“I’m asking, because even if we can somehow beat these things on land, if they can infest our fresh water supplies we won’t have to wait until the food runs out. And if they can destroy the native ocean life, our long term prospects for survival are nil.”
The vice president shut his mouth.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we just don’t know,” Naomi told her. “Based on testing we did when I was in the Earth Defense Society, the adult harvesters can survive in both fresh and salt water, but like us they require oxygen to breathe. As for the larvae, we’ll have to do tests. At this point we know terribly little about them, other than they eat nearly anything and are cannibalistic.”
“Cannibalistic?” Miller cocked his head.
“Yes, sir. The larvae are just as dangerous to the parents as they are to us. We’ve conclusively proven that.”
“How do we kill them?” That from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We’re preparing a detailed package on that, general, and will be sending it out as soon as this meeting is over. But to summarize, you have to think of the adults and the larvae as two separate enemies that have different vulnerabilities. Both are highly susceptible to any type of open flame, although electric arcs, like from a Taser, don’t seem to harm them. Even something as small as a cigarette lighter will turn them into a torch. Incendiary rounds are also highly effective. High explosive, based on what we saw in Los Angeles, fragments them and creates more larvae.”
The vice president, whose fingers hadn’t been still since the teleconference began, looked aghast. “You mean to tell me that if you chop or blow one of these things up, it just makes more?”
“That is correct, sir.” She frowned. “So far, fire seems to be the only real weakness of the larval form. They simply absorb bullets or other projectiles, and we haven’t had time to run tests on any other ways — poison, for example — to kill them. That will, of course, be one of our top priorities.”
After taking a sip of water, she went on. “Other than fire or incendiary bullets, the adult harvesters can be killed with conventional weapons, but standard infantry rifles and handguns aren’t powerful enough.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nodded. “I saw the footage of the National Guard troops in Los Angeles. We’re already looking at fielding larger caliber weapons with tracer and incendiary ammunition.”
“Their only other real weakness is one that we know of from one of the harvesters at Sutter Buttes before the base was destroyed, and that’s ionizing radiation.”
“What,” the president asked, “as in a nuclear bomb?”
“Yes, sir. Again, we haven’t tested this directly, but the last surviving harvester at the base could have escaped, but didn’t because it feared the radiation effects of the weapon that had been used on the base.”
“We’re back to neutron bombs,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said quietly as he leaned back in his chair. Neutron bombs, also known as enhanced radiation weapons, were a product of the Cold War. Their primary lethal effect was radiation, rather than blast or heat.
“Speaking of nuclear weapons, general,” Naomi said, “you need to put in place new safeguards for the nuclear arsenal, and make sure the other nuclear powers know what to do. What we’re seeing in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the larvae and harvesters swarming in their natural form, isn’t the greatest threat. What we have most to fear is this.” She hit the forward button, and an image came up of a young woman in her twenties who would have been attractive had her face not been twisted into an angry snarl. “This is a photo of the harvester we captured in Kansas City. Everything about her outward appearance, right down to her fingerprints and retinal patterns, and her behavior match the woman the creature killed and chose to mimic. There are likely dozens, perhaps hundreds or even more, of these doppelgängers now loose in our population. They could be anyone, anywhere, and even their closest friends and relatives couldn’t tell the difference.”
“We’re already working on that one, doctor,” the president said. “Assistant Director Richards here has been working hand in hand with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look at our protocols and make sure we didn’t miss anything.” He managed a grin. “I’ve always been a dog person, but when I came down here for this meeting I was greeted by half a dozen cats and a brace of Secret Service people wearing thermal imagers.”
Naomi smiled. She didn’t really care much for Miller, but the man was proving to be more capable and flexible than she initially would have given him credit for. “That’s all I have for now, sir.”
The grin faded from the President’s face. “I owe you an apology, doctor. Well, I owe it to you and Jack Dawson, both.” His face clouded. “I just wish I could tell him, too.”
“Sir?” Naomi could sense it coming, the way some animals knew that an earthquake was about to happen before it struck.
“Naomi, I’m sorry that I waited until the end to bring this up, but was compelled to do so by the extremity of the peril that faces us. I had to have your objective input. I can only beg you to forgive me for that.” He pursed his lips, then said, “I was told just before this meeting by the Director for National Intelligence,” he nodded his head at one of the men sitting at the table, “that a plane was shot down by the Russian Air Force near the Norwegian border. We confirmed that a Russian Army officer, Sergei Mikhailov,” he glanced at the DNI, who nodded, “was aboard, and Assistant Director Richards indicated to me that it would be almost certain that Jack would be with him. I’ve got the State Department working hard to confirm what happened with the Russians, and to bring his body home when it’s recovered. I’m terribly sorry, Naomi. You have my deepest condolences.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, her tongue a numb lump in her mouth. “Thank you.”
Miller looked around the table. “And now I think we all have a great deal of work to do.”
The screen went blank. The teleconference was over.
