by neetha Napew
The night was passing and the frame house was settling, its beams accommodating to the bitter chill of the darkness outside.
Mac stood again and stared across what had once been a shady and pleasant garden. It had now become a cleared firezone with good lines of fire running from side to side and no dead zones to shelter crawling enemies.
Behind him the iron-framed piano still stood against the wall. The moonlight gave enough of a glow for him to be able to read the title of the sheet music that stood open—a song from the middle part of the previous century, called "Daydream Believer." It had always been one of the favorites of his daughter Pamela.
He resisted the temptation to tap out the melody and hum the words about the reality of life that confronts the homecoming queen.
There was a photograph on top of the piano, and Mac leaned forward to look carefully at it. It had been taken nearly three years ago on a bright summer afternoon, smiling eyes gazing toward the time-set camera.
The clouds feathered away from the edges of the moon, and the room became brighter. Somehow it seemed to make it colder, and Mac, only wearing a cutoff pair of stone-washed jeans, shivered.
He picked up the picture, remembering the moment as he wiped a smear of dust from it.
John had been around seventeen. The stubble of his first beard glowed gold in the photo like an inverted halo.
Paul, a year younger, had his hands folded in his lap. Mac had noticed too late that the boy was giving the finger to the camera.
Pamela had bangs back then, a fringe of hair dangling over the veiled brown eyes. A hint of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Was that because she'd started to secretly see Dermot, the local leader of the pack?
He angled the picture, realizing with a shake of the head how like her mother, Jeanne, his oldest daughter was.
The background had puzzled him for a few moments, his memory blurring on him. Now he saw it was a patch of cropped turf near the tumbling waters of the Ottauquechee, not far from White River Junction, up in Vermont.
A long, deep gorge, the rocky walls smothered in mosses and lichens. A long green cavern. Now he guessed that it would all be tainted with the Earthblood crimson, dead and barren under the covering of snow.
Quechee Gorge. Helen had been just six years old when the two families got together for one of their regular picnics. She'd misheard the name of the place and had insisted on calling it "Greasy George." It was a saying that entered the annals of the McGill tribe.
Jocelyn and Jack were standing on either side of Angel, who was waving a mock-angry hand at being photographed. Little Sukie, still in diapers, was sitting on her lap, pudgy fist in her mouth, eyes rolled back as though the clouds were the most interesting things in the entire universe.
Mac slowly and carefully replaced the picture on top of the old rosewood piano. That had been in the long-gone days of 2037, immeasurably far away now. The only good thing about it was that they were all still alive, and together.
The big man moved again to look out at the side gardens of Melville Avenue, Mystic.
Paul and John had flattened the fence between their property and the Cordells' on the left side. Jeanne had told him how their neighbors had vanished a day after the National Guard had closed the highways and never returned.
There was an empty lot on the opposite side. There had once been a small Unitarian chapel there, but it had burned down in the late 1990s and never been rebuilt.
In the sinking moonlight the ground sloped away toward a small brook. Beulah Creek, narrow in summer and frozen over in winter. Beyond that was the dark mass of Howell's Coppice, the woods stretching for about fifteen acres, mainly overgrown spruce and a few oaks.
Now it was a maze of dead trees, the stark stumps standing jagged and clawed like tumbled monoliths in an ancient graveyard.
Mac turned away, wondering again about Jim Hilton and the others, getting solace from the security of the house.
BEHIND MAC, unseen among the coniferous cemetery, a cluster of dark shadows squatted. Eyes glinted in the moonlight, watching the fortress-home.
One of them, taller than the rest, made a beckoning gesture.
"God smiles on us, brethren."
"Hallelujah, Preacher Casey," came the ragged, pattered response.
"Jesus wishes us to go forth and slay the greedy unbelievers."
"Amen, Preacher, amen to that."
An ax blade, chipped and scored, shone silver among the dead trees. "They that have shall have not. They that take shall give, yea, to the last drop of their evil blood."
"And we get the woman, Casey," growled a deep voice.
"Sure we do, Brother Glass."
