The Lazarus Impact

by Todarello, Vincent

  “What are all the gas masks for? Usually see a couple on these kinds of missions, but not this many,” says Celery.

  “Something to do with meteors that hit back home. Rumor is that no one’s been able to make contact with anyone from back home for a while,” Reynolds answers him.

  “Where do you get this shit? No one tells me nothing,” Celery asks.

  “I don’t know. Just hearing things,” says Reynolds.

  “We should’ve been in a chopper. The roads are too fucked,” Tackleson adds.

  “The last contact our high-ups got from home was to ground all air transportation. That’s why,” Vice tells him. “Ain’t heard from the old Commander in Chief since.”

  “So communication sats are down? But not ours?” Celery asks again.

  “Don’t know. We have radio though. Also heard that it’s poisonous to breathe the dust from the meteors. Guessin’ that’s what the masks are for,” Vice responds.

  “So what about us?” Celery continues.

  “We got our standard issue masks, and there’s a bunch more in crates at base just in case. It was the last supply shipment we received. Davies told us to bring ‘em if things get crazy,” Bucky explains to a dumbfounded Celery while holding up his own mask. “You brought yours, right?” There’s a long pause of silence. “You stupid, goony-ass bastard. Celery, you forgot it didn’t you?”

  “Fuck you, Rabbit. You guys don’t tell me shit,” Celery whines.

  The other guys laugh.

  “Now now, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Buck’s just nibblin’ on your celery stalk a little bit. Ain’t you Rabbit?” Florida looks over the top of his shades in the rearview mirror with a grin fixed on Bucky. Bucky flings an extra gas mask in Celery’s direction.

  “That’s fuckin’ gay, Vice. You must’ve spent too much time down in faggy ass Miami Beach watchin’ homos nibble on each other’s celery stalks.” Tackleson laughs.

  “Man, oh man. What I wouldn’t give to be back home on the beach in Miami right now.”

  “Gaybot!” Tackleson cuts him off, earning laughs from the others.

  “Nah man, I’m telling you. The chicks down in Miami are like nothin’ you’ve ever seen. Think of it like spring break every day, man,” Florida explains.

  Tackleson moans. “Here we go again. Should we pull over so you can jerk off?”

  “Sounds nice. Why’d you leave?” Reynolds asks.

  “That’s a good question Junior. One whose answer I’ve totally forgotten. Tell you what... my new year’s resolution... go back home and bang as many of those sexy ladies in bikinis as I can while I’m still young enough to pop wood.”

  The guys laugh.

  “What about you, Buck? What’s your resolution?” Celery asks.

  “Shit, I don’t know. Quit smokin’ I guess,” he says.

  “Oh come on man. You gotta make it something good. All of us, you know, we risk our lives out here... and your resolution is to quit smoking? Pick something better than that Bucky. Pick something like ‘have a three way’ or ‘blow coke off a hooker’s tits’ or something,” Florida suggests.

  “What about Tack?” Celery asks.

  “Two thousand confirmed kills,” Florida answers in his best Tackleson impersonation, which is a cross between an Austrian body-building robot and a toothless hillbilly. Everyone laughs but Tackleson.

  “I can make that happen,” Tackleson says, all straight faced and serious.

  “What about you, Junior?” Celery asks.

  He thinks for a moment. “I’m gonna ask Jennie to marry me.”

  “Oh that’s just precious,” Florida says though a laugh.

  “What can I say, I’m in love. Being apart just makes me want it more,” Reynolds says.

  “I’m in love too. And being apart from all my Florida ladies makes me want them even more too. Variety is the spice of life, my man. One day you’ll remember me when you’re sick and tired of Jennie’s saggy tits and cottage cheese ass.” Vice looks at Junior, fixing his eyes on him in the rearview mirror, not watching the road ahead. “You’ll be thinkin’ of old Vice, sittin’ on the beach with one lady bringing him drinks, two ladies rubbing his feet, and three ladies...”

  A deafening explosion outside cuts Vice off mid-sentence. Captain Davies’ hummer jolts up into the air and lands on its side, as if it were bounced by a boy with a toy car. The ground thunders all around them. A short, angry rain of dirt and rocks pours down onto the hummer, nicking and cracking the windshield. Vice slams the brakes, but their vehicle slides and slams into the rear end of Captain Davies’ hummer. Smoke pours from Davies’ hummer across to theirs, and they can’t see shit.