EPILOGUE
Adrian Kelso fled down the basement corridor, somewhere under the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. Above, in the main concourse area, a battle raged between the hopelessly outmatched airport police and the harvesters that had reached the airport. Kelso had tried to escape, but the roads in and around the airport were clogged with cars, many of them empty now. The only other way out was on foot, and Kelso was too old and out of shape to have made it far, and he knew that anyone fleeing through the army of approaching harvesters would be doomed.
The others in the passenger lounge had tried to persuade him to come with them on their run to safety. He had told them they were insane, had tried to warn them that it was a hopeless endeavor, but they didn’t listen. Watching from the concourse windows, he followed their progress across the parking lot as they joined hundreds, thousands, of others fleeing from the airport’s terminals. He even rooted for them, hoping that someone might be able to be saved from the nightmare that he had created.
His words of encouragement died on his lips as his almost-friends were torn apart by a fresh onslaught of the nightmarish creatures.
“No! No!” Kelso hammered his fists against the glass and his eyes misted with tears as he watched them die.
As he turned away, a huge orange and yellow fireball erupted on the other side of the terminal, and the windows on that side blew in. Kelso fell to the floor as glass shards rained all around him. He was deafened by the blast, and the concourse was filled with smoke that carried the smell of burning jet fuel and plastic.
Staggering to his feet, he made his way to that side of the building and looked out. Two airliners had collided on the taxiway. He guessed that the pilots of one or the other, perhaps both, had decided to ignore the airport closure order and tried to get their planes into the air. Or, worse, they had been piloted by harvesters. They had crashed into one another while trying to reach the main runway.
“It wouldn’t h
ave mattered, you know.” His whisper was intended for the ghosts of the men and women whose bodies were now wreathed in flames, the fire burning so hot that it was melting the aluminum skin of the planes. He looked up as a pair of Air Force fighters thundered overhead. Even had the planes managed to take off, they would not have made it far.
It was then that Kelso heard the screech of harvesters as they entered the building, followed by a volley of shots from the airport police. Some had deserted their posts, but most had stayed. He gave credit to their courage as he himself fled.
With his lungs heaving with every breath, his heart hammering in his chest, Kelso ran as best he could, but there was nowhere to go. Every entrance to the concourse was now the scene of a firefight. He was trapped.
Then he found a nearby door marked “Authorized Personnel Only” that had been left ajar. Without hesitation, he pushed through it into a stairwell that led down into a basement service corridor.
Kelso had no idea where he was, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was finding a place to hide. He passed a set of bathrooms, but kept going, thinking that too obvious.
Then he came to a janitorial closet. Twisting the handle, he found that it was unlocked. He stepped inside and closed the door just as a blood-curdling screech echoed down the corridor from the stairwell he had just taken. He locked the door.
Not daring to turn on the light, Kelso inched his way back, deeper into the closet, using his shaking hands to guide him. He bumped into something, and there was a clatter on the floor. He stopped where he was and did his best to breathe quietly. His hands found what he suspected was a mop handle, and he drew it toward him. It was a pitiful weapon, but it was something to hold. From that, he drew some small comfort.
He waited.
In the corridor beyond came another screech. Then he saw shadows dancing in the light that seeped in under the door. He had no idea if there was only one of the abominations or more out there. He gripped his mop tighter.
A long, tearing-scratching sound came from the door, and Kelso nearly screamed in fright. The handle moved. Then stopped.
With a loud bang, the thing outside wrenched the handle from the door. Kelso bit his lower lip so hard that he drew blood, flooding his mouth with the coppery taste, but he remained silent.
Outside, there was a strange grunting sound. Then the shadows under the door danced again, and he heard the harvester retreat down the corridor.
It was gone.
Kelso stood there, shivering with the release of adrenaline as tears coursed down his face.
He didn’t notice the small shadow that momentarily blocked some of the light from under the door.
It wasn’t until he felt a searing, burning sensation in his left foot that he realized anything was wrong. He reflexively reached for his foot, trying to get whatever it was away from him. His fingers pressed into something soft and cool, like gelatin. Then his fingers, too, began to burn.
With a scream, he pulled his hands away. His entire foot was on fire now, and he’d lost all sensation in his toes.
Blundering toward the door, he tried to open it, but the handle came off in his burning hands, the other side having been ripped away by the harvester. He was trapped.
Brushing his hands along the wall, he found the light switch and flipped it on. The fingers of both hands were covered in what he instantly recognized as larval harvester tissue, with the main body of the horrid thing consuming his foot.
That was the last rational thought Adrian Kelso had before he collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony.
* * *
“I am not leaving!” Vijay Chidambaram struggled, but Kiran pushed him back down onto the gurney. Vijay’s cat was in its crate, sitting on top of his legs. Kiran watched it carefully: it had already warned them of two harvesters among the people swarming around Begumpet Airport in the northern part of Hyderabad. Kiran had initially been ordered to get Vijay out through Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, farther to the south, but the Army couldn’t hold it against the combined onslaught of harvesters and panicked civilians. Kiran, Vijay, and the soldiers guarding them watched with tears in their eyes as Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 and Jaguar strike aircraft bombed the airliners and smaller aircraft that remained intact to keep them out of the hands of the enemy. Huge pillars of fire and smoke rose into the night sky as Kiran ordered his men to turn north.
