“Standard protocol,” Logan answered, thinking about the incident at the hospital.
He hadn’t wanted to tell Jane about it—he knew she’d just worry—but since it had happened at the hospital she worked at, he figured she’d find out regardless. Better from him than the scared nurses and doctors, right? So he had told her. She had been worried and scared (as was he), but then she’d kissed him and said she was glad he was all right.
The real question was were the guns standard protocol? They were dealing with a big black splotch in the sky, not terrorists or armies. Right?
Logan didn’t know a thing about US Army protocol, but he did know that the sight of those soldiers’ guns gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Almost as bad as the feeling he got whenever he looked at the void.
Almost.
He didn’t finish his coffee that day.
9
Major Hammond’s Plan
It was well past midnight. Clouds hid the moon. Had there not been a million spotlights posted around the perimeter, Doctor Tyler Stapleton would not have been able to see at all. Though he had been here in this small Ohio town of Stone Park for nearly two weeks and had navigated the pathway back to his personal quarters over a thousand times in that period, he still felt like he might get lost among the trees. There were a lot of trees here. He had never seen so many at once, like some giant, single-minded organism.
Tyler Stapleton was a city boy. He had grown up in the Atlanta projects, in a place where drug dealers and gangbangers reigned supreme, a place where you’d get knifed over a couple of bucks, a place where no one got out unless it was in a body bag.
But he had. Somehow, he had.
He was the first in his neighborhood to attend college, the first to graduate college, the first to obtain a master’s degree, first to move his family out of the slums with the six-figure salary the United States government paid him. Tyler Stapleton was the first of a lot of things.
Because of his success, he no longer believed in the impossible. If a skinny, black kid like him could get out of the ghetto, then anything was possible.
The towering black nothingness standing tall behind him had all but reinforced this point.
‘The anomaly’ was what he and those around Diamond Black Base called the thing, a term some of the news outlets had picked up, and how fitting a name. Much better than the voids, diamonds, or shapes. Although, Tyler had to admit that ‘the shapes’ had a nice ring to it.
Today, he and his team had spent thirteen hours basically staring at the thing. They’d run the same tests they always did, scribbled the same results into their notebooks, found the same non-answers. The truth was, though Major Hammond wouldn’t want to hear it, that the thing was indecipherable. Everyone on the team agreed; Tyler just didn’t know how to tell the major that. How did one tell the truth to a man who only believed in his own truth?
He walked up the three steps into his personal quarters, which was nothing more than a glorified trailer straight out of a trailer park. There was a small kitchenette with peeling counters. A fridge about as tall as Tyler’s waist. A bed on the far end with such a thin mattress that he would’ve been more comfortable on the cheap carpet in the living room. There, at least, he had a television. So it wasn’t all bad.
Tyler couldn’t say the same about where he’d grown up. You couldn’t have a television on Saint Street; it was like putting a bullseye on your chest. An old lady lived in the apartment next to him and his family. She got an air conditioner one particularly hot summer, and a week later, Tyler was woken up by gunshots. Some thugs had broken in and killed her for it.
He had been only eight years old, but he remembered the EMTs wheeling her out of the complex. The white sheet covering her. He remembered an ashy hand, gnarled with arthritis, dangling from beneath the sheet. His mother had covered his eyes and brought him back over the threshold of their unit, while he pulled away, asking what was wrong with Mrs. Maddox.
Tyler had liked the old woman very much. It seemed like every day she would bake desserts that made the whole fifth floor smell like vanilla and chocolate chips. No longer would there be that wonderful smell. She was there and then she wasn’t.
His stomach grumbled with the thought of Mrs. Maddox’s homemade cookies, and his heart ached for all the people he’d cared about who had been taken from him.
He took out the key to his quarters, unlocked the door, and walked inside. At the small foyer, he began taking off his shoes and white lab coat, the coat of a scientist—A shit scientist who can’t crack that damn anomaly, he thought bitterly. It was darker in the trailer than it was outside, almost as dark as the anomaly less than a half mile away.
