Beasts of Byron (Silvers Invasion Book 2)

by Alex Mersey

  He’d always had a nervous stomach when it came to blood and gaping wounds, but apparently that had changed without him really noticing. He regretted these deaths, worried that maybe it hadn’t needed to be this way, but the actual horror of the scene, that he observed with a distant eye.

  I killed a handful of men and now I no longer see their blood.

  What happens once I’ve killed a dozen?

  Will I no longer see their deaths?

  A part of him wanted to embrace the change, especially once they’d opened the second cage and released the women. He went down on his knees with Lynn, wrapped her and Johnnie so close to him that he felt Lynn’s heart beat against his and Johnnie’s warm breath on his jaw. He watched Beth and Allira across the room, wrapped up in their own hug, Jackson with a surly looking kid that must be his brother Jake, and he wanted to be the man who’d do what he’d done—who’d do a hundred times worse—to make this possible.

  Another, larger, part felt like the world was spinning beneath his feet and he couldn’t stand still and he couldn’t jump. He did not want to be a killer. He’d slaughter a million Silvers with a grin on his face, but he did not want to be a killer of his fellow man. No matter who they’d become or what they’d done. He was not the hammer of justice or the executioner’s noose.

  As Clint had predicted, the townsmen had found their way here to reunite with their families and it wasn’t long before the surge of panic pushed through Sean’s awareness and broke him out of Lynn and Johnnie’s hug.

  The missing people.

  Not just men, Sean quickly realized, but women and children, too.

  “They took twelve of us,” Lynn said, rising to her feet with him. “Beth already told us, you haven’t come across them.”

  “Clint’s searching the building now.” Sean shoved a hand through his hair, looked around and found Chris talking to a dark haired girl, looked further and saw Williams standing slightly apart from the crowd. “I’ll go check it out.”

  “Stay right here a minute, okay, sweetie?” Lynn told Johnnie and followed him. “We can’t let our guard down yet, can we?” she said softly. “How many are still out there?”

  He sent her a sidelong look and she nudged her chin toward Williams, who held his carbine loosely in one hand but with a secure grip on the charging handle.

  “Soldiers?” he clarified.

  Her eyes came to him and hardened. “Beth said the Silvers were all dead.”

  “So far as we know.”

  “And soldiers?”

  “Not many, but we haven’t managed to come together yet and tally our numbers. We’ve got men scouring the building.”

  “I haven’t heard gunfire in ages.”

  “Take that as a good sign.”

  “Or not.”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” he sighed, wished he could do better.

  “I’m not blaming you,” Lynn said. “Sorry.” She rubbed her brow. “God, I just want this to be over.”

  “You and me both.”

  Williams opened his mouth to say something as they reached him, but they never got to find out what.

  “No one move,” commanded a gruff voice, loud enough to freeze the room. “No one twitch a damned eyelid.”

  Two parallel passages fed into the reception area, the glass tunnel behind them and a white-walled passageway from which Captain Davis had appeared. The white-haired captain with broad shoulders that Sean had once thought could carry the world if all else failed. Now he pointed an assault rifle on a crowd of civilians, on women and children, but his heavy-browed gaze was directed at the real threat, Williams.

  Williams’ weapon had been raised and trained on the captain before he’d gotten to the second half of that command. “What are you doing, Davis?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave,” Captain Davis said. “It’s not safe.”

  “It’s not safe in here,” Williams said smoothly, edging sideways as he spoke. Not advancing on the captain in an open challenge, but sidestepping toward the others.

  “Your opinion is duly noted and dismissed,” the captain said. “I need everyone back in that cell, you hear me?”

  Williams kept edging, closing the gap between himself and the rest of the group. “You’re outnumbered, Davis. We’ve got six guns on you.”

  Davis was no fool. He didn’t glance around to confirm the number of guns pointed at him. Instead he shifted his aim to the first small kid that crossed his line of vision, which happened to be Johnnie. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Don’t make an example out of this kid.”

