He had just made it to the bottom of the hill and was headed for the barn, watching as Ironhorse finally managed to free his legs. But at the same time, the colonel was entirely unaware of another man— grotesque, rotting—coming from the barn. The man aimed an Uzi right at Ironhorse.
"Colonel!" Harrison shouted, falling to the ground. "The barn!"
Ironhorse wheeled around and fired just in time. The man staggered backward and collapsed inside the old building. Harrison started toward the barn again; before he had taken three steps, the colonel was on the ground again, tangled not in one, but two of the aliens' weapons, unable to raise his arms to fire his weapon. A man and a woman were coming toward him out of the barn; a second man approached from the side near the farmhouse. All three were armed with automatic weapons.
Harrison swallowed hard. He didn't consider him-
self a particularly heroic individual, and at the moment it seemed like retreat was the sanest solution. But he couldn't watch another human being—even if it was the despicable Ironhorse—be killed without doing something. He looked around desperately, and spotted the ATV resting on its handlebars.
He dashed for it without realizing he'd already made the decision to do so. His heart was hammering so hard he couldn't get his breath, but somehow he managed to heave the thing upright and get it started.
Ironhorse was still flailing in the tangle of bolas. Harrison roared up beside him, painfully aware that the three ghouls had spotted him and were slowly taking aim.
"Cut me loose!" Ironhorse bellowed, but Harrison didn't bother to respond, just hooked the weighted end of one of the bolas over the back of the ATV and took off. Ironhorse screeched curses behind him as the terrorists fired. Harrison never looked back, not even when the bullets whined past his ears, until they made it up to the top of the incline, back into the safety of the forest.
"God almighty," Ironhorse swore after they'd stopped, and held still while Harrison cut the wires restraining him with a jackknife. "My backside is bruised to Kingdom Come and back."
"Then we're even," Harrison answered grimly, cutting the last strand and helping Ironhorse free.
"Look .. ." The colonel put a hand on Harrison's wrist. "Bruised or not... thanks for saving my ass."
"Forget it." Harrison shrugged and did his best not to smile. "Doesn't mean we have to be friends or anything. Come on, we've got to find Suzanne." He ran back toward the place he'd left her.
The colonel rose stiffly to his feet and followed. Harrison ran through the forest until he found the area he remembered: there was the boulder Suzanne had sat against; there was the hollow where he'd napped . .. but there was no sign of life. "Suzanne!" he called.
Ironhorse came up behind him and unhooked a flashlight from his belt. Harrison turned to him worriedly. "This is the area, isn't it? It's gotten a lot darker since we left, but I could have sworn—"
"This is it." Ironhorse switched the flashlight on and swept the beam over the area. "There," he said suddenly.
Harrison looked. The light hovered over the Geiger counter and the video equipment, smashed and lying in pieces atop a blanket of pine needles. Fighting off a sickening sensation of fear, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. "Sue—!"
Ironhorse clamped a hand firmly over Harrison's mouth and looked anxiously behind them. "Easy! You'll give away our position."
Harrison did not struggle; slowly, cautiously, the colonel removed his hand. "Come on, Doctor, we can't risk hanging around here. They're probably following. We've got to put some more distance between ourselves and them."
"No." Harrison shook his head stubbornly. "We're not leaving without Suzanne. She has to be here somewhere."
Ironhorse looked hard at him. "Blackwood, you saw
what they did to my armed, trained men. If those things have her, there's nothing we can do. Dying ourselves won't help to bring her back." He reached out to grab Harrison's arm, but the scientist pulled back. "Come on!"
"For God's sake," Harrison cried as desperation filled him, "we can't just leave her!"
"Forget her, Blackwood!" the colonel snapped, and then, more softly: "She's had it." He caught hold of Harrison's upper arm with a viselike grip.
This time Harrison let himself be led away, looking back over his shoulder the entire time for any sign of Suzanne.
