by C. E. Martin
Jason hesitated. "Uh, a vampire."
"No- I'm no vampire," Josie said.
"But you froze that camera- I saw you do it."
"It's an ability I have," Josie said. "Cryokinesis."
"Are you an alien?"
Laura laughed. "Alien? You believe in that?"
Jason felt a little angry at being mocked. But when he glared at Laura, the emotion quickly faded and he looked down at his lap. He was still scared of her.
"We're parahumans," Josie said. "At least, that's what the government calls us. We have paranomal abilities the rest of population doesn't."
"So, I'm a mutant?"
Laura poked Jimmy in the ribs, startling him. "You look pretty normal to me, kid."
"It's like eye color," Josie explained. "Recessive genes that go dominant every now and then, unlocking different abilities."
"Genes?" Jason asked. "So my parents were parahumans?"
"At least one of them carried the gene," Laura said. "Although, they might not have known it."
"So where'd they get the genes?" Jason asked.
"You really want to know?" Laura asked.
Something about the way Laura said it frightened Jason. He decided to let it drop, for now. "What about the guy who that killed my parents?"
"We don't know," Laura said. "Maybe he was something else. I'm no parahuman expert."
Jason considered for a moment. "You said different abilities. What kind? I mean, you freeze stuff, and I get really strong."
"Well, there's precogs, and post-" Josie started to say.
"That's classified," Laura interrupted. "Our boss will decide just how much you need to know."
"Is that who I'm going to see- in Georgia? Is that where you guys are from?"
Laura smiled again. "Our boss is finishing up some other business there. But he was very keen on meeting you right away."
CHAPTER TEN
The sun had set many hours earlier, and the battlefield was now cast in darkness. Fires were twinkling here and there, near the rows and rows of tents set up on either side of the site.
Clint could see the entire battlefield and park from where he hovered in the sky, some several hundred feet up. He was now wearing regular street clothes- blue jeans, a dark sweater and work boots. At this height the air was cold and whipped through his blond hair and new beard, but he ignored it. He was a titan, looking down on the pitiful humans below him.
But it wasn't just the humans and their camps he could see. After his time in the land of the dead, he could see those the living could not. Those for whom life was now a mystery, rather than death. Some lingered around the site, faded, almost invisible. Wraiths curious about all the humans that had gathered here. Others were still below ground, resting in the earth on which they had died so long ago.
Clint slowly drifted down to the site, landing near the southern encampment. The few spirits in his vicinity were curious and began to drift over. As they approached, he began to feed them.
It was something he had not been able to do in his lifetime. Then, bound to the body he had been born into, he had only absorbed energy, using it for the many powers he had unlocked over the years. But now, after his resurrection and possession of mortal shells, he had learned other ways to use that energy.
The spirits around him seemed to brighten and solidify as they drank in the raw power. They became visible to even human eyes, manifesting as sparkling, shimmering shapes even as a dense fog began to rise from the ground.
More spirits rose with that fog. They sensed the power emanating from Clint in his stolen body. They drifted toward him, from all across the battlefield.
Clint could sense their thoughts, their feelings. They felt him as well- an unspoken sense of connection between spirits.
The many specters gathering around Clint were angry. Not at this newcomer, but at their condition. The energy that now gave them form fueled their rage at dying. At least most of them. Many, hovering on the outskirts were unsure. They hesitated to come forward. They were not what Clint needed. He needed shades of anger and hatred, ready to resume the killing they had been called to do a hundred and fifty years ago. He carefully drew the power away from the curious and complacent, watching them fade from existence. He gave it to the angry.
Soon, he had a force of over fifty shades. Shades of gray- of the South, ready to wreak revenge on the living. They would be enough for tonight. It was time to start his campaign.
Turning, Clint extended an arm and gestured toward the encampment of humans on the other side of the battlefield. He didn't need to do this- the ghostly army was firmly under his control, and knew his wishes. But it felt right to gesture.
