The Gordian Event: Book 1 (The Blue World Wars)

by Lee Deadkeys

  Her comment seemed like years ago, as he thought back to it. They had all seemed a lot younger then, as if decades had passed instead of only… how long had it been since the madness started? Weeks? Months? A month or more, he was sure. He thought about asking the others and decided against it. What would be the point? Those days were gone and dead, had breathed their last gasps long ago.

  Frank sighed heavily. “Something tells me we won’t be seeing him again. As for the others, Claus’s bunch… I think we better sleep with a watch from now on.”

  “Good idea, Dad. I’ll take first watch, you all can draw straws if you want.”

  Frank nodded, he was too tired to argue anyway. “We should firm up the cabin’s points of entry too. I’ll feel a lot better with Rudy and Rhonda having a little extra security at night.”

  “About that,” Sam said. “I was thinking of camping in the main house myself. Another body and gun could go a long way if we were to get some drunken nighttime visitors.”

  “If we moved the infirmary around a bit, we could make room for everyone down in the bunker,” Mason suggested as they headed back to the cabin.

  “No need to bother, my friend. Besides, after sleeping most nights in that cramped kitchen, I know my sister is looking forward to some breathing room. We’re just so appreciative that you good people are letting us stay, we don’t want to be any more of an imposition.”

  Jess stopped walking and turned quickly to face Rudy. Frank felt his stomach clench. This was another thing he was getting weary of, his daughter’s nearly endless supply of thoughtless words.

  “Mr. Prescott, Rudy,” she said and Frank held his breath. “Stop talking nonsense. You and Rhonda are part of our group now and that is the end of talk about impositions, you hear? What’s ours is yours. This is your home now.”

  Frank let out the breath he was holding when his mouth fell open. Mason, Sam, and Ox wore similar expressions of bewilderment, as if they had just witnessed a great roaring lion transform into a bleating lamb. This wasn’t that far off the mark and he hoped no one would ruin the moment by saying it.

  “Well, thank you, my dear,” Rudy said, taking her offered arm. “Besides, who else here appreciates your rapier-like wit?”

  Ox shook his head and snorted. “You mean homemade machete-like wit, don’t you, Mr. Prescott?”

  Jess kicked at him as he danced away, laughing. Frank found himself laughing freely with the others as they made their way to the cabin. It was a good sound, a necessary sound.

  Two hours later, they enjoyed a meal prepared by Annie and Rhonda. The remains of the thing, the Bloaty, as they were all calling them now, had been burned along with the eel-like corpse, which had flattened out, deflated, but had not dissolved. The vehicles were backed as close to the cabin as the gateway boulders would allow.

  While the adults enjoyed after dinner coffee on the deck, Alex and the boys played a board game Annie had discovered in one of the footlockers when she took inventory of the bunker. It all felt very normal, just a few people enjoying the company of each other and, apart from the drunken shouts and occasional gunshots coming from the group across the water, the early evening passed peacefully enough.

  Annie brought spare cots up from the bunker and made them up with extra blankets for Rudy, his sister, and Sam. Rhonda was the first to call it a night, the Winchester lever action she’d chosen from the armory tucked neatly beside her.

  Exhaustion found them quickly after that, each filing off to sleep, leaving Jessica to take first watch. Mason brought her a fresh carafe of coffee and a blanket. He paused at the doorway, looking after her. She was blanket-swathed in a deck chair, legs curled under her and her AR-15 cradled lovingly in her lap. Mason walked back to her, kissed her on the head and headed off to bed himself.

  And I shudder,

  For death has come to us all.

  —Solomon

  Frank woke as the sky was just finding light, his internal clock knowing what his eyes could not.

  He found his daughter on the deck, leaning against a rail. At his approach, she yawned and stretched, the black rifle held in both hands over her head. She lowered her arms and smacked her lips loudly. “I think I found Mason’s cat.”

  “What cat?” Frank asked with a bemused smile.

  Jess smiled back. “Nothing, inside joke.”

  Frank nodded. “I’m here to relieve you, daughter.”