  Lynn swallowed a cry of pain.

  “It’s okay,” Sean murmured beneath his breath. He reached for the M4 slung over his shoulder, slow and steady, but not too concerned about attracting Davis’ attention and becoming a target. That would give Williams his chance to take the shot.

  “Lower the rifle,” Williams said. “You don’t want to hurt a child.”

  “I said don’t move,” the captain said. “Or perhaps your hearing will improve if I turn my aim on your presidential charge.”

  Williams went dead still.

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” the captain drawled, his focus never leaving Johnnie. “Come stand over by me, son, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Johnnie’s eyes came to Lynn, huge and frightened.

  “Don’t do anything,” Sean breathed out quietly, barely moving his lips. He had his aim on the captain now, but he couldn’t take the shot, couldn’t risk the dead man’s reflex on the trigger any more than Williams. Not with that rifle pointed on Johnnie.

  “We’re just going to watch, you and me,” the captain said, his voice coaxing, “while everyone moves back into the cell. You want everyone to be safe, don’t you?”

  Johnnie took a tentative step forward.

  “Johnnie,” Lynn whispered. “No!”

  The kid couldn’t have heard that whisper, but he turned toward Lynn and Sean, looked like he was a second away from making a dash toward them.

  Shit. Every nerve in Sean’s body went on alert. What did he do now? What could he do now?

  Williams saw it first, a flicker in the captain’s eye, some telltale sign he’d been looking for. Davis opened fire and Williams leapt in front of Johnnie at the exact same moment, threw himself into that line of fire.

  Sean fired, a direct hit to the captain’s chest. The echo of another discharge sounded in the passage behind the captain and instead of being flung backward from the momentum of Sean’s hit, the man crashed forward to the floor.

  Noise erupted, shouts and screams and the chaotic clutter of everyone moving at once. Lynn ran to Johnnie, scooped the boy into her arms.

  Sean’s entire being strained to look for Williams, but he kept his focus on Captain Davis another long moment, his heart banging in his chest, his fingers tensed and ready to fire again if the man showed any indication of stirring. He didn’t, but movement caught Sean’s eye and his aim flashed over the captain’s body.

  Cassie stepped cautiously from the head of the passage, rifle sweeping side to side before her. She locked eyes with Sean, held his gaze for a split second, then her gaze moved on.

  “Fall in!” she called and her mismatched platoon of post-apocalyptic warriors filtered in behind her.

  Sean released a slow, shaken breath, lowered the M4 to dangle loosely by his side as his searching gaze pierced the throng of people. He saw Chris on his knees, a small cluster of people around him, and a weight pressed down on Sean’s chest. The weight of acceptance because he’d already known. You didn’t get to jump into the path of a speeding bullet and bounce back onto your feet.

  Williams wasn’t dead, yet, but it was only a matter of time, minutes. His stomach had been blown out, intestines exposed, blood trickling from his mouth.

  Still, Sean raised his voice, made the call as he dropped down beside Chris. “Is there a doctor here? Any kind of medic? We need a doctor!”

&nbs
p; Chris held onto Williams’ hand. His face was twisted in anguish, in shock. His jaw worked, but he was too choked to form words.

  The elderly woman bent over the other side of Williams gave him a sober look. “I’m a retired paramedic, but I don’t know, son, I don’t know—”

  “No,” Williams murmured, a weak rattle in his throat. “No time.”

  Chris found his voice. “You’re not going to leave me,” he said fiercely. “You promised me, you promised me you wouldn’t leave me.”

  “Chris, I’m sorry.” Williams’ bloodshot eyes came to Sean, his hand fluttered on the ground, as if he were trying to lift it. “I need you to…”

  Sean covered Williams’ hand with his as he leant in to hear what the man had to say, but first he had to thank him, knew he wouldn’t get another chance. “You saved Johnnie’s life. I don’t know how to thank you. Anything, whatever you need me to do.”

  “Chris,” he said. “Get Chris to Colorado. The coordinates…my pocket…Chris knows, he has the coordinates.”