"When shall the butchering begin, Preacher?"
The elongated, tattered figure turned and grinned. "What's wrong with now, brethren?"
Chapter Three
Nanci Simms was at Jim Hilton's shoulder, right hand shading her eyes against the moonlight that shimmered over the rocky desert to the far north of Calico.
"Chopper, coming in low and fast," he said.
"Old Chinook. Half speed. Don't know what kind of fuel they're using, but it doesn't sound like top-quality aviation spirit, does it?"
"You sure it's a Chinook? Last time I saw one it was in a museum near Anaheim."
"Yeah. Started building the old Vertol 114 about eighty years ago. Six hundred saw service in Nam. One of them brought out nearly two hundred refugees in a single hop."
He looked at the blur of her face. "How come you know so much, Nanci?"
"Hobby. Like the War Between the States. Because I'm a woman, Jim, doesn't mean that I have to spend all of my resting moments lying on a chaise lounge and embroidering roses and lilies on sanitary pads. Does it?"
He was glad that it was too dark for the acid-tongued woman to see him blushing. "Sorry, Nanci," he mumbled.
"Old Chinook. Two free-turbine turboshafts. Sixty-foot rotors and fifty-foot fuselage. Well, fifty-one feet if you want to be pedantic, Jim. Maximum speed just under two hundred miles an hour. Want the rest of the specs?"
"No. No, thanks."
"Who is it, Dad?" asked Heather, standing at his side in a cotton T-shirt and trainers.
"Could be the good guys," he said.
"Zelig?" That was Steve Romero, with his son, Sly, holding his arm.
"Might be."
Nanci Simms whistled softly between her teeth. Jim Hilton had already noticed that she was somehow fully dressed and armed. The Port Royale machine pistol was in her left hand, the matched pair of Heckler & Koch P-111 automatics on each hip.
"Everyone for a hundred miles around'll have heard them coming in." It was almost as if she was talking to herself.
"Meaning what, Nanci?"
"Meaning that I hope they got a good ground lookout ahead of them."
"The fake cops?" Jeff Thomas was one of the last to join the watchers.
"Very good, Jefferson," she said sarcastically. "Your memory is getting better."
"Think they might try and attack them?" Jim paused, struck by an afterthought. "Or us?"
A part of him wondered why he was deferring to Nanci Simms. What did a sixty-year-old teacher know about combat? Then again, what did a thirty-three-year-old United States space commander know about combat? Not a lot, he concluded.
"Going away," said Sly in a booming voice. "Big noise going away."
Everyone listened intently. Carrie Princip broke the silence. "Damned if he's not right. Sound's going to the east."
"Good boy," said Steve, patting the big teenager on the shoulder.
"Yeah, Dad, me heard it going away, the big, big noise."
"Coming in on a figure-eight recon pattern," said Nanci Simms.
"Who do you think it is?" Jim asked her.
"Know about the same as you do, Captain. You could engrave our joint knowledge on the head of a pin and still have room for an angelic host."
"Swinging back again," said Kyle Lynch. "Look, you can see its na
vigation lights."
"Stupid bastards," hissed Nanci with a sudden, surprising venom. "Why aren't they playing 'Hail to the Chief and letting off fireworks? If I was…" She allowed the sentence to trail off into the California night.
"How do we know they're on our side?" asked Heather Hilton.
"We don't. But it makes most sense, after the messages for us to be here in Calico. They're heading away toward the west now."
Kyle lynch looked around them. "Think we ought to try and show some lights for them to land? Some rough terrain here."
Jim nodded. "Good idea. Could use the Mercedes for a start."
"Don't think that's a good idea, Jim."
Somehow the woman's interruption wasn't a surprise. "Why's that, Nanci?" he asked, managing to keep a tight rein on his anger.
"They've got infrared night scopes on the Chinook. Been standard for ten or twenty years now. Also we don't want to bring in anyone else who might be waiting and watching out there."
"You're paranoid, lady," said Carrie Princip. "You reckon there's black hats behind every cactus?"