  “And not a moment too soon. I was about to wake someone up.” She yawned again, tears standing out at the corners of her eyes. “Man, I’m beat. It wasn’t so bad while I had the lunatics across the water to keep me company. They passed out about an hour ago, and let me tell you, it was rough going after that.”

  “Any problems?” Frank asked, the smile gone.

  “Nah, not really. Heard movement out there every now and then, probably some kind of animal.” She turned her head and looked south. “You have no idea how Goddamned dark it gets out here with no lantern, and just how spooky it is to look over there and not see any light from the city. It can mess with your head.” She looked back at him then. “Know what I mean?”

  “Are you all right?” Frank asked.

  Jess chuckled and waved a hand at him. “Just tired, that’s all. Sure am glad to see you though, you sleep okay?”

  Frank nodded. “Maybe it would be better to set a watch in pairs, it’s not like we’re lacking sets of eyes.”

  Jess nodded and patted the side of her rifle. “Well, I’ll leave the details to you, Pop, but I think Vera and I are going to go fall down.” She took two steps toward him and kissed him on the cheek as she passed. “Morning, Ox,” she said and was gone.

  Frank turned as Ox tipped his head to Jess and joined him on the porch. “Hey, Frank. She sure seems chipper this morning. I take it there was no trouble last night?”

  “No. I guess Claus’s people tied one on, but other than that, she gave the all quiet on the western front.”

  “Ah, that was a great movie. One of my mom’s favorites,” Ox said.

  “It was at that.”

  They stood in quiet thought for some time, listening as the nocturnal creatures ended their shift and the diurnal began theirs. Not uncommon sounds to greet a camper on the water. Frank thought of the times he’d been here before, back when his father was still alive, both of his children, too.

  He remembered how odd it had been to hear planes from the flight school cut through the sounds of birdsong and small animal chatter. Now it felt strange not to hear it, not to hear any man-made sound at all, and he had to wonder if this was why God had stopped talking to him in that quiet way he used to. Maybe He just grew tired of trying to talk over us. Frank shook his head. He sure didn’t know.

  “You believe in God, Frank?” Ox asked, startling him, as if reading his mind.

  “Y-yes,” Frank finally managed. “You?”

  “I don’t know. I used to just take it as a given, you know, just never really thought about it. But now, now you really have to ask yourself, why this… this plague, if you will? Why do this to us again? Did we miss a memo?”

  “Well, I don’t know if this has happened before. I’ve never read or heard about this kind of thing ever happening before. Have you?”

  “That’s just it, there has been mention of this kind of thing before.”

  Frank arched his eyebrows as he looked at Ox. “Yeah?”

  “Not this exactly, of course. I mean near-annihilation of the human species by things unknown. And remember, Frank, history has shown that it can be difficult for people to describe things they don’t understand. That’s where myth and superstitions stem from, people’s misinterpretations.”

  “So, what’s your point? How does that prove that this has happened before? I don’t know Ox, I think we would have heard of this before, this is global after all.”

  “Maybe we have heard of it before, just not spelled out in plain English. Could this be what happened to the Mayans, could this be what happened to a
ll the civilizations that just vanished without a trace of war or prolonged plague or famine? As our technology advances, it seems that every year the ruins of some ancient advanced civilization are uncovered buried under millennia of sand or ocean, with no explanation of what happen to them. Might this be why so many of those ancient civilizations were obsessed with the stars, with the heavens? Maybe the stars terrified them.”

  Ox paused and Frank tried to think of a way to excuse himself or change the subject but the man continued, undaunted. “Ever heard of Wormwood, not the Penitentiary, but the star or meteor, whatever it is? Ever ask yourself why so many dead civilizations depict snakes or snakelike creatures as the harbingers of death and evil? And now these snaky bastards show up and start popping out of people like some—”

  Frank held up his hand. “Okay, Ox, I think that’s reaching a bit. I don’t want to sound rude, but I really don’t care if this has happened before. I just care that it’s happening now, and unless you’re going to tell me of some secret you’ve uncovered on how to kill these things, then this talk is getting us nowhere.”