  “What the fuck, dude?” Rabbit complains. He struggles to sit himself up, having been thrown into the front of the vehicle.

  Celery puts his gas mask on immediately. He shakes his head nervously and the loose rubber straps fling around the side of his face like streamers dangling off a balloon. “Was that rocket fire?” he asks. No one answers.

  Vice opens the door cautiously with his weapon in his hand. He steps out to get a better look at Davies’ humvee. “Holy fuck,” he says. Reynolds opens his door too, and a moment later they all step out of the vehicle.

  Davies’ body is hanging halfway out of his windshield. His right arm is a burnt stump sheared off just below the shoulder. A hole is ripped through the hummer, with seared, charred edges. A small flame flickers within a crater on the dirt road, and smoke rises up from the hole. There’s screaming from inside the vehicle, along with the sounds of vomiting and coughing.

  Vice and Reynolds run over to Davies to check his vitals, but it’s obvious he’s dead. They open the rear door and drag the other men out from the back seat. Two are dead, and the other is coughing and throwing up like crazy.

  “Can you stand up, Ghost?” Vice asks the guy between his vomiting. He notices a pretty bad gash on his side too; it’s not mortal, but it certainly inhibits Ghost’s breathing. Vice applies pressure to the wound. But when Ghost winces in pain and gasps several short, ineffective breaths, Vice thinks there might be some broken ribs or a collapsed lung.

  Ghost is so white that he’s almost clear. That’s how he got his name. But now it’s worse. He’s lost some blood, and he’s so sick that he’s turning yellow in the face. Even his eyes look a little yellow. Reynolds gives him his mask, and he begins to breathe a bit easier. Eventually he stands.

  The last guy in the front seat won’t stop screaming. Bucky and Tackleson pull him out of the wreckage. It’s Peters. He never really got a nickname because he was just too normal. They tried calling him Average or Regular for a while, but neither stuck for too long. His left hand is missing. They try to calm him down, but he’s bleeding out. Rabbit ties a tourniquet around his arm, just below the elbow. That’s when Bucky notices the hole in Peters’ stomach, ripped clean through his body and cauterized the entire way, like a smaller version of the hole through the hummer. Peters flops to the ground and dies moments later.

  Celery stands in the road confused and scared, trembling like a frightened mouse. He creeps close to the rubble and looks down at the steaming, flaming crater beside the vehicle. A piss yellow smoke curls up from the hole, and a greenish glowing rock sits in the center; a burning pitch, an ember of space rock. Celery smells a faint scent of burning plastic and sulfur coming through the mask.

  The radio inside their hummer is rattling off like crazy, but the voices are either inaudible or muffled and distorted by static. Tackleson tries to communicate back to base on several channels, but there’s no coherent response; only panic, distress, and confusion.

  “Look, out across the hills,” Reynolds points. A flaming shower of debris falls from above. The glowing orange hail is trailed by emerald-tinted black soot and accompanied by a distant but descending whistle sound. Then more fireballs sail overhead, this time much closer, right on top of them. Flames streak across the sky, ripping through the morning air with ear piercing shrieks.
The ground shakes when they hit the dusty earth, nearly knocking the men down. The debris continues to pelt down on them, and they take shelter in the hummer.

  “Holy shit! They’re coming down all over the place!” A hail of flaming rocks rains down on the desert all around them.

  When the barrage of brimstone and hellfire settles, they step back out into the sun. In the windless dead calm of the desert, a strange, thick, piss-milk smoke snakes its way up from each impact, all around them and in the distance. Just like the smoke coming from the busted hummer and the crater in the road. Behind them, far in the distance, a small mushroom cloud lingers out in the desert.

  “Looks like base was destroyed. Gotta be. Ain’t nothing else that close by,” Bucky says.

  “Try the radio again,” Vice suggests.

  “I did. It’s dead air. Nothing,” says Tackleson as he steps away from the hummer.

  “Could it be missiles? Rocket fire?” Celery asks.

  “No those are meteors you damn fool! Or debris from one,” Vice explains.

  “But what kind of explosion makes a cloud like that? Could it be an attack?” Celery continues, pointing to base.