  “I remember,” Chris said tightly.

  “I’ll take him.” Sean looked into the life fading from the man’s eyes, gave a firm nod. “You have my word.”

  Williams blinked long and slow, acknowledging the oath, then his eyes turned to Chris and Sean pressed upright to give them room to say their goodbyes. He backed up and bumped into Lynn, who stood close, watching with glinting tears.

  “He hasn’t got long, has he?” she said, not waiting for a response. “I wanted to thank him, but I don’t want to intrude. He’ll never know how eternally grateful I am.”

  “He knows.” Sean put a hand on her shoulder, a brief reassurance, then he let his hand slide off as he retreated.

  The room seemed to have emptied while he wasn’t looking. Beth and Allira stood to one side, and they had Johnnie with them. Cassie’s team were gone, had probably led the people out, although Cassie herself had stayed behind. She tried to catch his eye but Sean avoided her gaze. He kept retreating until his back hit the wall.

  The price had been too high, more than he was prepared to pay.

  He knew that now.

  I should have waited for Colonel Ainsley.

  I had no right to pretend I knew how to do this.

  You’re a fucking desk jockey, he thought bitterly to himself. What made you think you could wage a war and win?

  Because he did not consider this a win.

  Too many people had died.

  Williams was dead.

  “Hey,” Cassie said, taking a position against the wall beside him.

  “We should have had more patience.” He hung his head her way to look, to see the gaunt hollows in her cheeks, the ashen tone to her skin. “We should have put our trust in the establishment.”

  That’s what sane people do.

  Cassie said nothing. She ran her hands over her hair, gathered her ponytail over her shoulder.

  “Say it,” he said. “Say you were right. I was wrong. We both know that’s the truth.”

  “I shot Davis,” she said instead, her gaze turning to the fallen man. “I killed my captain.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was me, too,” Sean muttered. “I shot him in the chest.”

  “Mine was a head shot.” She sucked in a deep breath, her eyes still on Captain Davis. “I need to show you something.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head, still not looking at him as she pushed off the wall.

  Sean followed her through the warren of passages, into a glass tunnel and outside into the dark. He didn’t push her for an answer. She looked exhausted, worn to the bone. She looked like the energy required to answer would use that ounce of energy she didn’t have.

  He’d find out soon enough, and would probably wish he hadn’t.

  The moon had slid behind a bank of clouds, pitching the garden they walked through into blackness. No walls of windows here for any light to bleed through. They rounded a miniature man-built lake system with a series of rock pools and water features that were shut off. Down some rocky steps and then a greenish hue took the edge off the night.

  Sean saw the Silver first, sprawled at the bottom of the steps. Then he saw the obsidian fence dusted with smoky trails that the Silver’s body bridged. “What is this place?”

  “Some sort of pump house,” she said, leading the way. “Clint found it.”

  That explains the Silver.

  Once they’d passed through the narrow opening in the fence, it was a short walk to the room lit up in that odd green glow. The room was rough cement walls and floors, only about three by three foot, most of that taken up by Clint and the chair he occupied. The man’s deeply lined face looked like it had weathered a few more seasons since Sean had last seen him.

  Clint pushed out of the chair. “About damned time.”

  “There an incident,” Cassie said from the threshold where she’d stopped.

  Sean walked deeper into the room, didn’t like anything he saw. There was the chair Clint had been seated on, crafted in the alien steel. Dozens of long black wires were attached to the high back and arm rests, drooping to the floor like tentacles of an octopus leaking silvery smoke. The only other furniture was the pedestal table, black and alien. A ball rested on top, about the size of a basketball, made of that same steel but the silvery mist swirled thicker and with more vigor, like an angry fog. He wiped the curvature with his palm and the smoky fog reacted as he’d come to expect, swirled away as if repulsed by his touch.

  The surface wasn’t smooth, but ridged with symmetrical and interconnected patterns. “I’ve seen this before, on the metallic disk in the Silvers’ brains.”