Something caught his eye, a pinprick of red light. It smoldered and grew brighter. Tyler’s heart sank, visions of break-ins and dead bodies covered in white sheets dancing in his head. His first instinct was to run, but his hands betrayed him. Instead, he flipped the light on.
The sickly glow from the weak bulbs illuminated the trailer and the man sitting on the small couch covered in plastic to his left.
Major Hammond was smoking a cigar. The smell brought a pang of nausea to Tyler’s stomach.
Grim-faced and battle-scarred, the major smiled. It was not an inviting expression. Tyler often thought to himself that if a wolf could be encapsulated in human form, Hammond was the prime example. Not a noble wolf, mind you; this wolf did not run with a pack. This was a lone wolf, one who’d been exiled for killing his own blood for a scrap of meat.
That was the way Tyler saw Hammond, but he supposed that was probably unfair. He hardly knew the man.
Then again, the man had broken into his trailer…
“I don’t believe we have a meeting scheduled for tonight, Major,” Tyler said.
The major’s grin grew wider. He said, “I’m not a fan of making appointments with the help. I do things on my own time.”
A jolt of anger ripped through Tyler. His teeth ground together, loud in the stillness of the trailer. Careful, he told himself. Careful.
“And I’m not much into politics,” Hammond continued. “That’s why I joined the army, son.”
Son. Tyler hated being called son. Hammond couldn’t have been more than a dozen years older than him.
Screw the wolf analogy, he thought. This bastard is a hyena.
“To what do I owe the honor of your presence, Major Hammond?”
“Cut the bullshit, son. Now’s certainly not the time for that. Look outside your window if you need a reminder.”
Tyler stood still, his face a mask.
“Go on. Look outside your window,” Hammond urged.
“I don’t need a reminder.”
The major wore a gun on his hip, the holster tucked beneath his swollen belly, black against the green of his fatigues. It could’ve been absentmindedly, maybe not, but the major’s hand drifted down to the butt of his pistol.
“Go on. Take a look. Humor me.”
Tyler found himself staring at the black weapon, that agent of death, and then he found himself turning toward the window. He parted the blinds. Motes of dust drifted off them, and the smell of aged plastic tickled his nostrils.
The anomaly stood tall above the trees, the same way it had for the last three weeks. Its edges were razor-sharp and tinged with a violent red that reminded Tyler of fire. Or blood. Staring at it brought on no immediate emotions; he had long since accepted the fact that some things in this life were unexplainable. The anomalies were one of them.
“The longer I stare at those sons-of-bitches, the more they get under my skin,” Hammond said. He got up, the plastic squeaking beneath him. “Unnatural.”
Tyler grunted. He had no words to say.
“The reason I’m here, doc, is…well, I think you know why I’m here,” Hammond said.
Tyler turned and looked straight into Hammond’s eyes. They were nearly all black, the pupils so dilated they were devoid of color. In those eyes, Tyler saw somethi
ng he didn’t wholly like.
He had never been alone with the major. Anytime they’d talked, it had always been in a formal setting with witnesses. Many witnesses. But now? All alone in the trailer? Tyler didn’t like this at all.
Because what he saw in the major’s eyes was murder.
“You’re here because you need a check-up. Maybe you want me to check out a funny lump you’ve found on your stomach. Well, major, I regret to inform you that I am not that type of doctor. I am a scientist.”
Yeah, sarcasm will really win him over, Tyler, he thought.
Major Hammond grinned again; it, like his eyes, was full of murder. He spun on his heels and headed back to the couch. He made no sound. He was as quiet as a jungle cat stalking its prey.
“I don’t like you, doc. I don’t like you at all. But seeing as how you’re in charge of the brains and I’m in charge of the brawn, I have no choice but to put up with you.”
It was Tyler’s turn to grin.
“For now,” the major added.
A heavy silence pressed upon them, one the major was surely relishing.