  “I don’t know. I doubt it though. Meteors could’ve hit the fuel supply, generators, or munitions storage.” Vice eyes Celery for a moment. “Everyone, do like Celery and put your masks on.”

  “I gave mine to Ghost. I’m taking one from the supplies in back,” Reynolds says as he runs.

  “You know the Bible says God will bring the end of days upon us,” Tackleson muses as he stares off into the distance.

  “Yeah but ain’t that a flood or something?” Celery asks.

  “No. He already flooded us once. The next time he promised fire from above.” Tackleson begins to quote. “I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs on Earth below. Blood and fire and vapor of smoke...”

  “You actually believe that bullshit?” Rabbit jumps in.

  “That ‘bullshit’ is believed by lots of people. And not all of ‘em ignorant hayseeds like Tack,” Reynolds adds.

  “Thanks, I guess?” Tackleson responds.

  “You too, Reynolds? And that still don’t mean it ain’t bullshit,” Bucky presses.

  “Look I don’t know what I believe. Just saying don’t mock the man for his religious beliefs, and nobody’ll mock you for not believing in anything,” Reynolds says. “Whether or not it’s true is a whole ‘nother story.”

  Ghost walks around in a stupor as they argue. He throws up in his mask and then sluggishly pulls it off to let the sick spill out onto the dirt to clear out the stink.

  “Nasty dude,” Celery comments.

  Ghost struggles to put his mask back on. His eyes start to roll back in his head. Then his body goes limp and he drops to the ground.

  “You said the debris is poisonous. What kind of poisonous?” Celery asks.

  Ghost starts to violently convulse and foam at the mouth. Vice tends to him after putting a mask on his own head, but moments later Ghost fades. He’s dead.

  “Shit. He’s gone,” Vice says. He looks around at the others. “Damn it Tack, put your mask on already.”

  Tackleson shakes his head. “Leaving mine off. It’s too late anyway. God’s plan can’t be stopped with masks.”

  “That’s an order,” Vice says. “Seeing as though I’m the next highest rank after Davies, I’ll be taking over here.”

  “I believe the order of things is God, country, corps,” Tackleson retorts.

  Vice twists his face in frustration. “Yeah well until God comes down from the heavens and says otherwise, I believe putting your mask on won’t infringe on your religious duties and revelations.”

  Tackleson reluctantly complies.

  A gurgled growl escapes Ghost’s foamy throat. Vice looks down at him as his eyes burst wide open. “Ghost? Ghost, you okay?” Vice hooks his hands under Ghost’s arms and tries to pull him up to a sitting position. “Come on, you pasty old fuck. Let’s get you some water.” Vice puts one of Ghost’s arms across his shoulder and helps him to stand up.

  “I thought you said he was dead?” Celery asks.

  “Well, apparently I was wrong,” says Vice.

  “He don’t look too good. Looks like a wild animal, you ask me,” Bucky adds.

  “I didn’t ask you. Grab me a bottle of water, would you?” Vice commands.

  Vice slowly walks him toward the hummer. Ghost turns a snarling face toward Florida’s arm. It dangles across Ghost’s shoulder and hangs down near his face like a sausage in a butcher’s window. Ghost opens his fouled mouth and gnashes his teeth with a vicious hiss. He tears off a chunk of flesh from Florida’s arm, taking bits of ripped desert camouflage into his mouth with it. Vice yanks his arm away and screams in pain as the remaining connected skin stretches and snaps from the wound. He immediately presses his other hand on the wound and backs away from Ghost, still facing him. Ghost chews at the chunk of meat in his mouth and runs after Vice.

  “What the fuck?” Reynolds yells as he draws his weapon. “Hold it right there, Ghost!” Ghost keeps chasing Vice. Tackleson and Bucky train their sights on Ghost as he runs after Florida. Celery stands in shock. “I will shoot you, Ghost! Stand down now!” Reynolds warns him again, but Ghost doesn’t listen.

  Vice backpedals, but stumbles and loses his footing on a rock along the side of the road. Ghost catches up to him and tackles him the rest of the way to the ground. A cloud of dust puffs up around them as the scuffle continues. Ghost gets on top of Vice, and Vice struggles to keep Ghost’s bloodied mouth away from him. He claws and scratches at Florida’s clothes like a wild dog.

