her warning. The patrol that was heading their way scattered, grabbing cover where they could find it.
Their wagon rolled slowly past the gate. Summers kept an eye on the archers; none made a move to attack after the first man.
Summers looked down again and found the bag at his side full.
“Stay with me,” Nowak muttered, as he grabbed the bag and hooked Adams up to an IV.
They were a good distance from the gate by now. No one had made a move to follow them, but Summers didn’t expect that to last long.
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Loas had been a guard at the north gate for about three months. It was, all in all, a terrible job. Not only did he have to deal with traders, farmers, and all kinds of country trash causing trouble, but more often than not, he’d had to look the other way while his colleagues took bribes or stole from the smaller merchant bands, the ones the others wouldn’t come to help.
A man screamed above him.
He didn’t dare move. A runner had arrived with orders to stop a wagon coming from the west wall. He’d heard the strange booming noises and assumed that one of the more unscrupulous traders had released a beast of some kind to cover their escape. He was wrong.
“Help me! Someone help me!” the man at his right yelled.
A shard of the tree was lodged into his shoulder. It had gone through his armor, burying itself far enough that the other end was visible around the bent remains of his pauldron. A piece of wood had torn through steel?
Nothing made sense.
He knew that soon the guard captain would be here, and once he arrived, they would be forced to pursue the strangers.
He also knew that if it came to that, it would mean his death.
Loas got to his feet and ran.
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Summers watched for pursuers. He only saw a few guards running to the forest in the east, far out of their way.
The homes outside the city walls were slowly coming to life. People were looking out into the street. A few of the braver, more curious civilians stood in their doorways, trying to figure out just what was happening.
A grunt caught Summers’ attention.
He turned in time to see Adams’ arm twist in an unnatural way. His entire body tensed.
“Adams? Adams, talk to me, man!” Nowak looked at the private as he shuddered, then stopped.
Adams bolted upright.
“Slow down!” Nowak tried to put a hand on his chest, but Adams wrenched away and pounced on the sergeant. Blood gushed from his neck as he attacked with both hands, trying to tear at Nowak’s face.
Summers didn’t understand what was happening. He grabbed Adams, pulling him off Nowak, but the man twisted in his grip, his hand going for Summers’ rifle. Shit.
Automatic fire tore through the bottom of the wagon. Summers grabbed the barrel of the gun and swung it away from his body. A woman screamed, and before he knew it, Adams was rolling on the ground behind the wagon.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Summers muttered.
Adams still had his gun in his hands. He was working the action even as he fell. What in the fuck was happening?
Then he saw Adams’ eyes. They were red, just like his were in the fog, his face animalistic.
Another scream. Adams got to his feet, head swiveling toward the source of the noise: a woman whose husband had been hit in the leg by a stray shot. When had that happened?
There was a boy next to them; he must have been at least thirteen. He was trying to staunch the wound.
Adams raised his gun.
“No!” As Summers shouted, Adams turned on his heel and fired. Summers only just managed to cover behind a crate as he sprayed it down.
“What the fuck?” Cortez yelled.
“Adams, put the gun down!” Nowak called from beside him. His face was covered in small cuts.
“Adams!” Summers tried to call out to the private, but he refocused on the injured man. Summers could smell the blood in the air. “Adams, look at me! Please!”
The father had grabbed the young boy, shielding him with his body. The mother was on the ground, shouting in a pleading tone.
As Adams raised his weapon, Summers fired.
The man that had been known as Patrick Adams died that day at the age of nineteen.
Chapter 12: Hoofin’ It
“It’s in his fucking blood?”
“He was going to kill them! What else should he have done?”
The group was still trying to come to grips with the situation, even as they made their way back to the Humvee. After some time, they’d managed to parse what had happened with Adams.
Summers’ blood was toxic. That was the only conclusion that made sense. Cortez and Nowak had seen what Adams was about to do. And when it had come down to it, there were no good options.
They’d long ago left the city behind them. No guards had followed them on the road back to their Humvee, but time would tell if that would last.
Adams’ body lay in the back of the wagon. They’d covered his head with a blanket.
As they spoke, they each looked at Summers, a mix of emotions on their faces.
Summers ignored them.
“He said he had a family, right?”
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They arrived at the Humvee a few hours later. The group had settled into an uncomfortable silence. Summers didn’t question his decision. He’d only really known Adams for a few weeks, but he’d seemed like a good kid. If he had the choice, he knew that Adams would have approved.
There was no telling how much damage he could have done, how many innocent lives he could have taken. Hell, Adams could have killed them, if he’d gotten lucky.
