The Border

by Robert McCammon

  “Eyes open up top! Get your guns ready!” Derryman and Winslett had just come down the stairs. Derryman was giving the command over his communicator. Right behind them were six uniformed and helmeted soldiers with machine guns. The soldiers spread out in a fan shape. They took aim at the entranceway as it was hit again and again, and the rock broke apart in jagged cracks, and the floor shivered and moaned like a man having a bad dream.

  “What is that?” Derryman asked Ethan. His glasses were askew, sweat glistened on his face and his voice was thinned by fear. “Do you know?”

  “Yes,” Ethan answered. “It used to be a school bus.”

  With the next assault the remnants of the cracked slab of rock crashed inward. From the roiling dust a huge shape crawled into the garage. It was nearly the same color yellow as Number 712 had been but was now banded with black and red striping. Ethan caught sight of a bony red protuberance jutting out several feet from a triangular head with an underslung jaw full of glistening, razor-sharp teeth. A bulbous crimson eye was set at the triangle’s three points. The natural battering ram was covered with black-tipped spikes, some broken by the impact against stone and dripping a milky-looking fluid. Ethan realized it was what the life-giving energy beam had done to the iron cage the soldiers had welded onto the front of the bus in Denver.

  Number 712 was a three-eyed beast now all leathery flesh and bunched, rippling muscle. It pulled itself into the garage on hooked ebony claws that carved grooves in the concrete. The body had to be at least as long as the bus had been, about forty feet and another five for its battering-ram. It was equally as thick around as the bus, the side of it that Ethan could see patterned with dark square-shaped blotches that might have been an impression of the bus’s windows.

  As the soldiers and everyone else in the garage looked on in stunned horror, the creature began to rise up from the concrete, a forked tail whipping back and forth behind it. Its head and shoulders crashed into the ceiling, shattering some of the glass light tubes. “Open fire!” Winslett shouted, and with a cacophony of noise and eye-startling flares of flame six machine guns and every other weapon in the chamber began to tear at the beast with bullets.

  The creature drew back, swatting at the air with its foreclaws. From its cavernous mouth beneath the bony battering ram came a shriek that started loud and grew in high-pitched intensity until it broke the windows in the SUVs and caused everyone in the garage to drop their weapons and clasp their hands to their ears. A couple of the soldiers fell to their knees. Ethan too had to protect his ears; the sound was mind-stunning, an aural assault that could break the will of any human to stand before it. When the sound ceased the weapons were grabbed up again and the firing continued, but two of the soldiers and three of the other men had fallen to the floor and lay there in dazed shock.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Winslett shouted. Even to Ethan the man’s voice was muffled, his ears still ringing with the creature’s sonic weapon.

  The beast’s flesh was oozing dark fluid in a hundred places. Its tail lashed out and knocked one SUV into the others. Facing the humans it let out a second shriek that again drove aural spikes of pain into the head and overpowered the senses. This time Derryman was driven to his knees, and Winslett staggered back with his hands clutched to his ears. Jackson tried to withstand it and keep firing but he couldn’t; the pistol fell from his grip and he went down also. Ethan was staggered too, his hands to his ears and feeling as if his entire body was enveloped in searing flame. It came to him, even in the midst of this torment, that the creature’s sonic shrieks were not only at a mind-stunning pitch and volume but triggered the area of the human nervous system that registered pain. He fell to his knees and then onto his right side, his teeth clenched and eyes involuntarily squeezed shut. In spite of all the power he commanded, he drew his knees up against his chest, and his body shivered as agony beat at him in vicious waves.

  Dave had felt a vibration in Room 3A and so had the man with the automatic rifle who’d been stationed there to guard him. “What the hell was that?” he asked. An alarm was still going off, after the sound of a gunshot which a few moments before had caused Dave to emerge from the bathroom where he’d gone to get a drink of water.

  “Saber Four Eight,” the man said into his communicator. “What’s happening, Jonesy?”

  “We’re at Code Red on Level Two,” came the terse and nervous answer. “Some kind of breach. Sketchy yet.”

  “Do tell,” Dave said.