The shades extended into a long skirmish line and began marching forward, rifles materializing in their hands.
Clint smiled. The smile quickly faded as something caught his attention from the corner of his mortal eye. He turned and saw something hovering over the battlefield. A shape. Nearly invisible, man-shaped, and a good twenty feet off the ground.
The form, now more clearly that of a woman, started as he stared at it. It knew it was being watched. But what was it?
Clint took a step toward the being- if that is what it was. It contained energy, but not like those of his own small army. It seemed strangely alive.
The strange, nearly-invisible form suddenly streaked from the battlefield- moving at a speed that Clint himself could never hope to achieve. It flew rapidly to the southeast, vanishing in under a second. He strained to see it, first with his eyes, then with his other senses, but the figure was gone.
A chill crept up Clint's spine. It was fear- fear of the unknown. He was amazed he could feel this, after having been dead himself. It seemed that death was not the final mystery after all. He swallowed and forced the feeling away. He needed to concentrate on something else. Like the screams ringing out from the encampment to the north.
He turned and saw that his army had begun firing their rifles- silently sending spectral balls of shot into the fabric tents and bodies there. The dead had begun their attack upon the living.
***
The battle had only been raging for only fifteen minutes, but it was fifteen minutes of pure hell for Tom Hye. The Civil War reenactor had come to Georgia to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga. He'd brought all his finest period clothing and equipment and was prepared for a glorious weekend of reliving a historic moment in American history. In the morning- after a good night's sleep.
That sleep was interrupted by the sound of screams. Tom leapt from his bunk and pulled on his boots, bending over to hold a boot in place as he jammed his wool-socked foot into it. Amid the screams outside he heard a whistling. Looking up from his boots, he saw a hole in the fabric wall of his tent.
Another whistling sounded, right beside Tom's ear, and another hole appeared in the tent wall. It suddenly dawned on him that a musket ball had just flown past his head. He turned slowly on his folding cot. He saw two matching holes in the canvas. His tent had been shot. Twice.
The last bit of sleep faded from Tom's mind and he dove for the ground. The screaming outside was a mix of terror and pain- not jubilant reenactors gleefully reliving the past. These were real screams- of people really dying.
Tom belly-crawled across the grass floor of his tent and poked his head out. Men in Union uniforms were running around in utter chaos- many screaming, many pale with fear. But they were not alone.
Men in gray uniforms were present, thrusting with their muskets, bayonets stabbing at the men in blue. Others held rifles to their shoulders and fired- emitting bright, noiseless flashes. These silent, surreal volleys were followed by the Union reenactors suddenly sprawling to the ground, blood flying from their bodies.
This was real combat. And the Northerners were being butchered.
A scream sounded nearby, much louder than the others, due to its proximity. Tom glanced over and saw one of the men he knew from prior reenactments drop to his knees
, a bayonet protruding from his chest.
The bayonet glimmered then faded away- not retracting, but simply vanishing into thin air. As the dead man, Jamie, fell onto his face, Tom could see his killer. A Confederate in full foot soldier's uniform, wearing a wide-brimmed, floppy hat.
The soldier turned toward Tom and he felt his blood run cold in his veins. It was not a human face that looked at him. It was the face of a skull, surrounded in an eerie sheath of mist-like gray. It opened its mouth and seemed to scream silently.
Then it was standing in front of him.
The ghostly figure had simply dissolved and swept forward, like smoke caught in a strong wind. It then resolidified right before Tom, seemingly human. It raised its musket high, ready to thrust down and spear Tom's head with its shimmering bayonet.
Tom closed his eyes, bracing for his immediate death.
Then he heard a new sound, over the screaming. The sound of helicopters.
Tom opened one eye, then the other, peeking up at the ghostly Confederate standing over him. It had turned its spectral head and was looking out, over the battlefield. Then it turned smoke-like again, and was swept away, moving toward the sound of the helicopters.