  Reynolds runs over to them. “Last warning, Ghost!” He aims his weapon at the back of Ghost’s calf. “You have ‘til the count of three! One...”

  “Shoot the crazy bastard already!” Vice yells from under the beast.

  “Two...”

  “Don’t kill him, Junior! Don’t kill him!” Celery whimpers.

  “Three!”

  Reynolds fires a round into Ghost’s leg. Ghost twists his head upward and roars at him. Reynolds is shocked by the horrific look on Ghost’s face. He steps backward in fear, but keeps his weapon aimed at Ghost. Ghost stands up, focused completely on Reynolds. Florida scrambles out from under him and gets back onto his feet. Ghost drags his wounded leg behind him as he shambles toward Reynolds.

  “Sorry buddy. I didn’t mean to hurt you but you weren’t listening,” Reynolds pleads with Ghost. “Stand down, soldier!”

  Ghost presses forward, his mouth dripping with blood and saliva. His chest heaves up and down with breathy grunts and growls. He reaches his arms up toward Reynolds, his hands grasping at the air as he moves forward. Reynolds squeezes several rounds out at the ground in front of Ghost to scare him, but it’s no use. He keeps coming. He fires another shot into the same leg, this time up on Ghost’s thigh. Ghost is knocked back a step, but he limps on hungrily, unaffected by the gunshots.

  “What the fuck?” Tackleson utters, completely baffled by the sight. “He’s a goddamn zombie.”

  Florida steps up with his sidearm and presses it to Ghost’s temple. Ghost turns and lunges at Florida. Vice squeezes his eyes tight and squeezes his trigger finger. With one loud pop, Ghost is silenced. He falls to the ground, dead again.

  “Oh fuck, Florida. You killed Ghost! You fucking shot Ghost!” Celery yells in panic.

  “That wasn’t Ghost,” Tackleson says. “It was some kind of fucking hellish demon monster come back from the dead. A devil.”

  “Quit talking your crazy religious shit again, Tackleson.” Bucky’s voice shakes with uncertainty. “It is crazy, right?”

  “Tack is right,” Florida says. “That’s wasn’t Ghost. I could see it in his eyes. He was like a rabid animal.”

  “Your arm okay?” Reynolds asks.

  Florida sucks air through his teeth in pain. “Ahh, should be. Stings like hell. Burns actually. Like it’s infected.” He rolls up his sleeve to reveal a bru
ised, festering wound. Streaks of black extend outward on his skin from under the surface of the bite, as if the veins in his arm are poisoned with death.

  “Let’s get you taped up.” Reynolds sits Vice down and dresses his wounds.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Celery says after a few moments.

  “We can still press onward. We have orders. We still have one humvee that’s operational. Let’s pack the remaining supplies from the crashed vehicle into ours,” Reynolds suggests.

  “We’ve got wounded and dead men. We can’t just leave ‘em here. Remember ‘no one gets left behind?’ We need to get back to base and let them know the mission failed,” Rabbit says.

  “There is no base. There is no communication. That means there is no command.” Tackleson adds.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Bucky responds.

  “Something happened back there. No one is answering the radio. We’re safer going forward instead of backward,” Reynolds says.

  “Or AWOL,” Florida blurts it out. The others look at him with screwed up faces, clearly confused by the idea. It goes against everything they believe in, everything they’ve trained for. Other than treason, it’s the worst thing they can do. It gets quiet for an uncomfortably long moment.

  “What do you mean, AWOL?” Celery breaks the silence with incredulity.

  “I mean I just shot a fucking fellow marine in the head. I ain’t going back anywhere. You shot him too, Junior. Twice. How we gonna explain this? You think people are gonna believe a man came back from the dead and attacked us? How the fuck are we gonna explain that? Why not any of the others?” Vice points to the other bodies that lay still. “They’ll court marshal us, and lock us up in a mental institution if not in jail for the rest of our lives.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” Celery says. “We could...”

  “No it ain’t,” Bucky interrupts.

  Tackleson laughs and looks up to the heavens. “Lock us up? We’re already dead.”

  “Tell you what, Celery. The mission is all yours. I’m leaving.” With his bandages finished, Florida stands up. “Who’s with me?”