Grunt Traitor

by Weston Ochse

  I knew we should have left the area quicker. I pointed back the way he’d come. “You need to leave.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Dupree asked.

  “They got Larry now too.”

  I guess Larry was red paisley.

  “I’m really fucking sorry, pops, but this is a military operation, and we got no room for you.”

  “But you can’t just leave me. I’ll die if you do.”

  I sighed. “You’ll die if you come with us. We’re going to move fast and shoot anything that moves.”

  “I can move fast.”

  “Oh, please.” I turned to Dupree. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Dupree nodded as he stared at the old men, then turned to me. “Why is it we’re doing this, Mason?”

  I knew where he was going. “Don’t get sentimental on me. We all have to make sacrifices.”

  “He could be your grandfather. Would you do that to your grandfather?”

  I remembered gnarled hands on mine as they taught me how to reel in a fish. One of my few truly perfect memories not sullied by the shit that had been my childhood. I lowered the barrel of my rifle in disgust.

  “I’m going to need to check you out.” Dupree pulled on some gloves, then a paper facemask. “What’s your name?”

  “Hen—Henry Maxwell.”

  “Okay, Henry Maxwell, tell me what happened.” He walked over to Henry with a portable black light in his hands. He turned it on and held it over the face and shoulder area of the old man.

  “We live less than five hundred feet west of here, in a resort home. We spent our days reading and playing games. Then every morning and evening we play a round of golf.” He flashed a shaky grin. “You know I’m seventy-seven years old and a five handicap?”

  “Is that good, Henry?”

  I had to admit, Dupree had a charming bedside manner.

  “Good, hell. It would almost put me on the PGA,” he said. Then he gave a short bark of a laugh and beamed a plastic grin in my direction. “Do you believe people used to get paid to golf? What a world we had.”

  Dupree stepped back. “Yeah, what a world we had.” He held up a hand. “Give me a moment, Henry, to confer with my colleague.”

  “Sure thing.” Henry sat heavily in a chair, staring expectantly at us.

  Dupree came over to me and directed me to follow him to his bag. I kept my weapon at low ready and one eye on the old man.

  “What’s up?”

  He spoke in a hushed whisper. “You’re right. He can’t come with us. He has spores all over him. My guess is they got on him during the attack.” He glanced back at Henry. “I’d love to take him back to evaluate the growth infection rates, but without a biohazard particulate suit, he’d be too infectious.”

  “What do you want to do with him, then?”

  Dupree gave me a stern look. “I don’t want to kill him.”

  “Okay, then. What happens if he infects someone else? You yourself said that this fungus has made humans the vector for its spread.”

  He nodded and frowned. “I know I said that. But what would you have me do?”

  I turned to Henry.

  When he saw my face he stood. “I’m not going with you,” he said, his eyes searching mine for an answer.

  “The same thing that infected the fungees that killed your friends has infected you. We don’t know how long it will take, but Dupree believes that you’ll become a fungee too.”

  Henry blinked rapidly as he took in the information. Then he looked to Dupree, who nodded in affirmation of my statement. Henry took a moment and closed his eyes. Then he opened then to stare out the window. The sun was setting over Los Angeles, sinking into the ocean. A golden light captured the flag on the eighteenth green, surrounding it with a nimbus of shifting gold.

  Henry said the words slow and plain, “How do you know that will happen?”

  “I’m a scientist here to learn about the epidemiology of the fungus.”

  “Is there a cure?”

  “No.” Dupree licked his lips.

  Henry tried to speak twice, but each time his voice caught. He finally cleared his throat. “I was in Vietnam twice. Once fighting my way through Hue during the Tet Offensive in ’68, then up in the highlands supporting special forces. I was just a grunt, you know. We were up on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, trying to stop Charlie from resupplying. One day my best bud, Vinnie Mafia, got stomach punched with a pungi stick.”

  Henry glanced my way, a sad look on his face.