Tom stood slowly on legs that quivered and felt rubbery. He squinted and tried to look through the darkness. He saw blinking green and red lights coming in fast, only a hundred feet above the treetops to the southeast.
Helicopters- Army helicopters. UH-60 Blackhawks, Tom knew. He was, after all, a student of all eras of military history- not just the Civil War.
The Blackhawks, three of them, were loud now, their engines and rotors a roar that muffled the sound of the screams in the encampment. The helicopters were moving at full speed, and swept over the site in seconds. But not before dropping something. Five somethings.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Ghost Walker astral scout had been right. The army was little more than four dozen shades, marching on the encampment of Northern re-enactors. Colonel Kenslir and his stone soldiers had taken to the air immediately and were over the site in less than fifteen minutes. Ambulances would take slightly longer to get there, as would the many soldiers from nearby Camp Merrill that had been assigned to assist with the mop up.
There was no time to slow for a normal air drop. Every second, the shades were killing or wounding civilians. Kenslir knew this was unavoidable- a precognitive's visions were never completely avoidable.
On his cue, the two helicopters flanking his own banked, peeling away from the formation. Almost immediately, the stone soldiers on board leapt out- two from each aircraft. Small drogue chutes deployed behind them, pulled by static lines that broke away from the helicopters after their job was completed. The 'chutes sudden breaking action decelerated the soldiers to more manageable speeds, then broke away, letting the men of stone drop the last twenty feet on their own.
Each soldier was all in black, wearing assault vests and low-slung holsters on their right thighs. They bristled with pouches and equipment, and had oversized goggles covering their eyes.
Colonel Kenslir, dressed the same as his men, leapt from his own helicopter- his 'chute snapping open for a second then breaking away. He plummeted down, crashing into a tent, splintering its wood frame and collapsing it completely.
He leapt up from the ground, noting he'd dislocated his ankle in the rough landing. Raising his leg slightly, he forced the foot back into position and let his healing powers take over. The ligaments and tendons quickly mended as he unlimbered the weapon strapped across his chest.
In the head-up view of his tactical targeting visor, Kenslir saw the superimposed markers indicating the stone soldiers- Atlas, Zeus, Hades and Janus. All were on their feet as well, bringing their weapons to bear.
Kenslir bent his legs at the knees then vaulted up and out of the collapsed tent, an inhuman leap that carried him twenty feet up and almost twice that forward. His boots tore up soft chunks of sod when he landed- right behind a cluster of specters watching over the battlefield the stone soldiers had just plummeted onto.
The Colonel swept up, silent, behind the first ghost and thrust his fist into its back. Green light flared around his hand and the ghost broke apart- reduced to smoke-like wisps that scattered in every direction.
Another ghost spun around as its companion was disintegrated. A bright flash of purple speared into it and it spilled apart like smoke caught in a strong breeze.
Across the battlefield, more flashes of purple were showing up. Thin, pencil-like beams, erupting from the barrels of the submachinegun-sized weapons the stone soldiers were now firing. Ghosts were flashing brightly and vanishing with each hit.
Kenslir fired his own weapon once more, disrupting another specter. A fourth lunged at him, or near him. It missed the Colonel by a good foot. He lashed out with his rifle, sweeping it through the solid-looking ghost's head.
The ghost flickered and flashed as the weapon passed through it and disrupted its energy. When it reformed a half-second later, it was no longer solid, but spectral and translucent. It looked around in what clearly showed as terror on its human-like face, bewildered and afraid, and unable to see its attacker.
Kenslir kicked the ghost in its torso. Green light flared around his boot and the specter erupted in a flash then was gone.
***
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
From the top of a large catering truck, Clint watched the battle with a growing sense of dread. The screams of dying men had faded away after the three helicopters had swept overhead. Now an eerie silence hung over the area and purplish flashes lit up the fog.