  “Can’t talk, I’m gone,” said the man on the other end of the communicator, and Dave’s guard replied, “Copy that.”

  “A breach?” Dave felt the floor shudder again. “Whatever’s gotten in, it’s big.”

  “Just relax. Our orders are to sit tight.”

  “Relax? Are you crazy? When do I get to see somebody who’s able to listen to me?”

  “Sir, now is not the time to—”

  “It is the time.” Dave took a step toward the door and his guard swung the rifle’s barrel up into his face. Dave looked into the barrel with disgust and then into the man’s eyes with the same expression. “I’m going out to see what the hell is happening. If you want to go, fine. If you want to shoot me, go right ahead because that’s the only way you’ll keep me in this room.”

  “Sir, my orders are clear.” A finger went to the trigger.

  Once again a vibration came through the floor. The alarm was still wailing. Dave said, “Shoot me if you have to.” He reached out to turn the door’s lock the guard had engaged and the young, hard-faced Secret Service agent stepped in front of him with the rifle still aimed at his head. Dave had the urge to throw a punch, but he thought as soon as he drew his fist back he would likely be shot, not a killing placement but one to the leg or shoulder that would instantly drop him.

  A voice came from the man’s comm device: “Mike, Code Red on Level Two! They need guns! Get down there, stat!”

  “I’m watching one of the new arrivals!”

  “Scrub that! Leave ’em locked in and get down there!”

  “You’re not lockin’ me in!” Dave said. “No way! I’ll kick that damned door down!”

  “Copy that.” The agent lowered his communicator but kept the rifle aimed. “Step back, sir.”

  “I’m going through that door one way or the other. I swear I’ll kick it down. Shoot me now, if you have to.”

  The young man paused, his well-scrubbed face impassive. Then suddenly it became contorted with conflict. “Damn it!” he said. “You must be human, to be so fucking stubborn!” He unlocked the door. “I may be put in the brig for this, but come on and stay out of my way!”

  They went into the corridor, where they found that Jefferson Jericho had used his skills to also talk his guard into letting him out of 1A. Jefferson and the young man were just coming through the door. Dave figured Jericho’s guard had been informed of the need for guns too, and the slimebag didn’t want to be left in that room while it felt like the place was falling to pieces.

  The two guards rushed on along the corridor to the stairs. “What’s going on?” Jefferson asked Dave over the noise of the alarm.

  “Some kind of breach downstairs.”

  “A breach? What’s gotten in?”

  “Don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s making the floor—”

  Dave caught a strange movement, like a disturbance of air to Jefferson’s left and about eight feet further toward the stairs. Dave felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. Above the shrill noise of the alarm something made a sound whose echo came up the stairwell and along the corridor and made both men wince with pain.

  From the shimmer of air, a body formed.

  It was a large man, square-built and broad-shouldered though his cheekbones and small ebony chips of eyes were hollowed out from hunger. He had a tangle of shoulder-length black hair and two month’s growth of beard. He wore a dark blue t-shirt, gray trousers and dirty black sneakers.

  Vope said, tonelessly, “I have come for th
e boy, but I have been given permission to know ecstasy in killing both of you first.”

  When the monster ceased its aural attack, Ethan got to his knees. His body was aflame, it was hard to focus beyond the pain and the feeling that his brain was about to explode. He saw the creature stalking toward them, crouched under the ceiling. Its triangular head shattered some of the light tubes, and the forked tail swept back and forth across the concrete, now hitting the oil drums and sending them flying into the shelves where the batteries were stored.

  The soldiers were paralyzed, unable to pick up their weapons. Jackson was on the ground and so were Derryman and General Winslett, all of them in agony. There were other men on the stairs. They stopped where they were to fire automatic rifles at the beast, and though the bullets drew puffs of alien blood, they did nothing to halt the thing’s advance.