Nanci turned slowly, smiling with perfect teeth at the younger woman. "I'm not paranoid, doctor. They really are out to get me. That was the old joke, Second Navigator Princip. Funny joke, in the old times. Sort of joke your parents might have found profoundly amusing—once."
"What do you know about my parents?"
"Nothing. Semi wiped them away a couple of years or so ago. Silver wedding anniversary, was it not, Carrie?" A measured pause. "Not too far from Yellowstone, I believe."
"How the fuck d'you know?"
"Obscenities in the mouth of a woman are as maggots within the heart of a rose."
Carrie insisted, ignoring the gathering rumble as the chopper made another diagonal turn and came swooping in low toward them. "I asked how you know about my parents? How could you know?"
The light blue eyes seemed to reflect the moonlight like silvered contact lenses. Jim was watching Nanci and he saw the way her lips tightened.
"Jeff told me."
Carrie spun around, staring at the journalist. "Did you?"
"What?"
"Tell her?"
Jeff shook his head, blinking, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry, Carrie, I didn't…"
Nanci held her hand on his arm. "I was telling Carrie that you had recounted the dismal saga of her parents' untimely ending, Jeff."
"You were…" The wheels and gears moved slowly and meshed. "Oh, yeah. Sure. I told Nanci about it, Carrie."
"Getting closer," said Sly.
The helicopter was jinking from side to side, the Doppler effect of its engines bouncing off the shadowed walls of the arroyos around the ghost town, making it difficult to judge how far away the chopper actually was. But it certainly seemed to be drawing nearer.
"If there are any hostiles out there," began Steve Romero hesitantly, "the chopper should be able to pick them up. Don't they have night scopes and heat seekers on board?"
Jim answered him, getting in before Nanci. "Sure. But if it's Zelig, they'll likely be concentrating on finding us."
A searchlight suddenly stabbed into the darkness, like a spear of dazzling whiteness. Everyone blinked and tried to shade their eyes.
"Fireworks, Dad," said Sly, hugging himself excitedly.
"Anyone hiding out there with even a Kentucky musket could bring them down," said Nanci to nobody in particular. "They have to be very confident. Or just dumb."
There was a loud hissing, crackling sound, as though a speaker had been switched on.
"They have missiles?" Jim asked.
"Sure. Some kind of SRAMs most likely. An AGM-74F? Something like that. Bigger missile like the old Maverick? Could be a pair of Dirty Harrys. The Mark 10s? Sure, they got plenty of power. But attacking from the ground to a chopper is much like shooting fish in a barrel. As I've said, either they're confident and they're sweeping as they go, or they are seriously dumb."
The crackling grew louder as the Chinook came lower, close enough for them all to feel the dusty downdraft from the twin blades. Sly covered his eyes and cried out in alarm, but Steve put his arm around the boy, reassuring him.
The spotlight was cutting toward them, faltering over the buildings at the top of the hill by the old mine workings.
"Captain Hilton!!" The volume was deafening, close to pain level.
"Shit!" Jim clapped his hands over his ears, wincing from the roaring voice. Booming and unrecognizable, it battered the senses.
"Captain Hilton and the crew of the Aquila!" Someone on board the chopper must have realized that they were too loud. The thunder diminished. "Anyone there in Calico? Anyone knows about Operation Tempest? Show yourselves."
Now the voice was recognizably human and certainly unlike General John Kennedy Zelig's strange, thin little tones. This was a robust man, whose voice had what sounded like an Idaho twang to it.
The Chinook was about two hundred yards away, to the north of the ghost town, hovering over a maze of dry ravines.
"Why don't they come right in?" yelled Jeff Thomas at the top of his voice, then added barely audibly, "If they know we're here."
Nobody bothered to answer him.
"This is transport from Operation Tempest. We know the Aquila made it down and we know there were several nonsurvivors. Sorry we're a day late on the rendezvous here. Tech problems. Come on out, folks. We can… Okay, we got you on the scanners. Stay there and watch the dust. Coming in."
Now the blinding light had located them, sucking them into a cone of brightness so powerful it almost felt like being trapped in a force field.