  “Know what that is, son?” Henry asked.

  I nodded.

  “I thought so. You look like you would.” He returned to staring at the golden-hued green. “So Vinnie’s bleeding all over God’s creation. We’re three days march from friendly forces. We can’t call in air support because we’re on the wrong side of the border. So Vinnie is basically fucked and he knows it.” Henry chuckled now. “Know what that mensch said? You gotta kill me, Hank. No, listen, I’m a gonner. I’ll only slow you down so Charlie does the same thing to you. So kill me, already, why don’t you?”

  That moment in Vietnam filled the room. I could almost hear Vinnie’s words. God knows I’d heard them before. I’d had my own Vinnie. We’d called him Todd, but his full name had been Specialist Todd Chu. We’d taken fire from an enemy mortar and a piece of shrapnel had sliced his femoral. He’d begged me to kill him. I’d nodded and said I would, but in the end I didn’t have to. He’d lost consciousness a few moments before he’d died. It had been quick.

  Henry spoke again, but didn’t turn this time. “Do you understand what I said, soldier?”

  “Yes.” My throat was dry. “Yes, I do.”

  Todd Chu had been a twenty-year-old kid whose parents had emigrated from Taiwan to San Francisco. He’d always felt their disappointment for not doing as well in school as they’d wanted him to. He’d loved watching his beloved 49ers and playing soccer. His favorite food had been BBQ chicken pizza, and his favorite beer was Anchor Steam. He was a true-blue American whose death was forever etched in the dirty sand of Al Kut, and he’d been my friend and fellow soldier.

  Henry spoke for the last time. “So kill me already, why don’t you?”

  I raised my rifle and fired twice, the noise shocking in the silence that framed it.

  Henry fell straight down, two holes in the side of his head.

  I stared for a moment, then shouldered my rifle. I reached for my equipment. Then to Dupree, I said, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  My words seemed to shake him out of his shock. He stepped back and nodded, then hurriedly finished putting his kit away. A breeze brushed against us as we exited the clubhouse. It did nothing to cool me, but it did dry the wetness that had somehow found its way to my face.

  Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.

  Denzel Washington

  CHAPTER TEN

  WE LEFT THE motorcycle as a backup. I wanted to know that I had a quick way to evacuate, in the event we needed to or were on the run. We’d find another mode of transportation soon enough, I suspected. So we hung to the side of Golden Hills Road, which ran through an upscale housing community that was probably part of the golf course. Here and there we saw a light, but for the most part, the homes were completely dark. I only had about fifty percent power left in the batteries for my NVDs, so we didn’t have that advantage. But with the wide open roads and few trees, we could see for quite a good distance.

  We left Golden Hills and crossed a wide space that the map pegged as a gravel pit. On the other side was San Dimas Golf Canyon Course. This close to the mountain there seemed to be a lot of golf courses, which I didn’t mind a bit. Urban warfare was my least favorite type of combat, especially patrolling streets with high-rise buildings. Every doorway, every window held the potential for death. In Iraq, I’d developed an ache in the center of my shoulders from the sheer stress of waiting to be shot in the back.

  We walked side by si
de, carrying our rifles. I’d put my Leupold scope on mine. We were about halfway across the gravel pit when I saw the coyotes—three of them, their eyes catching the sheen of the moon. I raised my scope and with enough moonlight, was able to pull in their image. Something was off about them. Coyotes normally avoided humans, unless they were rabid. These began loping towards us.

  “Shit. Here they come.” The last thing I wanted to do was announce our presence with gunfire. “I’ll see if I can take them out, but if they get too close, open up on them.”

  I sighted in on the first and led it by about five feet as I pulled the trigger three times. The first two rounds caught it in the face and back, sending it tumbling to the ground. I fired twice at the one on the left as it juked and jived, and caught it. Must have broken its back; it was still alive, but couldn’t move its back legs. Still, it tried to claw towards us.

  Dupree caught the last one in a hail of full auto.

