He was vaguely aware of Kiran taking the girl to the jeep, and he hoped that they and Jack would reach safety.
As he watched his death approach, the thought of the girl comforted him. She reminded him so much of Pravalika, his young sister, and the moment of her death as their car slammed into an oncoming car flashed through his mind. To die now was his karma, he realized. And, perhaps, his sacrifice in trying to save this poor village girl would help ease his soul’s rebirth into the next life.
Despite the agony burning in his flesh, a great sense of relief washed over him. He closed his eyes, an image of Pravalika, laughing and smiling, fixed in his mind as the blade stabbed into his abdomen.
* * *
Jack watched as Kiran shoved the unconscious girl into the back of the jeep. That’s when the maize husks decided to explode into flame.
With a gasp of pain, Jack dropped the lighter and ran toward the harvester that now stood over Surya. Vijay’s young cousin screamed as the creature’s organic carving knife sawed into his guts.
The thing snapped its head up and it crouched to spring away from Jack, but didn’t get the chance. Kiran swung the utility axe he had grabbed out of the jeep, lodging the blade into the thing’s malformed chest
Jack threw the wildly burning handful of maize husks at the harvester, then turned and dove to the ground. Remembering that Kiran wouldn’t know what would happen, he screamed, “Get down!”
Behind him, the first burning bits of maize husk touched the creature’s malleable flesh. In the next instant the harvester was burning as if it were coated in rocket fuel. With an unholy shriek, it yanked the blade from Surya and staggered in circles as the fire quickly consumed it, the flames lighting up the area for dozens of meters in every direction.
Jack looked up. Near the huts in the village, he caught sight of several people on the ground, some still, others thrashing around. Two of them raised their arms toward him, screaming in desperation for him to help them. Their voices tore at his heart: there was absolutely nothing he could do to save them.
Over the crackle and screeching of the burning harvester, Jack heard yet more noises coming from the maize around them. Some sounded as if they were receding, perhaps other harvesters running away from the flames.
But some were coming closer.
Getting to his feet, he ran to help Kiran, whose uniform was scorched and smoking. Together, they lifted Surya from the ground before they began a stumbling run for the jeep, carrying Surya between them.
Jack thought they might just make it when Surya screamed and his body was yanked right out of their grip.
Whirling around, Jack and Kiran stared in uncomprehending horror. Surya was being dragged backward across the ground. He was in the grip of an amorphous mass, like a gigantic amoeba whose bruise-colored, mottled surface glistened in the headlights. Part of it, a pseudopod, was attached to Surya’s lower back. As Jack watched, he could see the coloration of the thing change along the boundary where it held its victim, the blue-black-yellow flesh taking on a decidedly crimson color. Blood, Jack realized with sick certainty. He also caught glimpses of something yellow-white through the thing’s translucent flesh, and it took him a moment to realize that he was seeing the bones of Surya’s spine.
Stepping forward, Kiran reached for his brother, but Jack held him back. There were tears in Kiran’s eyes.
“Surya! Surya!”
Surya’s eyes were open, bulging, his gaze fixed on his younger brother. Surya took in a gulp of air and began to scream, but it died in his throat, replaced by a wet gurgle as the thing that held him in its grip ate into his lungs.
“I forgive you,” Kiran whispered as Jack grabbed the back of his uniform and dragged him away toward the Jeep. “I forgive you.”
There was a spark of understanding in Surya’s eyes just before they glazed over as death took him.
Shoving Kiran into the passenger seat, Jack ran to the driver’s side and got in. Starting up the jeep, he threw it in reverse and jammed his foot down on the accelerator. He turned around in his seat so he could see out the small rear window, guiding the jeep in an undulating path away from the village. The road was just barely visible in the glow cast by the reverse lights, not really enough to drive by, but he didn’t care.
He caught a glimpse of something black and angular in the rear lights. There was a wet crunch and a violent bump as the wheels ran over something. Jack winced, but kept the accelerator pressed to the floor. He wasn’t going to stop now for anything. Nor was he about to look back toward the village.
If he did, he might again see the other wet shapes that he had glimpsed oozing out of the maize to join the one that had killed Surya.
* * *
After nearly flipping over when he tried to negotiate a sharp turn in the road, Jack stopped the jeep. He guessed they had gone at least two kilometers from the village, maybe three, and thought they might be safe here for a few minutes, if anywhere could be called safe anymore. He kept his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly as the shakes hit him. His stomach was a sour, twisted ball in his gut.
Beside him, Kiran had been completely silent, his eyes staring straight ahead, as if focused on an invisible point on the windshield. He held his fists clenched tightly in his lap. In the back seat, the girl remained unconscious.
“Kiran.” Jack reached over and touched the younger man’s shoulder.
Flinching away as if Jack had slapped him, Kiran slowly turned his eyes, the whites around the dark irises glowing in the light from the jeep’s instrument panel, to stare at Jack. “Surya.” Kiran licked his lips. “We must go back. I cannot leave him there.”
“He’s gone, Kiran. You can’t help him now. I’m sorry.”
Kiran’s eyes misted over, and his face twisted into a snarl. “What were those things, Jack? What the devil were they?”
