by John O'Brien
“How far do you think we made it?” Hanson asked Reynolds as they took the first watch.
“I dunno. Ten miles, maybe,” Reynolds answered, peering over the lip of the trench.
“Well, one-sixtieth of the way there. Not bad.”
In the late afternoon, the team decamped, stowing their gear and reattaching the wagons. They headed down the road, nervous about being in the open, but they were almost too hot to feel much of anything. The mountains to the east cast long shadows across the plain as the sun sank lower and the heat slowly dissipated. Night fell, a near sudden event on the desert.
Overhead, stars twinkled so brightly that it almost hurt to look at them. Out in the desert, the blanket of stars was so crystal clear that it presented the three-dimensional depth of the heavens; glitter spilled on a background of velvet. The easily visible Milky Way arced across the sky.
The team halted for a while, eating their meals while the land cooled. When the moon rose, so did they. The light was enough to continue, the eastern ridges lit in varying shades of silver and the ravines cast in a darkness so deep it was like staring into a void. With the nearest village still miles away, there was little chance of running into reapers. After a while, they stopped for the night. Wagons were unhitched again and the camels staked. Claymores were placed in a perimeter and watches were established. Weary after traveling in the heat, they settled under the wagons on sleeping bags and, with the exception of the two on watch, quickly fell asleep.
* * * * * *
At mid-morning, a little while before stopping to wait out the heat, Reynolds saw a vehicle in the distance. His heart stopped for a moment until he realized that it wasn’t moving, and in fact appeared to be parked in the middle of the road. The rising shimmer of heat made it difficult to tell exactly.
“Check it out or go around?” Reynolds asked.
O’Malley looked across the plain toward the hills that had been gradually closing in on both sides.
“Unless we go into the mountains, I don’t really see anywhere we can go without being seen. But, we need to be careful. Any contraption associated with people can hold the possibility of a reaper or three nearby. The last thing we need is to be taken by surprise,” O’Malley said. “Let’s move on, but make a wide sweep until we know for sure what awaits us.”
Reynolds and O’Malley halted. When the others caught up with a racket of noise that sounded like a circus coming to town, O’Malley briefed them on what awaited on the road ahead and had them hold in place. Then, he and Reynolds set out.
As they approached the stalled vehicle, they left the road and headed in a circular route to the east. A couple hundred yards out and adjacent the car, Reynolds saw the darkened silhouette of someone in the driver’s seat. He didn’t see any movement or any sign of the familiar wavering apparition.
The two continued an entire circle around the vehicle, searching the sand for visible tracks or some other indication that someone had arrived or left. Approaching cautiously, weapons readied, the two paused several yards in front of the car. Even though there weren’t any signs of life, they still knew so little about what they were facing. Reynolds envisioned the driver’s eyes popping open and that ghostly thing suddenly popping out of the body. If they were too close, then that would be it.
The vehicle was skewed at an angle to the road, the front tires resting on the side shoulder. Looking through the windshield, he saw the remains of a man with his head slumped back, resting between the headrest and window. Sunken eye sockets stared at the sun visor, the skin shriveled and cheeks pulled inward. To Reynolds, it was obvious that the man had died some time ago.
“I think that whatever could jump out of that dude left a long time ago,” Reynolds commented.
“He certainly looks dead enough, kind of like my ex mother-in-law. Same look anyway,” O’Malley responded.
“I didn’t know you had been married. And, who in the hell would marry you?” Reynolds quipped.
“You’ve been hanging around Hanson too much. And we were all young and stupid once,” O’Malley said.
“Well, at least you grew out of the being young part.”
“You know, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a proctologist these days in order to remove my boot,” O’Malley returned. “And, as an added bonus, you get to go check out the rest of the car.”
Moving to the side of the car, Reynolds tentatively peered in. What he took to be a woman was lying across the front seat, her head in the man’s lap. Another man lay across the back seat, all of them gaunt and shriveled. To Reynolds, it appeared that the vehicle had stalled and lurched to the side, the occupants dying immediately. He was still confused as to how a solar storm could cause these deaths, the mindless ones, and the reapers. He’d never read or heard of anything even remotely close to that kind of possibility. There was something that they were missing, but in all likelihood, no one would ever find out the actual cause.
He signaled an all-clear and O’Malley motioned for the others to move up. They all gazed into the interior of the car, the dead bodies holding the secret of what had happened while the team was in the cave. They decided to move further up the road before stopping to bivouac for the sweltering early afternoon. The car dwindled in the distance until it was lost in the waves of shimmering heat.
Later that day, they came upon another vehicle, this one with a corpse sticking out of the sand fifty yards away. Flies had massed around the eyes and mouth, the buzz of which could be heard from a distance. The team again moved past, the car and body left to the elements. They were possibly the last ones who would ever see the sight, time wearing both down until they become a part of the land.
It became obvious to all of them that any reapers away from water supplies would succumb quickly to the unmerciful heat of the summer desert. That, in part, was a relief. They’d just have to worry about populated areas with readily available wells or streams. In addition to towns and villages, they added open water sources to the list of places to avoid, or at least be very cautious around.