  Ox lowered his head and looked at the ground and Frank wished he’d chosen his words a little more carefully. “I’ll think about it, okay? You may have a point, Ox, and maybe I’m just a scared old man that doesn’t want to think about the what or why of it.”

  Ox nodded but remained silent.

  “Maybe this is what happened to the dinosaurs, you know?” Frank said.

  “Nah, everyone knows the dinosaurs were abducted by aliens,” Ox said with a wink and a smile.

  “The dinosaurs were abducted by aliens? I always wondered about that,” Annie said from the doorway. She held out a tray with plates heaped with scrambled eggs and grits, two cups of coffee and a carafe.

  Frank took the tray from her as his stomach growled noisily. “Much obliged, Annie, really. But you know you don’t have to tend to us so.”

  “You can tend to me all you want,” Sam joined the others on the porch, a plate of food in hand.

  Annie smiled her petite smile. “I want to help, to make myself useful. My Ned always said I was as great in the kitchen as I was in the… well, I don’t suppose that is proper breakfast talk.”

  Frank and Ox nodded sheepishly.

  “Well it’s much appreciated, Ma’am,” Sam said through a mouthful of eggs.

  “Frank, I did want to talk with you about the supplies. I’ve done some inventory and while it must have taken your father years and Lord knows how much money to build this cache, I think we should eventually start to think about an alternate food supply.”

  Frank chewed thoughtfully, “Good idea, Annie. What did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking about a garden and maybe getting together a small hunting party for fresh meat, just as a way to prolong our provisions.”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me,” Sam said. “Not sure how useful I’d be for hunting, but I’ve maintained a garden most of my life.”

  Frank looked at him, puzzled. “Really?”

  “It’s a great stress reliever,” Sam said, a mock challenge to his tone. “Don’t judge me Frank, most of the other guards took up knitting.”

  Frank laughed and shook his head. “No judgment here my friend. Jessica told me once that Ox can knit a scarf like nobody’s business.”

  “It’s not knitting!” Ox said and sat heavily in one of the chairs. The chair groaned audibly. “It’s called Crochet, and it’s a very useful skill, like hunting, which I am also proficient in.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Sam said. “The big man knitteth.”

  Ox laughed quietly. “Keep poking the big man and watch the big man beateth.”

  “Ok, I’ll leave you men to beating, knitting and working out the details of the hunt,” Annie said, chuckling.

  * * *

  Frank checked the sun, by his guess, it was late afternoon, early evening. “I think we should be heading back. I never thought to ask Annie if she knows how to clean these critters.”

  “I think we can figure it out, I mean guts is guts, right? They all pretty much come out the same way,” Sam said as he gathered up a couple of their kills.

  “That doesn’t exactly inspire me with hope,” Ox said as he took up two Jackrabbits by their comically long ears.

  It took them an hour to reach the cabin. As they approached, Jess threw open the door and walked hurriedly but coolly out to meet them. Frank dropped the animals he carried and fought the urge to rush to her. “What happened?”

  “Everything is fine now. You didn’t hear the gunshots?” Jess asked, slowing some. She had her rifle slung over her shoulder with a single point sling and Frank wondered absently where she’d found it. Movement from behind her caught his eye as Rudy emerged from the cabin, a similar rifle slung across his chest. Jess picked up the animals Frank had dropped, neatly maneuvering the muzzle of the rifle so that it didn’t drag in the dirt. He marveled at how quickly firearms had become a part of their casual motions, how easily they’d become an extra and essential limb.

  “No, we didn’t hear anything, between shooting game and Sir Stealth here clomping through the brush,” Ox motioned, indicating Sam.

  Sam shrugged. “I’m a grower, not a hunter.”

  Frank shushed them irritably. “What happened?”

  “Some Bloaties showed up. Rudy and I took care of them, but they went after Rhonda and the boys. Scared ‘em. Shit, scared us all, but Rhonda took it bad. She hasn’t come out of the bunker since and she’s been crying a lot.”