“We call them harvesters. We don’t know where they came from originally, but as you saw, they’re not human. But they can perfectly mimic humans. That’s what makes them truly dangerous. They’ve been with us, with humans, for a long time, and infiltrated key industries, the military, and even some governments, including ours. We killed all of them last year, all the living ones we knew about, at least, and stopped their plan to infect humans on a mass scale with a genetic weapon, something that would literally transform us into them.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. “The weapon was delivered through corn, although they were working on other crop delivery systems, too. But we were able to destroy it all. All except for one goddamn bag that someone made off with. We’ve been trying to track it down ever since.” Opening his eyes, he turned to face Kiran. “That’s why Vijay called us, called you, and wanted us to come here. This company, AnGrow, must have gotten some seeds and planted them. The villagers ate the corn, and then…well, you saw what happened to them.”
“It’s impossible.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Tell that to Surya. You saw it. Accept what you saw. I know it’s hard, but those things are real. And we’ve got to stop them from spreading.” He reached in his pocket, ignoring how badly his hand was shaking, and pulled out his cell phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Someone who might be able to help.” Jack punched one of the fast-dial numbers. “And I suggest you do the same. You need to get your unit down here now, before these things get their act together. In a few more hours, you won’t be able to tell them from humans without a thermal imager or exposing them to open flame.” He suddenly thought of Alexander. “Or a cat.”
Kiran looked at him as if he were insane, but then pulled out his own phone.
* * *
Carl Richards had just sat down in his chair after pouring his morning coffee when a jarring, buzzing ring tone sounded from his phone.
Pulling the phone out of his suit jacket pocket, he glanced at the display. It was Jack. He hit the answer button before the second ring sounded.
“Richards. What
have you got, Dawson?”
“We’ve got a brushfire, Carl.” Dawson sounded utterly exhausted. “A bad one.”
A trickle of ice water ran down Richards’ spine. His throat was suddenly dry. “What happened?”
“Vijay was right. AnGrow, which Renee said was one of the Indian companies New Horizons had worked with here in India, must have gotten seeds from The Bag. The fools planted the stuff in an unauthorized test plot near a little village a few klicks from this place, umm…” Richards heard someone in the background say something. “Yeah, Koratikal, east of Hyderabad. The village is near there. I’ll get you the exact coordinates later. The AnGrow guys took some samples away with them and let the villagers have the rest to eat.”
Richards felt as if he had just been pushed out of a plane at ten thousand feet without a parachute. “Casualties?”
“I don’t know for sure. I don’t have any idea how many people were in the village to begin with, how many ate the corn, and how many might have gotten away once the, uh, symptoms became evident.” He paused for a moment. “We have one definite survivor with us, a girl in her early teens. She’s in deep shock, catatonic. Two of Vijay Chidambaram’s cousins went with me to the site. One of them didn’t make it. The other is a captain in the Indian Army’s counterterrorist outfit, their equivalent of Delta Force. He’s on the phone now to his commander to try to get some troops in here to contain the outbreak.”
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m alive. That’s about all I’m sure of. It was bad, Carl. Those poor villagers. And Vijay’s cousin Surya. He was killed by one of the larval forms. But there was more than one of those creeping horrors, Carl.”
“Dawson? Dawson, are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You always were a lousy liar.” Richards’ voice was uncharacteristically soft. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he thought a great deal of Dawson, and couldn’t imagine what he must have seen that night. Richards had never seen one of the larval forms like the one that had killed the test animals in the EDS base before it had been destroyed. The larval stage was only a theory Naomi had come up with. Renee had been the only one to catch a glimpse of the thing, which had later transformed into the adult harvester form that they’d come to know and love. “I’ll wake up the legal attachés at our Embassy in Delhi and get a fire under their butts, and make some calls to the Pentagon. I might not be able to do much, but a few people over there still owe me some favors. So tell your Indian Army buddy…”
“Kiran. Captain Kiran Chidambaram.”
“Tell Kiran that I’ll do whatever I can to help line up military assistance if they decide they want it.” He sighed. “Then I have to try to sell this to the boss and try to get him to push it up to the President. Renee’s told me about the other places where there might have been incidents, and who knows where else these damn things might show up now.”
“Don’t forget the AnGrow guys,” Jack told him. “They took samples of the corn. If we don’t seize it, we could be looking at a second generation in a few months.”
“I will. But Dawson, if these things are as widespread as Renee thinks they might be, that may not matter.” It was hard for Richards to conceive of the potential havoc large groups of harvesters in the world’s most populated countries might be able to wreak. They had to be found and stopped. Fast.
“I know.” Jack sounded uneasy. “Look, Carl, I’ve got to go. We’re only a few klicks from the village and I don’t want to sit here any longer. The larval forms can’t move very fast, but the adults sure can, and it’s so dark out here that we wouldn’t see a freight train coming at us. Give Naomi a call for me, and let her know I’ll call her as soon as we get back to Hyderabad.”
“Okay, kid. Get moving and stay safe.”
“Roger that.”
Richards heard the click as Dawson ended the call.
Blowing out his breath, his mind spinning, Richards tried to catalog all the things that had to be done.