  Clint stood closer. “What is it?”

  “Some sort of circuitry, according to Jackson.” He tapped the ball with his finger. It was as light as hollow plastic and rolled half a rotation, then rolled back to its original position as if centered like a bowling ball. “Alien tech.”

  “Fascinating, but not what we brought you to see,” Clint said and walked around the back of the chair.

  Sean glanced at Cassie. She stood there on the threshold, arms folded, mouth drawn into a flat line, not saying anything.

  I’m not going to like this. He followed Clint with leaden feet. This room, the alien furniture and sports equipment, gave him the chills.

  Clint indicated at a small wooden door built low into the wall, half the height of a normal doorway. He didn’t offer to open the door for Sean, just dragged his fingers over the top seam, swiped the back of his other hand over his forehead.

  Sean didn’t ask.

  The door swung inward when he tested it. He went down on his haunches, pressed his palm to the door and pushed slowly. A triangle of light fed into the cramped space, growing as the door pushed wider, swallowing the shadows to illuminate a bulky pump machine.

  Sean’s gaze slid lower, to the bodies crammed in and around the pipes. Dumped, one on top of the other, like someone else’s trash. The missing people. Maybe he’d known the second he stepped inside the room. Maybe he’d know when Cassie refused to answer. But now there was no corner left inside of him for hope to hide.

  He dropped to his knees, looked from one face to the other. He recognized most of them, knew one or two.

  Doc Nate, still wearing those damn cowboy boots. I saw him. I saw him being walked down the glass tunnel with those Silvers. I saw him, and I never knew, I couldn’t know I’d never see him alive again.

  Annie, with her greying hair and kind eyes. She had two grandchildren, a son, a daughter-in-law, they all lived on the same street.

  Sean took a moment to look at each and every face, even those he couldn’t put a name to. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know how to lift himself off this floor. He didn’t know how to look away. Their eyes were closed, their waxen faces peaceful, there was that. Whatever that torture chair had to do with their deaths, they hadn’t died with petrified expressions.

  That didn’t necessarily mean t
hey hadn’t died painful deaths.

  “Do you see now?” Cassie’s voice reached him. “You couldn’t have waited. If you’d put your trust in the establishment, we could have lost them all.”

  - 21 -

  Chris

  The smell of blood still lingered, a metallic odor that coated his tongue and skin and wouldn’t be washed away by the river. Or maybe it was death itself that clung to him.

  He’d spent the night out here by the water’s edge, the shallow rapids rushing over his bare feet. He’d watched the rain clouds blow west, watched the dawn streak the skies above, waiting for it to sink in. Williams was gone. He knew it. He’d seen it. He’d buried him in the church yard with his own hands last night. Sean had offered to help, and he thought he might have sworn at the man, Fuck off! or something like that, he couldn’t remember, it had all been such a haze. He’d been so angry. Angry at Williams. Angry at himself. Angry at his dad. Angry at the whole damn world.

  He wasn’t angry now. He was numb from the inside out. The fury had slipped away quietly with the night and he missed it. It was something to hold onto, whereas now he just felt like he was floating adrift.

  The crunch of footfalls around the front entrance of the cave broke his stare from the white swirls of water. Chris pulled his feet from the river, in no mood for company. His mood didn’t change for better or worse when he saw it was Rachel.

  “Hey,” she said, walking with a soft step over the flat rocks. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  She looked terrible. Or maybe that wasn’t fair. There were dark rings beneath her eyes, and her eyes were slightly puffy, but she didn’t look terrible. She just didn’t look like the Rachel he knew. Her spark was gone.

  “Hey,” he said flatly, grabbing his shoes as he pushed to his feet and walked straight past her.

  “Chris, wait.” She ran after him, grabbed him by the arm. “I heard about Williams. I’m so sorry.”

  He stopped, didn’t jerk his arm away, didn’t turn to look at her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Last night, he’d blamed Rachel almost as much as he’d blamed himself.