“I told you yesterday, Hammond. I can’t, in good conscience, send a man into one of those things. You saw what happens when one of your men get within twenty feet,” Tyler said. “And what happened when we sent the rats within five feet.”
“I did.” Hammond nodded. Even after hours, when there was no one to show off for, the major sat ramrod straight. He looked so out of place on the flowered cushions covered in plastic. “But the time is now, doc. I can’t wait around much longer. North Korea has already sent a team inside one, and they ain’t talking. Rumor is they’ve had positive results, but who knows with them… That leader’s head is so far up his own ass, he’ll say anything to stay relevant.”
“I heard,” Tyler said.
The major took a drag from his cigar. He flicked ash onto the plastic, melting away a hole and singeing part of the couch’s upholstery. “You believe it?”
Tyler shook his head.
“Me either, but the bigwigs back in D.C. do, and if I don’t have something for them soon, it’s my ass, which means it’s your ass. Understood?”
Tyler only stared at him.
“The others are proceeding with manned missions, too. The Los Angeles team is sounding pretty positive, and the boys in Texas don’t have a bunch of scientists to hold them back; they’re ready to go in guns-a-blazing.” He chuckled. “You know how them cowboys are. Maybe they have the right idea, I don’t know. But we’ll find out.”
There it was. Those were the words Tyler would later think of as the final nail in the coffin.
Major Hammond got up, took one last drag of his cigar, and then handed the butt to Tyler. The doctor refused it, so Hammond just dropped it on the floor, where it smoldered on the carpet, giving off a burnt plastic smell.
“0900, doc. Day after tomorrow,” Hammond said as he walked past and bumped Tyler’s left shoulder. Tyler was still a stick, but he certainly didn’t back down from anyone; he had grown up playing backyard tackle football, mostly on concrete, and street-ball at June Park, where one couldn’t call a foul even if they were bleeding. So he stood his ground. This made Hammond grin for the last time. “Don’t be late.”
The major left the trailer. The stench of cigar smoke, burned plastic, and body odor lingered.
Tyler Stapleton did not get much sleep that night, and the sleep he did get was riddled with nightmares. Terrible dreams filled with creatures and things he could never imagine while conscious.
It was the last night he’d sleep without an eye open.
10
Mike Ryan Wakes Up
For the first time in almost four days, Mike became conscious.
His eyes snapped open. They felt like they were bulging from his skull, growing bigger and bigger with each blink, like an overinflated balloon. He had never felt such pain in his life. It seemed to be coming from all over his body, but it radiated the worst from somewhere in his right arm. He had not known pain like this. Not ever.
Once, when he was much younger, Mike had fallen off a skateboard and cracked his ankle so bad he had to get surgery. Hitting the concrete, he heard the bone snap… Felt it, like burning fire, just above his foot. He’d thought that was the pinnacle of pain.
Not any longer.
He laid on a table. Stainless steel, he figured, judging by the frigidness beneath him. Though he couldn’t see clearly, he could feel that much. He smelled disinfectant, too, the sterile smell of a hospital or a doctor’s office.
What was his last memory? He was not sure.
Think. Think. Think.
But thinking brought on more pain in his head, in his whole body.
Mike lifted from the table and looked into bright lights hanging above him. Not an easy task. A spark of remembrance rushed through him.
Cards. We were playing cards, and then…there was an earthquake. An earthquake? No, that’s not right. Ohio hardly ever gets quakes, and when we do, they’re nothin’ to worry about. Was I running? Did I go running and then fall and crack my head or something?
The memory petered out.
He turned and saw more metal tables. Stainless steel.
I’m in the hospital. I have to be. But I’ve never seen a hospital like this. It’s more like a damn morgue. Oh, God, Trudy is probably worrying herself to death right now. I gotta get outta here—gotta call her and let her know I’m okay.
Are you, Mike? Are you really okay?
Time to find out, I guess.