He knew Adams would have approved because he’d seen what that kind of guilt did to people. He’d seen how many of his friends took their own lives over some stupid mistake they’d made years before. He wondered if this would be the one that he’d look back on, if he got home. Maybe he wouldn’t be so sure of himself by then.
“Shotgun,” Nowak called as he approached the Humvee.
“Yeah, yeah.” Summers ignored the man’s attempt at humor and reached for the first branch covering the Humvee.
“There’s a shotgun!” Nowak repeated.
Something in his voice made Summers stop, and he noticed the trip wire tied to the branch in his hands, the barrel of the shotgun pointing at his head. Slowly, ever so slowly, he put the branch down.
The others stared at him with worried expressions.
“I’m going to sit down for a bit.” Summers moved off. He needed to get his head straight.
“I shouldn’t have let him get lo
ose,” Nowak said before Summers could move off.
“If—” Summers started, but Nowak cut him off.
“If Cortez or Logan had been paying attention to what was happening in the back and helped us—”
“Sarge . . .” Cortez tried to interject.
“If I’d seen this shit coming. And I should have,” Nowak continued. “We all could have done better— should have done better. I didn’t know the kid that well, but if nothing else, we can make sure this shit doesn’t happen again.”
“We can always take the Humvee back and finish the job,” Cortez ventured.
“The guys who tried to rob us are dead, right?” Logan looked at Cortez skeptically. “You really want to take it out on a bunch of farmers and grunts?”
“Just a thought,” Cortez replied.
Part of Summers agreed with the sentiment. The other part knew just as well as she did that it was childish.
He saw Nowak exit the Humvee with a helmet; it was the same one that held the dog tags of the fallen 63rd. Summers moved to Adams’ body and added his tag to the pile.
He took a moment to stare down at Adams’ ruined head. His dead eyes stared directly into Summers’ own.
“So . . . what do we do with the body?”
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Summers woke early the next morning. He’d spent most of the night digging a grave.
He sat up, intent on getting back to work. But as he made his way over, he saw Adams staring back at him. Actually staring, as in the eye was following him.
He froze for a moment before something darted out of Adams’ skull. It was followed quickly by a dozen others like it.
“What in the fresh fuck?” Summers yelled.
His hand came up, just in time to catch one of the insects as it lunged at his face. It fell apart in his grip. That was . . . fast.
The rest of the insects were already far in the distance by the time Nowak and the others found him.
“What the hell were those?” Nowak asked.
“Fucking bugs. Lots of fucking bugs,” Summers managed, tossing the corpse to the ground.
“Skeen,” Asle corrected.
They all looked at her, then looked at the bodies of the insects on the ground.
“This is the shit that makes skin-walkers?” Summers asked.
Asle nodded.
Cortez looked at the scene, at the insects that had recently vacated Adams’ head. “If I go out, just burn me on the spot.”
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They buried Adams without ceremony. A shallow grave in the forest, that was the best any of them could hope for. The presence of skin-walkers likely meant that there was something like the shambling moss creature around. Between that and anyone looking for them after their exit from the city, they felt the need to get on the road sooner rather than later.
And without the need to hide themselves, they had little use for the wagon. The cow, Tank, was set free of his reins. Summers half-expected it to run off on its own, but it just stayed in place.
“Think it’ll find its way back to the city?” Cortez asked.
“Maybe. It knows the road,” Summers answered. As they hopped into the Humvee, he noticed Tank’s head perk up. It fell in behind them, just as it usually did.
“Or maybe not.”
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They took the long route around the city. Tank had followed them the entire way, stopping for a few minutes, only to catch up again as they circumvented the many obstacles in their nonexistent path. They’d avoided roads for a solid three days before they decided to risk heading back to the main highway.
And the first thing they saw were a group of elves in the distance—elves wearing guard uniforms.
“Shit,” Nowak muttered.
The group took one look at their Humvee and legged it in the other direction.
“We can probably run them down,” Summers ventured.
“No, it’s not like they’d know us from the Humvee. More likely, we just scared them.”
“We heading back off the road, then?” Cortez suggested.
“Probably for the best. I don’t want to deal with the locals any more than I have to. Not until we’re at least off the main road.” Nowak ducked back into the Humvee and Summers shifted the wheel.
It was going to be a bumpy ride.
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“I can’t feel my ass,” Logan said, rubbing at his backside.
The trip had not been a pleasant one. Unlike the forest they’d started in, the ground here was uneven, with more rock than actual ground. The already worn shocks of the Humvee weren’t doing much to help, either.