TWENTY-ONE
The next several hours spent hiding and shivering in the cold, dark forest were as nightmarish as anything Harrison had ever experienced. He and Ironhorse kept moving, pausing at times to hold perfectly still as the aliens passed by with soft, slithering rustles and the clumsier sound of human yet inhuman footfalls crashing through the underbrush. Without Ironhorse, he would not have made it, in his near delirium, unable to distinguish alien forms from the ominous black shapes of the bushes. The colonel remained calmly watchful, and somehow managed to keep Harrison moving long after he wanted to give up.
By dawn their trackers had given up and passed out of the forest, and Harrison realized Suzanne, too, was nowhere to be found in the woods. Ironhorse had circled back and led them to the place where they'd left her, but there was no sign of her. Discouraged, they rested, Ironhorse crouching on the ground but keeping one eye open, Harrison sitting on the rock where Suzanne had sat. He was exhausted beyond reason from fear and chill and exertion, and his back ached where Ironhorse had struck him the night before.
One scene played over and over like a B-grade melodrama in his mind: Mrs. Pennyworth with one arm around a fair-haired girl, and Harrison, the heavy, saying: I'm sorry, Debi, but your mother. . . He couldn't find the words, but it didn't matter; Debi understood all too well. You killed her! You killed my mother! the girl screamed, clawing at him while Mrs. Pennyworth did her best to hold Debi back. But the girl broke free and grabbed hold of him.
Someone shook his shoulder. Harrison opened his eyes to see Ironhorse standing over him. Amazingly, the colonel looked no worse for wear. "They're still gone," Ironhorse said. "I'm going down to the house and check for survivors."
"Suzanne—" Harrison began and broke off, confused, not knowing exactly what it was he meant to say about her. He rubbed his face.
Ironhorse removed his hand from Harrison's shoulder and glanced down into the valley. "It's possible she decided to go down there," he said, but Harrison heard the doubt in his tone.
He knows she's dead. He just wants to see if any of his men are still alive. Harrison got shakily to his feet. "I'll go with you."
Ironhorse stood up, raising a coal-black brow. "No offense, Blackwood, but you don't look up to—"
"I'm going with you," Harrison repealed firmly, shaking his arms and legs to get the stillness out.
"Then we'd better do it fast, before they figure out where we are and head back this way."
Harrison nodded and took a few staggering steps. If Suzanne wasn't down there, at least he'd know for sure that the aliens had her, and that she was dead . .. or worse. He limped down the hill behind Ironhorse, every step aggravating the pain in his back.
Down in the valley, the air was still faintly acrid; the house and barn still smoldered.
"Here." Ironhorse paused to remove the rifle that hung on a strap around his back, and offered it to Harrison. "I'll use this." He patted the pistol in his side holster.
Harrison shook his head. "No thanks." He disapproved—in theory anyway—of the damn things, and right now he didn't feel he deserved to protect himself.
Ironhorse pushed it at him. "Don't be stupid. There might still be some of them down here."
"No," Harrison said more firmly, and walked ahead of him. Ironhorse shrugged and grasped the rifle in both hands, following.
The grass gave way to dirt near the barn. The colonel apparently saw something; he moved quickly to the entrance and crouched down in the sand.
"What is it?" Harrison followed as quickly as he could.
"Gordie," Ironhorse whispered, then said aloud, "Sergeant Reynolds. His body was here . . . now
it's gone."
"What?" Harrison blinked down at the tangled mass of cable by Ironhorse, then peered uneasily into the barn. All was quiet darkness.
Ironhorse picked up the alien weapon and studied it, then dropped it to one side. There was a deep red, congealed spot on the ground; still sitting on his heels, the colonel reached with one hand, not quite brushing his fingers over the spot where Reynolds had fallen.
"Gordie ..." he said, without looking at Harrison. "Damn them." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Damn them to hell."
Harrison stood back quietly, feeling a tug of sympathy for the man. Beneath the tough-guy exterior, there was a real human being .. . and as horrible as it was for Harrison to lose Suzanne, how much worse must the loss of so many men be for the colonel?
Ironhorse crouched silently with his back to Harrison for a while, then raised his head and said, "And over there ... look at that." He pointed to two blackish, evil-looking masses near the barn entrance. "One of those was the man Reynolds shot, and one of those was the ATV rider who tried to waste me." He looked questioningly at Harrison. "What the hell is this?"