Mike’s muscles strained as he tried sitting up. The pain was almost unbearable, but he fought through it, keeping the image of his wife of thirty years fixed in his mind. It was so clear, he thought he could reach out and touch her.
Something pulled him back, not letting him get up. Wires. An IV. He gave a great tug. Then another. One ripped away from his chest, taking a clump of hair with it. The noise that came from Mike’s mouth wasn’t quite a scream—he didn’t have the energy to scream—but it was close.
A beeping now. A machine was going crazy to his right. Lights flashing a vicious red—
Red, he thought. Why red? What’s important about the color red?
Then it came to him. He remembered a nightmare he’d had. The world had opened up, as if an invisible door in the very fabric of the universe had been ripped off its hinges, right behind the Monolith theater, and he had wandered toward it. No. He’d run toward it. Why? He didn’t know. But he remembered a thought coming into his mind: I have to close that motherfucker! But when he got there, that same violent red light pulsed around the edges of the opening. It made him feel…ill.
Terrible.
Hopeless.
A sudden, paralyzing pain seized his right arm. It nearly knocked him back on the table, but he stayed strong.
Just a nightmare. Don’t think about it, he told himself. Think about Trudy. Think about your wife.
A door opened somewhere behind him. He couldn’t turn his head to look. Words tried to escape his mouth. ‘Turn that damn thing off!’ and ‘Where the hell am I?’ but these words didn’t come.
“Seriously?” a woman said. She sounded young. “I was just about to head to the mess hall.”
Another voice, a man. “Duty calls,” he said. “Up to me, I’d just take him out back and shoot him. Quicker that way.”
Who?
“Less work, too,” the woman agreed.
Now they stood in front of him. Blurry figures. Mike tried rubbing his eyes, but couldn’t. Now he did fall back on the table, and the pain in his arm upon hitting the cold steel made him scream. A true scream. Blood-curdling.
“Is he lucid?” the man asked.
“Fuck if I know,” the woman replied. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?
“Better get the doctor.”
“The major, too. He’ll want to see this. Aside from that gash on his arm, he looks pretty normal to me,” the woman said.
‘Who are you!?’ Mike wanted
to shout. ‘Where am I? Tell me!’
The woman, distinguishable only by the long, yellowish hair Mike was just able to make out through the blurriness, raised an arm, motioning to the other figure on the left side of the table. “Go on. Get the doc.”
“All right, I don’t wanna see this freak show anyway,” the man replied.
Mike blinked heavily, still trying to get his sight back. No luck. If anything, it was getting worse.
So was the pain in his arm. A burning, like someone had cut him open and poured boiling water into the wound. The feeling traveled all the way up his spine, to his brain.
The image of Trudy disappeared now, and the vision from the nightmare replaced her. The doorway. The large doorway that seemed to be buzzing, tinged with a color Mike associated with terrible violence.
Red like murder. Red like blood. Red like anger.
He remembered a guy. A tall guy. Tough as nails but soft-spoken. But what was his name? He didn’t know.
He remembered a sandy-haired woman in a white wedding gown, standing on a beach, the mellow waves lapping behind her, the sun shining bright, a crowd of smiling people.
Though he didn’t know it, this image brought up in his fraying mind was of a young Trudy on the day of their wedding, thirty years ago in Hawaii, when they were both twenty and Mike was on military leave.
What’s her name? What’s that woman’s name? Why is she so important to me?
The image faded.
What’s my name? he thought now, but that was slipping from his mind, too. The pain in his arm felt like flames, like a million bee stings.
“Oh fuck,” the woman said, her voice getting more distant. “Don’t you die on me, motherfucker.”
What’s my name?
Why am I here? Oh god the pain the pain the pain—
The door opened again. This time, though Mike could only see the red-tinged diamond in his mind, the man from before brought the doctor. And though Mike couldn’t see them—his eyesight had officially gone, burned out—they wore hazmat suits.
Ravaged: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 1) Page 4