“We won’t have to deal with it long,” Nowak replied. He had a map in front of him, one adorned with something like gold leaf. While it was clearly more professional than the crude map they’d found in the abandoned village, it still left them wanting for things like landmarks. “There’s a small trade route that heads to the coast up ahead. We’re going to have to cross to it eventually. Looks like it’s the only path through the mountains.”
“That far enough from the city?” Summers looked at the map.
“Should be. If it’s not, I doubt they’ll be coming in any force.”
Summers glanced over at Cortez, who was taking two suitcases out of the back of the Humvee. She was smiling. “Sarge, what’s Cortez doing?”
“We used all the claymores, so I told her to get creative.”
“Uh huh. And what’s in those suitcases?”
“C-4.”
“We have C-4?”
“A couple blocks of it. Demolition charges, I think.”
“And you don’t see any problems with this?” Summers watched as Cortez began running a wire toward the mouth of the cave.
“Worked pretty well the first time. Besides, she said she’d hook it up to a detonator, so we don’t have to worry about the cow or a squirrel tripping it by accident.”
“Uh huh.” Summers knew better than to complain at this point. “Mind if I take a walk?”
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Summers wandered around the forest outside. The rain didn’t bother him. If anything, it was kind of a relief to not be able to smell everything around him for once. He still wasn’t used to the sensation, and it only seemed to be getting worse.
As he walked, Summers saw something like a small creature in the distance. It looked like some sort of lizard walking on its hind legs. It quickly scurried off at the sight of him.
“Huh.”
Tank was grazing idly nearby, digging at the ground beneath it, looking for something to chew. The damn thing had been able to keep up with them, despite everything. Still, it wasn’t like he was bothering anyone, so they just let him be. They figured the Humvee would get them to the coast on the gas they had left, but just in case they were wrong, it was nice to have Tank as a backup.
He stayed like that a while, just trying to get his thoughts straight. He’d known coming into this that getting home was going to be a longshot. They weren’t even technically out of Alaska yet, and he wondered how many more of them would die before the end of this.
Then the rustling of leaves and the snap of branches caught his attention. Something was coming their way. Tank must have heard it, too. The cow’s head instantly snapped up—before a set of enormous jaws closed around it.
Summers stifled the scream that was building in his throat. Tank, or what was left of him, let out a yelp before the creature holding it slammed its head into a nearby cliff, crushing the cow’s skull.
Summers ducked behind the trunk of a tree. The creature itself was massive. It stood maybe thirty-five feet tall, with a mouth that seemed to reach far into what should be its neck. It was as if someone had tried to cross an alligator with a t-rex. It raised its head and let Tank’s remains slide back into its throat.
Summers stood absolutely still, hoping he’d be overlooked.
Then he heard one heavy footstep come toward him. Then another.
He didn’t wait for the third. Summers tossed a grenade and ran.
The explosion resounded behind him. Summers had hoped that it would confuse the creature long enough for him to get away. The roar of pain that erupted moments later was probably an indication he’d just pissed it off.
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“What the fuck happened to you?” Nowak looked at Summers, concerned.
The rest of the group stopped what they were doing, the cave silent as Summers fought to catch his breath.
“Fucking. Big. Monster.”
Chapter 13: Pack Tactics
“You lost Tank?” Cortez actually looked a little sad at the news of the cow’s very sudden, very violent death.
“Weren’t you listening? The fucking thing nearly got me. Screw the cow.”
Cortez shot him an annoyed look.
Summers sat on his ass, trying to catch his breath while the others were on high alert. Seeing something that big that close to him was not an experience he looked to repeat. The only reason he could stay calm was his certainty that the monster he’d found would not be able to fit in their small cave.
Nowak had already posted up at the cave’s entrance, looking out into the rainy night.
“You’re absolutely sure it isn’t heading this way?”
“Pretty sure.” Summers gasped between words. “No way it saw me, at least. Don’t think it can sniff us out through the rain, either.”
Nowak took one last look outside, then moved to the Humvee. He flipped through his book, looking at some notes.
“You said it was a lizard? Had a big mouth on it?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Some of the traders warned me about something like that. Forgot the name they had for them.”
“The fucking elves deal with these things? How?” Summers looked at Asle.
She started to mime throwing something.
“Fire. Very effective.”
“Napalm more like, or something close to it. You just burn it and hope it doesn’t catch you up before it dies. Or bleeds out.”
“Sounds fun.” Cortez was watching the entrance, her hand on a trigger Summers was almost certain would atomize anything that came close.