As night fell, they stopped. A moderate-sized town was a few miles up the road and they didn’t want to approach in the dark or be in the vicinity as they rested. They’d made relatively good time in the two days on the road. However, with the heat a continual companion, two days was just the beginning of their month’s journey, and they all knew that each day would wear them down a little more. There hadn’t been any sight of the rebels, and they hadn’t run across any reapers, but that could change as they approached the first town.
* * * * * *
Reynolds crawled across the sand and rocks, the grit sliding inside his shirt. The heat rising from the surface felt like a furnace and each inhalation as if he was breathing fire. It was such a miserable experience that he was pretty sure this was what hell would be like. He pulled himself forward, lifting his body rather than sliding in order to minimize the rasping sound of his clothing scraping across the ground. On his side, rifle forward, his legs drawn up, then lift one elbow and knee, sliding forward and settling back down to listen. Near his side, Hanson mimicked his actions.
Cresting the ridge, he peeked over the top toward the town in the middle of a valley. To his left, the road they had been following rounded the edge of the ridge and proceeded through the middle of the village. It then exited out the other side and vanished around a series of hills on the other side of the basin. Checking that the anti-glare filter was securely in place, he put his eye to the scope.
The dried mud walls of the abodes reflected the mid-morning sun, the tiny yards on the side and rear either shaded by the buildings or the tall adobe walls that separated the houses. Several wells dotted the town. Sandy roads branched off the paved highway, dividing the town into segments. In places, alleyways ran between houses. Curtains hung motionless from doorways and windows. In all, it looked like an urban nightmare that all troops feared; every place a potential trap for an ambush.
In the midst of it all, nea
rly a hundred reapers prowled the streets, some morphing in and out of buildings. Their presence indicated a ready food supply, although Reynolds didn’t know how or what they could be eating. And, they were somehow able to raise the buckets in the wells for water, which indicated a degree of intelligence, motor skill, and self-preservation. In many places, darker lumps of bodies dotted the yards and streets, several lying partially concealed in doorways. The entirety of the scene below was just one big nope to Reynolds.
“Well,” Reynolds said. “It looks like we’re not going to just waltz through the town.”
“No, but it does look like we may be able to go around behind the hills to the west. They’re far enough away that those braying camels won’t be heard,” Hanson responded, pointing.
Reynolds scoped the area Hanson indicated. From his vantage point, the ridgelines to the west would completely conceal the team from the city if they stayed on the valley floor. The ground looked compact enough that they’d easily be able to roll the trailers along without bogging down.
“Looks like a good plan to me. Let’s get out of here. This sand feels like I’m being branded,” Reynolds said.
They crawled backward until they were well below the crest, then rose and worked their way back to the rest of the team covering their six at the bottom. Reynolds described the situation and the best route of travel to circumvent the town.
Reynolds and Hanson found themselves back on top of a hill, this time on the sharp crest to the west of the town. They were to observe the city as the teams transited the narrow valley behind them. Reynolds found himself anxiously glancing toward his four teammates and the three camels as they made their way, too slowly in his opinion. Several reapers had gathered near the western edge of the city and appeared agitated.
Come on guys, hurry the fuck up, he thought, watching more reapers dance and teleport through walls, only to appear an instant later.
All at once, several of the gathering horde lifted their heads and screamed.
“That can’t be good,” Hanson remarked.
The reapers then began to run in their direction.
“Fuck! Time to go,” Reynolds said, sliding quickly backward and then rising once he was out of sight.
They scrambled down the hill, sliding on the loose shale and sand as they descended. O’Malley and the others looked up as they heard the sound of stampeding buffalos, only to see Reynolds and Hanson in a hurry.
“We need to go…Now! And quickly,” Reynolds stated, his breathing rapid. “The entire town of reapers are coming.”
“How? Were we heard?” Dixon inquired.
“No. I don’t see how that can be. I couldn’t hear the lot of you, and I can hear a mosquito fart a province away,” Reynolds answered.
“Then how?”
“That’s not important. They’re right over the top of that hill and coming on the run,” Reynolds stated.
“Angle back to the road on the double. We’ll need a hard surface for speed. If the camels slow us down, leave them behind,” O’Malley said.
The men took off at a trot, knowing that running would quickly drain them and slow them down in the long run. The camels obligatorily responded and kept up, the wagons bouncing over the rocky soil. As they worked through the valley, angling toward the road, they heard screams erupt behind as the reapers crested the hill to the rear.
Hitting the paved road, they turned south, the heat enveloping them. They pushed through the discomfort, pacing themselves, but knew they wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace for very long—it was only going to get warmer as the day advanced.
Cresting a small hill, O’Malley had them halt for a quick water break and rest. They’d kept ahead of the reapers, but the screams behind reminded the team that their company was still after them. Looking back along the road, a hundred or more were trailing, some still trotting, but a greater number of them were using that teleportation trick of theirs to move. Even morphing, the number of reapers along the side of the road raised a small dust cloud.
“How did they know we were here?” Dixon again asked.