  “Jesus,” Ox said. “But no one got hurt?”

  “Everyone is fine physically. The boys were going a little stir crazy and Rhonda said she would take them outside, let them splash around in the water a bit. We heard the screaming and went running. Rhonda stood there, frozen as those fat bastards stumbled toward her. Rudy yelled for me not to shoot but it was too late. I swear, I’d completely forgotten that they explode, it didn’t even cross my mind,” Jess lowered her head and Rudy patted her on the back.

  “You did the right thing, Darlin’. Don’t go second guessing yourself, now,” Rudy said.

  Jess sighed. “The thing exploded and sent two of those snake things flying, but it was like an invisible screen went up around Rhonda. She got nothing on her.

  The other Bloaty was bigger, fatter around the middle. Rudy shot the other because I froze up when I realized what I’d almost done to Rhonda.” Her voice shook a little and she paused until she could steady it.

  “But it was the damnedest thing, Dad! It only had one of those things inside it and it was huge! Like taking up all of the insides, coiled up like swollen guts. I don’t know how that body could move with that thing in it. Oh, and the worst part is, when the big one hit the ground it headed for the water, just wriggled over the ground and then slicked away like a six or seven-foot snake.”

  “It was quite unsettling,” Rudy said. “But we’re no worse for wear. Rhonda will be fine. She just has to deal with this her way.”

  “Have you burned the bodies yet?” Ox asked.

  “No, not yet. There’s something I wanted to show you all first. I took a look inside after we’d dispatched them. You’ll want to see this.”

  They gathered around the carcasses, trying to breathe through their mouths as Frank did his best to ignore the retching noises coming from Ox. The smell was powerful in its foulness, carrying an almost physical texture.

  “Holy God, what a stink!” Ox said and gagged.

  “Show us quick, Rudy, before we all succumb to this stench and waste our breakfast,” Frank said as he turned his head away from the corpse and gasped.

  Rudy seemed unaffected as he leaned in closer and began prodding the cavity with a stick.

  “I cleaned it out as best I could with lake water, that’s when I discovered this. See here, how the ribs are spread and bulged? The things, the giant worms or eels or whatever they are, are forcing the ribs out as they gain size. But look closer at the rib
bones, do you see this pocking? I believe that is marrow showing through thin spots on the bone. I bet if we removed this fella’s hide from other areas, we’d see the same thing happening to the bone.”

  “Well, that ain’t gonna happen, so why don’t we get on with the autopsy, Doc,” Sam said.

  “Fine, fine. I washed great gobs of that tar stuff out of this area and I’m here to tell ya, it was like changing the oil on a Mack truck, there was that much. Then, I poked around in the intestine….”

  At this he pushed the tip of the stick into a blackened rope of gut, tearing a hole. A huge gout of sticky tar-like substance boiled out along with a belch of putrid intestinal gasses. Ox covered his mouth, turned and stumbled away.

  He got a few feet from them before noisily vomiting into a scrub brush. Frank felt his gorge rise and backed away, moving in the opposite direction of the heaving Ox. He continued down the shoreline, taking in great gulps of air until becoming light-headed. When his head cleared, he looked back at the corpse, noting that everyone had moved away to leave Rudy examining and prodding the open cavity.

  “Going up to the cabin now, Rudy,” Frank called. “Meet me up there when you’ve satisfied your curiosity and tell me your findings while I’m upwind of that thing.”

  Rudy nodded slightly, engrossed in his task.

  They sat on the porch, feeling ill and green until Rudy joined them fifteen minutes or so later.

  “Sorry about that, folks. I guess maybe the need for visuals is overrated,” Rudy said with a smile. “Anyway, based on the amount of that blackish stuff in the cavity and also in the intestine, I will lay you odds that it served as some sort of amniotic fluid, and judging from the condition of the bones and other organs, I believe the eel, worm, whatever, was digesting the human from the inside out. The body was probably being sustained through this fluid which I believe to be some sort of waste byproduct from these organisms and that it has enough nutrients to keep the body moving, until…” Rudy spread his hand out theatrically.