First things first. He pulled out his other phone to give Naomi a quick call. As he dialed her number, he tried to think of how he would convince his director, a man who held Carl in contempt, that a disaster of biblical proportions was unfolding across the globe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“He’s awake.”
Mikhailov heard the words as if they had been spoken from far away, the sound of the person’s voice muffled, indistinct.
His eyes flickered open. Around him was a world of white, filled with fuzzy shapes. Beside him, something beeped.
One of the shapes grew larger. It took him a moment to realize that it was someone’s face, leaning down toward him. “Mikhailov, can you hear me?”
This was a different voice, one he recognized. It was that of his regimental commander.
Parting his lips to speak, Mikhailov noted how dry his mouth felt. “Da, Polkovnik Zaitsev.” He licked his lips, which were like sandpaper to his parched tongue.
“Here. Sip this.” The polkovnik, or colonel, placed a straw between Mikhailov’s lips, and Mikhailov sucked on it greedily. “Not so fast, my young friend.” After a few more sips, Zaitsev took the water away.
Mikhailov looked around, his eyes blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the light. “Rudenko? He is alive?”
“Here, kapitan.”
Mikhailov was rewarded with the sight of his senior noncom, who stood on the opposite side of the bed from Zaitsev. His face was horribly bruised and his bushy eyebrows had been seared off. Both hands were in bandages, but otherwise he seemed none the worse for wear. Rudenko offered a wide smile from his battered face and he threw Mikhailov a salute.
“This is the second time you have saved my life, Rudenko. If you keep this up, we may have to come up with a special award to give you. I’m not sure that any of our military orders quite do you justice.”
For the only time since he had known the burly man, Rudenko was clearly embarrassed. But, as Mikhailov noted with a smile, he also puffed up with pride at such words being spoken about him in front of the regimental commander.
“Rudenko’s action has been duly noted, kapitan,” Zaitsev said with an approving nod to Rudenko. The colonel’s voice lowered slightly, and Mikhailov could sense some of the good will draining out of it. “But now we have some things to discuss that cannot wait. The division commander sent me here — you’re in the military hospital in Stavropol, by the way — to find out what the devil happened at the facility. I have already heard Rudenko’s recounting of it, but want to hear your own.” He frowned. “This is the second time a unit you were leading was virtually wiped out, kapitan. That is not a record we are fond of.”
Mikhailov shifted his gaze from Zaitsev to Rudenko, who now stood stiffly beside him, his eyes carefully fixed on his captain and a blank expression on his face. Mikhailov had seen that look before, just before Rudenko had beaten four soldiers into bloody pulps for hazing new recruits against Mikhailov’s express order. “Were there any other survivors?”
Rudenko shook his head. “No, kapitan.” He glanced at Zaitsev. “None of our people, at least.”
“That’s what you told me earlier, Rudenko,” Zaitsev snapped, “and it still makes no sense.”
Mikhailov turned his attention back to Zaitsev, his heart a leaden weight in his chest. He had hoped that at least some of the men would have escaped the inferno at the facility when the harvester had fired the RPO into the animal husbandry building, but apparently not. If any had survived the blast, the harvester, or harvesters, must have hunted them down and killed them.
But what chilled him and sent his heart monitor racing was the thought that the horrid creatures were loose. Who knew how many of them were now wandering free?
“Sir, did you read my report from the Spitsbergen operation?” Zaitsev had taken over the regiment only six months before, and so hadn’t been directly involved when Mikhailov’s company had been deployed to Spitsbergen a year ago.
“
Yes, the division commander insisted that I read it. I won’t say that I believe it, but I read it. Creatures masquerading as Spetsnaz, and even as a Norwegian soldier? Mikhailov, if I had been in the commander’s shoes, I would have relieved you and sent you to an asylum.” His voice softened slightly. “And yet, the commander believes you. He also felt it would be inappropriate for your report on this operation to be seen by anyone else until he has had a chance to read it, so he sent me here to get the information personally.” He leaned back on the stool on which he sat and took out a small notebook and a pen. He wore a pained look on his face, and Mikhailov could imagine that Zaitsev was less than pleased to be playing errand boy and note-taker for the general. “Any time you’re ready to begin, Mikhailov.”
“May I first ask how long I’ve been out?” He looked back at Rudenko.
“Two days, kapitan. It has been two days.”
Mikhailov felt sick. “Bozhe moi. They could be anywhere by now!” He turned to Zaitsev. “Were any more troops sent in to secure the site?”
“Yes, the 7th Airborne Division sent in a full company from Novorossiysk after you failed to respond to their radio calls, but there was nothing to secure.” He nodded toward Rudenko. “The fire you set in one of the green house buildings burned down everything that wasn’t blown up by the RPOs. And then there’s the destroyed helicopter and its dead crew. The Air Force wants you to answer for that, but they can have whatever is left of your carcass after I finish with you.” He looked at Mikhailov with a speculative expression. “You do realize that you may be brought up on charges for this if you can’t prove the existence of these creatures of yours?”
“They exist, polkovnik.” He shared a quick glance with Rudenko. “Believe me, they exist. The only question now is whether we have a chance of stopping them.”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 12