  I pulled my pistol and strode to the one with the broken back. I put two in its head, then backed away as fast as I could.

  “Hey, Dupree?”

  “I see it. Better stay away.”

  “Those are ascocarps, aren’t they?”

  What looked to be a dozen knife-shaped outcroppings were sticking from the coyotes’ chests and shoulders. The tips of each were dark, as if they’d been dipped in blood.

  “Look at those Cordyceps. I’ve seen this type on a tarantula. Looks almost like antlers. Only this is a mammal.”

  I heard the high-pitched whine of a motorcycle off to the south.

  I grabbed him. “Run!”

  I took off at a dead sprint.

  Dupree struggled to follow, his breath coming fast and furious. We made a rise in the gravel just as a motorbike skidded into the pit on the other side.

  I shoved Dupree to the ground as I fell sideways, desperate to get below the pit’s artificial horizon. Dupree landed face first and groaned as he slid another seven feet down the other side. I spun and put my aiming point on the bike rider’s chest.

  She was about twenty, thick in the waist and arms, and wore her hair in a Mohawk. She also had on night vision goggles and was surveying the area.

  I jerked my head down when she looked in my direction. Two other motorcycles joined her.

  I crabbed to where Dupree was struggling to roll over and helped him to his feet. We ran down an embankment, through several rows of trees, and onto the golf course. I sprinted across the fairway. Once I was in the opposite tree line, I found a low place and dropped my pack. I jerked the ANPVS-7 free, turned it on, and slid it on my head, all before Dupree fell heavily beside me.

  “Put your back to that tree,” I said, pointing to where he wouldn’t make a silhouette.

  He scooted into position, then pulled out a rag, wetted it, and wiped blood from his face from where the gravel had lacerated him.

  Meanwhile, I had my rifle ready as I scanned an artificially illuminated night. The sky, the ground, the trees were all different shades of green. I listened for the sound of a motorcycle, but didn’t hear a thing.

  Had they gone?

  Had they decided to move on?

  This was exactly the thing I didn’t want—to be pinned down and lose time. I wanted us to be in and out, without interacting with the remnants of what had once been the Greater Los Angeles area.

  Then I saw her.

  She was on foot and sliding down the embankment we’d just come down. I saw her reach down to examine the gravel, probably noting where we’d disturbed it. Then she looked up... a hunter.

  I glanced at Dupree and put my finger to my lips. When I looked back, she was gone.

  Damn!

  There was a trick an old sergeant had taught me when I was on guard duty one slick Fort Bragg evening. If you look at a single thing, you tend to miss a lot of what’s going on around you. Instead, look at nothing at all, and you’ll have a better chance at seeing everything. Now, fifteen years and an apocalypse away, I did just that. I stared at nothing, my gaze everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  One minute passed.

  Then another.

  Then I saw movement.

  Miniscule, but it was unnatural, the round shape sliding around a tree near ground level. I snapped to the shape and made out the left side of a head. The ear. The chin. The nose. The singular optic from the NVGs pointing directly at me.

  She had me, just as I had her.

  How much time had passed? I suddenly became aware of our vulnerability. There’d been two others, right? So where were they? I know where I’d be if I were them.

  “Dupree,” I whispered. “Watch our six.”

  No response.

  “Dupree.”

  Still no response.

  I turned six inches and felt a barrel touch the back of my head. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel despair. I felt angry that I’d let myself get into this mess. I let go of my rifle and slowly rolled onto my back. Someone ripped my NVDs free. The world went black for a moment until my eyes adjusted to the night gloom.

  One man stood above me with an M16; another pointed an MAC-10 with a sound suppressor at Dupree.

  The man above me whistled.

  Fifteen seconds later Mohawk stood above me.

  “Did you frisk them?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She squatted next to me. “Easy there, soldier. No funny stuff.”