  Before the creature could deliver another assault the peacekeeper took aim, both hands outthrust. With a concentrated thought that cut through the pain, he sent bolts of crackling energy and a thousand fiery projectiles that only he could see toward the monster at nearly the speed of light. The beast was hit in the chest, which burned black in an instant and caved in, then burst into flame. The thing staggered backward, the tail crashed into one of the SUVs and sent it tumbling end-over-end into the opposite wall not a dozen feet from Ethan and the others. As its chest burned, the monster let loose another sonic scream, the power of which was nearly a physical force that flung Ethan backward to the floor and stopped all firing of rifles from the men on the stairs.

  Through the haze of pain and pressure, Ethan saw the beast lurching forward once more, its chest dripping chunks of flaming meat. It was coming to crush him and the other men, and Ethan could not focus on fighting back with this unearthly scream pounding him down. Still he tried to get to his knees, to turn his power upon the oncoming monster, and still the shriek went on, exploding more of the light tubes along the garage’s roof.

  In the corridor above, Jefferson spoke one word to Dave.

  “Run.”

  Vope’s face rippled, as if his mask was about to fall away. In the space of time it had taken for Jefferson to speak the word, Vope’s right arm had become a mottled, scaly yellow thing striped with black and brown. The hand was no longer a hand but a yellow spike covered with smaller black spikes, each one barbed and writhing.

  Vope took two strides toward them and the deadly appendage shot forward as Jefferson and Dave retreated. Jefferson saw the arm lengthening and the spike coming at his chest with ferocious power. He realized he was going to be hit, even if he turned to run it was going to get him in the back…

  …and then the door of 2A opened between them and intercepted the Gorgon’s arm, the spike smashing through the door in a shower of wood splinters. There was a shout of terror from the Secret Service agent who was coming out, as the alien weapon had narrowly missed cleaving through his own chest. He had an instant to fully recognize the threat, turn his rifle upon the creature and get off three shots to the area where a human heart would be before the left arm with its black reptilian head and metallic fangs seized his skull and crushed it. Within the room, Hannah saw the young man’s brains explode from his head and she dove like an Olympian into the bathroom, where she locked the door and pulled the shower curtain down over herself in the tub.

  Between Dave, Jefferson, and Vope the other doors opened and two agents, alerted by the gunshots, came out with their rifles ready. “Shoot it!” Dave shouted. One man seemed transfixed at the sight of a creature whose arms snaked along the corridor, but the other got off two bullets that blew pieces out of Vope’s forehead. What appeared to be human blood streamed down the alien’s face. The shots had exposed something pulsating and malignant-looking within the wounds, like the misshapen knuckles of a leprous hand being clenched and unclenched.

  The seething spike-arm had been withdrawn, and now it lunged forward again at the man who’d shot holes in Vope’s head, but this human was more canny and quicker than the wretched ones Jefferson had seen slaughtered in Fort Collins. The man dodged aside and the spike crashed once more through the door at his back. The other agent had regained his senses and started firing with his own rifle at a distance of only a few feet. A bullet struck Vope’s lower jaw and tore it away, a slug pierced his throat, and another ripped a chunk from his left cheek. The snake-head flailed out even as the spike-hand was retracted, but from where they stood further along the corridor behind the safety of the two rifles, Dave and Jefferson saw that Vope’s actions were out of control. The snakehead’s metallic fangs bit the Celotex ceiling tiles and the spike-hand did not fully retract but lay on the beige carpeting like a defeated python.

  As the first Secret Service agent began firing again, aiming once more at Vope’s head and piercing it with bullet after bullet, the Gorgon’s ruined face rippled and contorted, one eye shot out and the nose a hole through which the hideous alien tissue pulsated.

  Vope turned and fled for the stairway, dragging the spike-hand on the floor. The two agents pursued at a fast walk, side by side, both firing at the figure that staggered and retreated before them.

  From below came the echo of an ear-piercing shriek that caused both agents to stop in their tracks, stunned even by the reverberation. Dave and Jefferson felt a knife-jab of pain at their eardrums and a feeling of flame burning along the spine. Dave was speechless, but he knew that whatever was going on down there, it was bad. Vope disappeared into the stairwell, and the two agents cautiously followed.

  There came the sound of a crash of metal from the garage level and again the floor trembled. Jefferson yelled, “I’m going up!” He ran for another stairwell at the far end of the corridor, thinking to get as much space as he could between himself and what was attacking the level below.