"I don't know," Harrison answered honestly.
"Unbelievable." Ironhorse shook his head, then rose. "I'll check out the barn. Think you're up for the house?"
"Sure." Harrison wasn't really, but he left the colonel where he was and walked over to the old farmhouse. The front door had been kicked off its hinges and lay in the middle of the doorway, half in, half out. Harrison stepped over it gingerly. In the front room, the walls were charred; plaster lay scut tered on the floor, and the wooden ceiling beams hung down in long, thin shreds. A faint trace of gas remained, stinging his eyes and making them tear. He circled around the first floor through the kitchen and dining room, until he arrived back at the entrance, near the staircase. "Suzanne?" he called out timidly.
There were signs of struggle everywhere, but, amazingly enough, no bodies. Harrison climbed the rickety stairs with some trepidation; in one of the second-floor bedrooms he found purplish stains spattered across a wall, and realized it must be alien blood ... but excitement faded quickly to disappointment. There was no way to get a sample; all his instruments were smashed, useless up on the hillside. "Suzanne?" he called again, this time louder as desperation began to take hold of him.
There was no denying it—she really was gone. He stumbled down the stairs, through the front doorway, and out into the brightening daylight. He stood on the front porch and leaned heavily against one of the remaining posts. Let the damn house collapse on him—he didn't care.
He remembered his words to her and shuddered. Dr. McCuIlough, if you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you. Fat lot of good that had done. He thought about the things he had forced himself to ignore while she was still alive, like how beautiful she was. As lovely as Charlotte. No, dammit, even prettier because, unlike Char, Suzanne seemed totally unaware of her good looks. Okay, so maybe she'd been an uptight person, but she had her priorities straight.
Once she was convinced the alien threat was real, she'd been a trooper, hadn't complained once about the trips, about the danger ... had even insisted on coming when she knew the risk involved.
And, in some crazy way, he felt, he had been able to get over Charlotte so easily because he had hoped that somehow, Suzanne and he ...
He didn't even let himself finish the thought. Wouldn't have worked anyway. No two people were less alike. He rested his forehead against the post, ignoring the ominous creak, and didn't look up when Ironhorse walked up and said, "Nothing. You?"
Harrison shook his head. "Damn it," he whispered, swallowing hard to keep back tears. He wouldn't cry here, now, especially not in front of the poker-faced colonel. "I shouldn't have let her talk me into bringing her along."
To his surprise, Ironhorse's tone was sympathetic. "It wasn't your fault, Blackwood."
"Then whose was it?" Harrison jerked his head up angrily. "All right, so she was the most uptight person I've ever met—but at least she believed me! Where else am I going to find someone like ... her?"
A violent sneeze coming from underneath the porch caused the worn wooden planks under Harrison's feet to shudder. He dashed off the porch and stood next to Ironhorse, who raised his rifle as the grate under the porch began to move, then fell forward onto the grass. Suzanne, her face smudged and dirty, peered out.
"It's me! For God's sake, don't shoot!"
Ironhorse grinned and lowered the gun. He and Harrison knelt down as Suzanne struggled from the
crawl space on her stomach; they both helped her to her feet. She was filthy, her jacket and khakis covered with dirt and cobwebs, but to Harrison she looked absolutely gorgeous.
He was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt; impulsively, he grabbed her and squeezed her tightly, not giving a damn anymore what the colonel thought. She responded gratefully, hugging back with enthusiasm at first, but then something caused her to stiffen in his embrace. She wormed free. "I'll have you know that I am not uptight!" she said indignantly, brushing at the spiderwebs in her straight, dark brown hair. "I am a pro/mional!"
He laughed at the realization she had been honestly insulted by his remark. Still giddy with relief, he said, "A professional who doesn't know how to take orders. You were supposed to stay hidden back in the forest, remember? I spent one hell of a night looking for you."
She bristled a little at that. "You neglected to tell me that those things—aliens—were going to be crawling all over. By the time I slipped away and worked my way down here, you and the colonel were doing your off-road routine." She pointed at the crawl space. "This seemed like a good place to wait things out. You think you spent a hell of a night. I was down there trying to negotiate with the rats and the snakes! And it was freezing last night—I'm still shivering." She rubbed her arms in an effort to warm herself, and craned her neck to peer anxiously around. "The aliens—where are they?"