  She moved me into a sitting position, then frisked me, removing all of my weapons and throwing my pack into a pile. When she was done, she flexicuffed my wrists and ankles. Then she did the same to Dupree. They went through our packs, separating the weapons into one pile, communications gear into another, and what was left into the final pile. When they came to the biker jacket, they stopped cold.

  The one with the MAC-10 held it up for her to see.

  She nodded, then turned to me. “Which one of you killed Lou?”

  “Me,” I said.

  She appraised me with cold, unreadable eyes.

  She had a nice three-inch scar on the right side of her face. A knife, maybe. Or shrapnel.

  “Why’d you kill him?”

  “So he wouldn’t kill my partner,” I said, telling the truth.

  “What is he?” she asked.

  I glanced at Dupree, who sat facing me, flexicuffed just like me. “He’s a scientist. An ethnobotanist. We’re here to figure out what’s coming out of the area around the Twin Hives.”

  She exchanged looks with the other two.

  “What do you know?”

  I nodded towards Dupree.

  He said, “You have animals exhibiting some alien strain of Cordyceps ignota. We saw humans with fungal growths much like those you’d find with Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which seem to not only cause the host to serve as a vector, but to also create violent autonomous functions.”

  “The fungees,” she said flatly.

  He nodded. “Yes, the fungees.”

  She turned to me. “Who are you with?”

  “OMBRA.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “For how long?”

  “Since the beginning.”

  Her eyes widened. “I know you.” She inhaled. “Hero of the Mound.”

  Now it was my turn to be surprised. The only way she could have known was if she was there. Mr. Pink needed a hero. We were being defeated at every turn and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I’d saved Thompson, who’d frozen, and fought off and killed dozens of Cray, all recorded through our EXO suit cams to be rebroadcast on the plasma TVs in the bunkers. “What unit were you with?”

  “Romeo Six.”

  “You fought well. I remember when you brought back the remains of Romeo One Zero. I remember when you had our backs.” I had another thought. “Where were you for Phase I?”

  “Roswell.”

  “Where they kept the aliens?”

  She snorted. “All they had was space junk. Now they have all the aliens they can handle. You up at Irwin, n
ow?”

  “Yep.”

  This was the moment. I could see it in her eyes. What to do with us? I knew that part of her wanted to let us go. We had a shared experience. We’d been in combat together and come out the other side.

  “What now?” I asked, nudging.

  She frowned. “Not sure. That you killed Lou puts a monkey wrench in things.”

  I regretted that we’d kept the jacket. “What was he to you?”

  “He was in Romeo Six too.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. And I’d just killed him like it was nothing. “What was he doing with Devil’s Thunder?” I asked, finally opening my eyes.

  “He thought he’d have a better chance of survival. He wanted to get away from the 605 Wall.”

  “I hear Devil’s Thunder likes to rape and pillage,” I said evenly.

  “There’s no shortage of that anywhere nowadays.” Her eyes hardened. “How’d you kill him?”

  I could have lied, but I didn’t. “I put a knife through his ear.”

  “From behind?”

  I nodded.

  “Did he even know you were there?”

  I shook my head.

  If she was going to kill me, she’d do it now. I could see my demise working through her eyes as she strained to find a solution that would be equitable to the memory of Lou, but also let me live.

  Seconds passed.

  “Who are you with? GNA?”

  She grinned. “That shill? I didn’t like him when he was on television. Why should I like him now?”

  I shrugged. “He seems pretty popular.”

  “He just has good organization. I’ve known some who joined for the healthcare.”

  I snorted. “I knew people who joined the Army for that, back when there was health insurance.”

  “Lot of good that did them.” She stared long and hard at me, then she stood. “Uncuff them,” she said, pointing to the man with the M16.

  He was tall, rail thin and bald except for tufts of hair clouding above each ear. “But he killed Lou.”

  “Lou knew what he was getting into when he left us.” She shook her head. “Wrong place, wrong time. Now uncuff them.”

  “But Sandi!”