Jim Hilton held his breath, feeling like a fly trapped in amber. He was aware of Sly Romero screaming in terror.
Then, above it all came the noise of gunfire.
Chapter Four
Henderson McGill was on his way back up the wide staircase, fingers brushing lightly against the balustrade, when he was startled by the jagged sound of breaking glass.
It came from the front room downstairs, which overlooked Melville Avenue, and the noise repeated from the kitchen. Someone yelled out in the darkness.
Then wood splintered as if someone was throwing a jimmy hard against the back door.
"Attack!" shouted Mac at the top of his voice. "We're being attacked!"
More glass shattered, this time in the side room, where they stored most of the emergency food. He turned his head, listening, trying like an animal to work out how many were out there. Had to be half a dozen. Probably a lot more, judging by the yelping.
Paul was first out on the landing, holding a 12-gauge pump action in his left hand, wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
"Get yourself a gun, Dad," he said, voice as calm as if he was suggesting putting more catsup on a toasted bun.
John was at the top of the stairs, his muscular body a pale blur in the darkness. "Don't anyone touch the lights," he called. "Little ones stay put. You all know what to do."
Now both of the women were out of their rooms, with seventeen-year-old Pamela at their heels. All of them held identical .32-caliber automatics, SIG-Sauer P-230s, each with eight rounds. They ignored Mac, who was still standing on the stairs. Jeanne pushed past him and crouched at the bottom, while Angel went beyond her, stopping at the end of the hallway to kneel by the door through to the kitchen. Both of them kept silent. Pamela followed John toward the stairs to the third floor, where the attic windows would give a good field of fire out around the house on all sides.
Paul was still on the landing, checking that everyone was doing what they should be doing, going where they should be going. The noise from below and out in the watery moonlight was louder—more glass and breaking wood.
"Dad?" he said quietly.
"Yeah. Shit, these bastards, son."
"Just go get a scattergun from our bedroom. They're all loaded and ready to use." His voice became sharper. "Don't freeze on me, Dad. Either do it right now or go with the little ones. You're in the fucking way, sta
nding there."
The snap of anger got through to Henderson McGill, and he nodded. "Sure, I hear you."
He was up the stairs and into his sons' room, seeing the gun cabinet against the wall. He'd built the shelves himself, over there, opposite the window, to accommodate Helen's extensive and hideous collection of Gerty the Goat models, in all of the clattering shades of fluorescent purples and pinks. Now it was just wall-to-wall weaponry.
Above him there was the vibrating boom of guns opening fire on their attackers and a choking scream from the garden.
There was enough light for him to make out a row of Winchester pump-action shotguns, 12-gauge, 8-round, Defender 1700 models.
But the first weapon that came to his hand was his own scattergun. Mac had bought it in Boston around the time, seven or eight years ago, when he'd first started taking the two oldest boys duck shooting up in the Adirondacks.
It was an imported shotgun, from Italy. As he took it down, the blued-steel weapon felt just right, like using a familiar razor to shave. A 16-gauge pump action, it held only five rounds.
It was made by Luco Brazzi & Sons of Genoa. His fingers brushed over their engraved trademark on the receiver—a man's head, with curly hair, eyes closed, surrounded by a number of lethal, elegant pike.
Mac had promised himself a second-hand English Purdey for his fiftieth birthday and had even got a separate account in the First National. He'd been halfway to the fifty-five thousand dollars it was likely to cost him. Maybe more with inflation.
"Not now," he whispered to himself. "Not now and not ever."
Clutching the weapon to his chest, Mac realized with a start that he'd been letting his mind wander. All around him there was a chaos of shooting and yelling. The harsh smell of cordite drifted into his nostrils.
The house was suffering a serious attack, and the family was in danger.
His house and his family.
"Right," he said, levering one under the hammer. "Right."
FOR ONE HEART-STOPPING, hideous moment, Mac nearly pulled the trigger on his children. His nerves were stretched so tight that the unexpected flurry of movement as he ran into the small dark bedroom made him jump.