  Dave let him go. His concern was the condition of his friends. The echo of that shriek came rolling up the stairwell and along the corridor once more. This time the pain was so strong at eardrums and spine—like a flame scorching his nerves—he fell against the wall and clasped his hands to his ears. He made his way into the nearest room, seeking any of his companions and also shelter for himself.

  In the garage, the burning monster’s scream was shrill and strong enough to shred a brain and destroy all will to resist. Ethan’s human senses were overcome, his pain equally as severe as any of the men who lay nearly unconscious around him. He felt the floor shake as the creature came toward them, its claws extended to rend whatever flesh they seized upon.

  The beast’s shriek stopped, but the memory of it still inflamed Ethan’s brain and body. The soldiers and other men were completely helpless. Ethan struggled to his knees with a massive effort, his vision clouded by a red mist. Though its chest area was burning away and liquified meat spattered onto the concrete, the monster was almost upon them. He thought it would tear the humans apart and this body too, regardless of how much the Gorgons wanted him alive.

  The peacekeeper thrust both hands forward in what might have been a final attempt to blast the creature to pieces.

  Through the jangled and jittery pain, he realized something was behind him.

  He turned his head to see what he thought he recognized as Jack Vope staggering toward him, but a Vope whose human face was nearly destroyed and covered with counterfeit blood. The Gorgon’s arms were misshapen lengths of mottled tissue that hung from the sleeves of his blood-wet t-shirt and dragged on the floor. They were changing from an approximation of human flesh and human hands to a bristle of spikes and a distorted reptilian head and then back again.

  Ethan tore his focus away from that grotesque sight. From the aiming points of both palms he sent white missiles of energy at the head of the monster that loomed over him. Behind his teeth was locked an all-too-human scream.

  The beast’s head burst into flame and then swelled and exploded, pieces flying through the rank and smoky air. Its hind legs crumpled and the headless body crashed down upon one of the SUVs and the jeep, smashing both
vehicles to junk.

  One of Vope’s elongated arms had a human hand at the end of it with six fingers and two thumbs, while the other still bore the snake’s head. The hand flopped about like a dying fish as the Gorgon’s damaged braincore tried to command it to grip hold of Ethan’s neck.

  From the opposite wall of the battered garage, Ethan saw the emergence of four ghostly figures. The seven-foot-tall, spindly Cypher soldiers took solid form within a heartbeat, and the one who had come through first fired his blaster with no hesitation. Twin fireballs flew over Ethan and hit Vope squarely in the midsection. Ethan looked back to see the Gorgon falling, on fire with an eye-searing red flame and torn nearly in half, but just before the body hit the floor it began to shimmer and fade out, and when it did hit the floor it was almost transparent. Then there was just the dark aura left, the faintest impression of a body imprinted upon the air, and that too faded away and was gone.

  The Queen saved him, Ethan thought, his mind dazed and seemingly every fiber of this body on fire. She took him back where they could make him whole again.

  Now he had to turn his disjointed focus upon the four Cypher soldiers striding across the bloody concrete toward him. He knew they were there as Vope had been, to take him to a chamber where their dissection blades would destroy this body in their quest to find out what he was and how he could be used.

  He could not permit that. No. Could not.

  His ears were still ringing but over that noise he heard the faint pop pop pop of what he realized were gunshots. He looked back and saw that two more men with rifles had come down the metal stairs and were on their bellies on the concrete, firing at the Cyphers. Jackson had also gotten to his knees, and though his ears were bleeding and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen he was taking steady aim and firing his pistol at the intruders.

  Through the haze of smoke curling up from the dead monster’s burned chest and ragged neck stump, Ethan saw the soldiers vibrating in and out, the bullets passing through their ghosts and ricocheting off the wall behind them. A round from Jackson’s pistol happened to hit one of the Cyphers’ faceplates as the soldier vibrated back into a solid but that too glanced off, leaving only a small scar on the black material. Then Jackson was out of bullets, and in desperation he went for a rifle that one of the other stricken men had dropped.