It had been a long, terror-filled trek back through the city to Begumpet Airport, which was being held by two battalions of the 50th Para Brigade. Kiran’s company of elite Black Cat special operations soldiers had been whittled in half during the fierce fighting of the last few days, and by the time they fought their way through to Begumpet, fewer than a dozen were left. He had been ordered to get Vijay, who was still recovering from his auto accident, out of the city. His commander had made it crystal clear that Kiran was to keep Vijay alive at any cost. As the only Indian who had any real knowledge of the harvesters, Vijay was considered a priceless national asset against the sudden holocaust sweeping through the southern part of the country and, as it happened, much of the rest of the world. His commander confided that he believed the plan was to send Vijay overseas to the United States, where he would rejoin his former comrades from the Earth Defense Society and hopefully find a way to stop these creatures.
And that is what had Vijay so upset: he didn’t want to leave his homeland.
“Yes, you are leaving!” Kiran told his cousin over the angry and terrified shouts of the crowd as the Army truck slowly bulled its way forward. His men stood along the side rails of the cargo bed, their weapons pointing into the river of people through which they passed. None of them wanted to shoot, but they would if they had to. They had done so several times already on this accursed night, and not all the targets struck by their bullets had been human. “Over half my men died tonight, protecting you. What you have in your head, not this,” Kiran brandished his rifle, “is the only thing that can defeat the enemy. If the Government tells you to go to America, you will. If they tell you to go to Hell, if that is the best place to put your knowledge to use, then that is where I will take you and that bloody cat of yours.” He took Vijay’s hand in his and squeezed it tight.
After another hour, they reached the first barricade the paras had set up on Begumpet Airport Road. The commanding officer, a grim-faced captain, passed them through the barbed wire and past the machine gun emplacements. High-output lights on poles and powered by small generators illuminated the crowd, which roared in anger as the barricade was closed.
As the truck rumbled down the empty road toward the airfield, there was a sudden volley of gunfire behind them, and people began to scream.
“Can’t they take anyone else?” Vijay was propped up on his elbows, looking back toward the barricade. “Are we going to leave all these people here?”
“We can’t take the risk. If we let some through, everyone will want through. It would start a stampede.”
Behind them, there was a sudden roar of voices over the gunfire.
“I think we just did.”
In the stark illumination of the lights over the barricade, they saw a wave of people surge forward, hurling themselves into the barbed wire and the bullets fired by the soldiers, who were still screaming at the civilians to stop. Like a living organism, the entire crowd of tens of thousands of people shifted against the defensive line, which suddenly snapped.
In the blink of an eye, the road behind the truck was filled with people chasing after them toward the airport.
“Bloody hell!” Kiran turned and yelled to the driver. “Hurry!”
As the truck accelerated, Kiran left Vijay’s side so he could guide the driver. They passed by the trees of the airport’s park, but instead of heading toward the passenger terminal, the truck took the road that led to the left side of the complex, where they came to another barricade and stopped.
A lieutenant who wore the turban of a Sikh stepped forward. “Captain Chidambaram?”
Kiran leaned over the side of the truck to speak to him. “Yes, I’m Chidambaram. Pass us through, then get the devil out of here! The main perimeter’s collapsed and there’s a mob coming right behind us. Save yourselves if you can!”
“Go on, sir! We’ll try to buy you some time!”
The young man stepped back and gave Kiran a sharp salute. Silently damning the man for a fool, Kiran couldn’t help but admire his courage. He snapped a salute in return as the truck rumbled forward. “Jai hind!”
The truck drove past the terminal complex and onto the tarmac, where a single Air Force Il-76 transport waited, its four jet engines already running. A cordon of paras stood around the plane, weapons at the ready.
Beyond the plane, the perimeter the para battalions had been holding along the northern part of the airport gave way, and thousands of people began pouring over the wall, running across the open fields toward the runway.
Kiran and his senior surviving NCO exchanged a look. “Allah help us all,” the older man said.
The driver brought the truck to a screeching halt near the rear of the plane and the cargo ramp, which was already lowered. Another young officer rushed up to Kiran as he and his men carefully lowered Vijay’s gurney to the tarmac.
“Sir! I’m Lieutenant Kapoor, sir. I’m to place myself and my men under your command.”
With those words, Kiran felt as if the weight of the entire world had fallen on his shoulders. He looked into the lieutenant’s eyes, and saw that the younger man knew what must come.
As if reading his mind, Kapoor said, “I’ll take my men and keep the runway clear, sir, if that’s all right.”
With a heavy heart, Kiran said, “Carry on, lieutenant.”
With a quick nod, Kapoor was off, ordering his men to the north edge of the runway. Like the other soldiers who had been guarding the airport, they would be left behind to suffer the less than gentle ministrations of the terrified mob and the harvesters.
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 40