"Hard to say now," Ironhorse replied, stooping to 297
retrieve one of the makeshift weapons from the ground. "From their tracks, I'd say they split up in a dozen directions." He held the weapon up, letting it dangle. "This is some weird stuff we're dealing with here. A bola made from what looks like baling wire and old gears. I saw a stripped-down old tractor behind the barn." He looked over at Harrison. "The truck was parked in the bam, all right; there are tire tracks in there that came from an eighteen-wheeler, along with more empty barrels—-I counted thirty-six. Truck's gone now, and they must have taken the unopened barrels with them."
Harrison closed his eyes and turned away, sickened. He had hoped to stop them while there were only a handful free, before they'd had a chance to release any of the others.
"If they made these, they must be pretty intelligent," Ironhorse continued. "But the weirdest thing about all this are the terrorists who don't act like terrorists . . . who don't die like terrorists. At first I thought that maybe there were human beings behind all this. Then I thought maybe some strange cooperation between humans and aliens. But now . .."
Harrison turned back to look at him. "Whatever they were, Colonel, they weren't human."
"Agreed." Ironhorse shook his head as if unable to believe what he had seen. "If I tell my superiors, they'll give me a Section Eight so fast my head would spin. But I know what I saw. A body dissolved after I shot it—the same way it happened with the guy Reynolds shot just before he was killed."
"I saw it too," Harrison told him grimly.
"So did I." Suzanne nodded thoughtfully, omv again in scientist mode. "I've been thinking about that. Did you notice how clumsily they moved, almost as if. .." She faltered, then continued. "As if they weren't used to their own bodies?" She glanced at Ironhorse. "Maybe you'll think / qualify for a Section Eight after this, but it seemed to me that the aliens were controlling those bodies, the way one would a puppet. Either mentally, or, more likely, from within."
Harrison gaped at her, astounded. "You mean an alien inside a human body? Come on, Suzanne, we bot
h know that's impossible!"
"Is it?" she responded coolly, arching a delicate brow at him. "Where's your much-touted imagination, Dr. Blackwood?"
Ironhorse seemed interested. "Shut up and listen," he told Harrison. "She's got a point. When that guy dissolved, it seemed he had something black inside-something that didn't belong. Hell, you've got the remains of three of them around here ... all you need to do is take a look." He turned to Suzanne. "But they dissolved .. . just like something out of a grade-B horror flick,"
She nodded. "This is all pure conjecture, but maybe, in order to exit the human body, the alien secretes a strong acid. It would destroy the host, of course."
"And the alien, too, if it was hurt or couldn't make it out in time," Ironhorse finished, stroking his chin.
Harrison frowned. "Like you say, Suzanne, it's all pure conjecture. But at least we've got the concrete proof Uncle General Wilson wanted. If we can just figure out a way to transport some of those bodies with us."
Ironhorse removed his jacket. "You can use this," he said as Suzanne grimaced and Harrison looked uncertain. The colonel shrugged. "But whatever we do, let's do it fast before they come back."
Within a matter of hours they were face-to-face with General Wilson in a borrowed office at Vanden-berg Air Force Base. Wilson stood contemplating the sunny fall morning beyond the window, one loosely clenched hand resting against the small of his back, the other holding the bowl of his pipe.
Seated behind him were his niece and Harrison, who slumped wearily in the straight-back wooden chair and tried to ignore his throbbing back, aggravated by the hours spent sitting in the helicopter and then waiting to see Wilson.
Suzanne looked far better than Harrison felt. She sat upright in the chair, hands folded in her lap, and her damn-the-torpedoes expression combined with the determined tilt of her chin gave Harrison comfort. Clearly, she and the general were made of the same stem stuff. During the past few days, Harrison reflected, she'd given more like three hundred percent than a hundred fifty. He shot her an encouraging look. She saw, but was too focused on what Wilson was saying to acknowledge.
J.M. Dillard - War of Worlds: The Resurrection Page 22