“Maybe they just know where we are. You know, sensed us like some kind of internal radar,” Hanson offered.
“That can’t be,” Dixon responded.
“Neither can those things hovering beside them, but there they are nonetheless,” Hanson stated.
“Touché,” Dixon replied. “I guess we just have to be faster than them. We keep moving and let the sun take care of them. We’ll outlast them.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” O’Malley said, taking a drink. “The heat may take care of us as well. If they retain their innate abilities, those people are better suited to the heat than we are. The outlasting may not be on our part. And, with them teleporting, my guess is that they’re using less energy. It certainly gives them an advantage. But, if we keep moving and keep our distance, then perhaps they may just give up the chase. It’s going to be a long day, ladies, so put on your big boy pants and let’s go.”
They set out at a fast walk, their shadows falling only a short distance across the pavement. The din of screams, mixing with the groaning of the wagons and creak of the leather harnesses, kept up the team’s motivation to power through the heat. Periodic glances behind when they crested the occasional hill showed the reapers still hot on their tracks, the distance closing.
Hours later, O’Malley held the team up. The heat and continued pace had drained them of everything except the ability to put one foot in front of the other. And, the relentless reapers had continued closing the distance, not showing any sign slowing or giving up.
“It’s pretty obvious that our tactic of outlasting them isn’t working. We’re not going to last much longer ourselves. Dixon, Mendez, Hanson, and Wright, grab eight claymores. String four of them in a line across the road and set the other four angling alongside the road. Reynolds and I will string the wire and set up a trip wire. Hopefully we can catch the majority of these bastards in a wide blast,” O’Malley stated. “We’ll lose some distance, but that will happen regardless. Move quickly and don’t worry about camouflaging them.”
The team worked quickly, placing the claymores and wiring them in sequence. If anything set off the trip wire located in front to the leading mines, it would set them all off, each detonating one and a half pounds of C-4 and propelling seven hundred ball bearings to tear through flesh and bone. Eight claymores would send five thousand, six hundred ball bearings racing through the throng of reapers.
With a final glance at the ambush and then toward the closing reapers, O’Malley and the rest of the team turned and began trotting away from the scene. The reapers, watching the team leave, screamed louder and began running and teleporting. Looking over his shoulder, Reynolds watched the reapers close in on the ambush site.
Several morphed through and past the trip wire without activating it. One, however, materialized just in front of the thin wire and stepped forward. With a series of tremendous concussive blasts, most of the horde was lost behind a cloud of smoke and flame. Ball bearings burst forth and sailed through the arid air. Several reapers appeared on the near side of the smoke, having teleported through the kill zone. The smoke began to thin and clear. Many bodies lay on the road and off to the side, their bodies torn into nearly unrecognizable lumps. However, a majority continued on, the steel bearings having traveled through teleporting bodies without effect. Seeing the distance continue to close, the team picked up their pace.
“That didn’t exactly go as well as planned,” O’Malley quipped.
“So, what now? We can’t keep this up,” Reynolds stated.
“See where that road folds between those two hills just ahead?” O’Malley said.
“Yeah.”
“That’s where we’ll make our stand. I just don’t see any other way. We should still have a little distance to work with, although those screams say differently. We’ll have to work quickly. A series of claymores along the base of both hills, angled back down the
road. Run each one individually back to a centralized position on top of the left hill. We’ll blow each line as the reapers get to them, then the next and so on. That should thin a few of them out. When they get within range, we unload on them. Reynolds, you’ll pick them off as best you can. It appears they can’t be touched when they teleport, so watch for them when they materialize. We’re good at what we do, gentlemen, so let’s show them how good,” O’Malley shouted instructions as he ran.
As they reached the steep line of hills rising just off each side of the road, they quickly placed more claymores and ran wire before heading to the next position. After placing four series of mines, they headed down the road. Tying the camels to deeply embedded stakes, the team climbed while staying out of sight. On top of the hill, they peeked over the crest with weapons ready to repel the inevitable attack.
Reapers angled toward them, Dixon looking at Hanson wondering if the reapers could indeed sense them. With the team out of sight, the reapers should have lost track of them, but there they were, leaving the roadway and climbing the hill at an angle, heading right toward them.
“Shit,” O’Malley quietly exclaimed. “Reynolds, start doing your thing. Everyone else, get ready. There are enough still on the road that the claymores will thin them some.”
Reynolds looked through his scope, listening to Hanson read off the ranges. He adjusted, setting the appropriate mil-dot on target with the leading reaper. The suppressed shot coughed, one reaper falling and tumbling down the steep hillside in a flurry of dust. A second shot sent another one rolling a short distance, then sliding.
“Okay, game on,” O’Malley said, squeezing the clacker in his hand rapidly.
In the near distance, where the hills closed in on the road, two monstrous explosions lifted smoke and dust into the air. Several reapers between their teleportations were shredded, their clothes tearing from their bodies and the air turning a pink mist. Severed limbs were thrown clear of bodies and tossed through the air. When the smoke cleared, those caught by the ball bearings lay on the ground amid pooling puddles of blood. But, the majority of the horde continued.