Clint concentrated, ignoring the input of his eyes and seeing with his mind. With his clairvoyant vision, he could see for miles, could look past solid matter. Seeing through fog would be trivial.
Clint's jaw dropped open in shock.
Hidden in the fog were four man-shaped forms, each glowing with a bright energy. They fired short weapons from their shoulders- lasers- that lanced out and disrupted his ghosts.
The spectral soldiers were being defeated- blown apart by concentrated ultraviolet beams of light. Clint's small army was fading fast.
He leapt into the air and raced toward the closest glowing man, shifting back to his human vision. The fog was thinner up close, and as he landed from his short flight he could see that the man was all in black- a soldier. Where his oversized goggles didn't conceal his face, Clint could make out gray and black camouflage streaks of face paint.
The soldier seemed surprised at Clint's arrival. He shifted his aim and fired three quick pulses. Each caught Clint in the chest. They burned slightly- possibly strong enough to burn paper. But they did him no real harm.
Clint swept forward at maximum speed and struck. His fist slammed into the soldier's jaw in a vicious, high-speed roundhouse. There was a satisfying crunch of bones breaking. Then Clint felt the pain.
He had just broken every bone in his hand. It was a pulped mess at the end of his arm. He looked up at the soldier before him, bewildered. Then a boot struck him in the face.
The kick was so strong, Clint was sure it had broken his neck. He was flung backwards and landed on his back, sliding in the wet grass for several body lengths.
Clint leapt back to his feet, his hand and neck instantly healed. He squinted his eyes, staring at the soldier who was now ignoring him, again firing purple laser blasts into the fog at nearby shades.
The soldier's face wasn't painted black and gray. It was gray with streaks of black. The soldier was made of stone.
Clint looked closer. A name tag over the soldier's right breast pocket identified him: HADES.
Clint swept in again, this time pouring energy into both fists, willing them to be indestructible. He struck the stone soldier with all his might, in the stomach.
Hades was knocked off his feet, his weapon flying from his hands. Clint caught the strange-looking rifle and examined it closely. It was heavy. Very heavy. Made from what appeared to be thick iron. Not s
teel, but pure iron. It had simple sights and a trigger, and an opening at the end of the barrel. Otherwise it was featureless- a smooth construct.
Clint threw the laser to the side, where it vanished into the fog.
The stone soldier was back on his feet now, and had drawn a pistol from a low hanging thigh holster. He fired it at Clint.
The sudden, double report of the pistol reverberated across the battlefield, the first loud noise for many minutes.
Clint ignored the two bullets that had flattened against his chest. He swept forward and batted the pistol away. The stone soldier, Hades, was strong, but he was no match for Clint.
He wrapped his fingers around HADES' throat and began to squeeze. Then he hesitated. His arms were nearly on fire as energy poured out of the stone soldier and into him.
***
Jimmy Kane didn't know who this newcomer to the fight was, but if he could fly, he wasn't taking any chances. When his laser had proven the newcomer was flesh and blood, Jimmy had resorted to hand-to-hand combat. For the past month, Captain Smith and Colonel Phillips had been teaching him a variety of unarmed techniques. He had become quite proficient.
The newcomer was far stronger than he looked though, and had recovered from a kick Jimmy knew could split steel. He had then switched to his sidearm, a .44 magnum Desert Eagle. It had proven ineffective.
Not only was the newcomer strong, he was fast. He had knocked Jimmy's pistol away as effortlessly as he had the iron pulse laser rifle. Then he'd closed the distance and grappled with Jimmy.
At first, Jimmy had almost laughed. The newcomer was trying to strangle him. Then he'd recoiled in horror as he began to feel the pressure being applied to his stone throat. That wasn't possible.
Jimmy reflexively clawed at the hands around his neck. He watched in disbelief as his fingertips lost their gray color and began to turn back to flesh. The pressure on his neck wasn't choking him now, but he couldn't break the grip. He began to feel heavy. And cold.