Enemy Lines: Navigator Book One

by SD Tanner

  “Let’s do this,” he said tersely.

  They made their way up the short flight of stairs to the open door, and he listened closely for any sounds. The street was worryingly quiet, and other than some distant gunfire, he heard nothing. Jas eased the door open while he trained his weapon at the gloomy darkness inside. He half-expected Missus Starling from the ground floor to leap out at him. She’d always been an angry woman, and he could easily imagine her turning into a ruthless killer. Despite his concern, there was no movement inside the small entranceway, and he cautiously climbed onto the first step of the landing. It groaned under his weight, reminding him he needed to go on a diet. Dismissing the irrelevant thought, he peered up the stairwell at the long lines of stairs and handrails. Specks of dust were drifting idly in the light from the windows over each set of stairs. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, and he continued to move as quietly as he could up the flight of stairs.

  All he could hear was the rustle of Jas’s jacket as she followed him, and again he noted her natural instinct for police work. She was at least six feet behind him, not too close and not too far. If they survived the invasion, as he thought of it, he would highly recommend her for keeping such a cool head in a crisis. Reaching the first level, he noticed all of the heavy, dark doors were closed, and the landing was clear. He continued to the next level, only this time he looked out of the clear windows at the city. With the taller buildings around him there wasn’t much to see, but he noticed more grey smoke was seeping along the skyline.

  On the second floor, once again all of the doors on the landing were closed and he continued to the third floor. Their apartment was next the stairwell, which might have made it noisy, but being a small block with an established occupancy, it had never been an issue. Fumbling the keys from his pant pocket, he prepared to unlock the door. It was an old style double lock that needed two keys. He inserted the heavy brass key into the first lock, flinching at the loud noise it made as the tumblers turned. The second key was smaller and it opened the deadlock. He twisted the key and pushed against the door. As it swung open, a blur of movement caught his eye, and something came through the small opening in a flash of frenzied motion. The small and heavy body hit him squarely in the gut, but with him being so much larger it made little impact. Instinctively he pushed at the body and caught sight of Jenny’s face. It was twisted with rage and she snarled at him angrily.

  The shock of seeing his wife of over thirty years staring at him with such clear hatred caught him off guard. It wasn’t just her expression, but her eyes were black and her hair was falling out in clumps. In her hand she held a small and bloodied knife, and he looked down at his substantial stomach. His usually crisp blue shirt was turning red, and he realized she’d stabbed him. Luckily, there was a good amount of fat between the shirt and his internal organs, and she’d probably done little damage.

  Before he could react, Jas opened fire with her AR-15. Just as she’d told him, she was a good shot and every bullet was hitting its mark. The force of her fire was pushing Jenny backwards, and pieces of her flesh were flying into the air. His brain became confused and he roared, “Ceasefire! Stop!”

  Jas ignored him and continued to pace forward, firing as she did. Jenny was being pushed further into the apartment, and she finally fell over the well-padded arm of their three-seater sofa. Once Jenny tumbled into the pillows, Jas stood over her and continued to fire. At such close range every bullet should have been a killing one, but Jenny acted as if nothing was happening. She continued to flail against the soft furnishings, trying to sit up and find her feet again. Still wearing her short nightgown, it was bunched around her waist, displaying her full, white panties. Jenny wasn’t a small woman, and the bullets were punching holes into her soft belly, but she wasn’t bleeding enough for such devastating injuries.

  After what seemed like a long time, but was probably less than a minute, Jas’s gun clicked empty. It was one of those defining moments in his life. He’d always thought of himself as a reasonable man, and he’d taken the easiest and safest option every time. Jenny had been an unambitious woman, and marrying her had meant she would never push him to do more than he wanted to. Staying with the police force had been an easy way to live. They’d told him what to do and he’d always done as he was told. Even working on the beat had been a fairly safe option. He’d never been ambitious and had left the heroics to others. He was a considered a big, friendly bear of a man who could be relied upon for a joke and a shallow take on the world. Some days he wondered if he’d ever really lived at all, but he always dismissed the thought and got back to doing more and thinking less.

  Jenny was staring up at him with her black, empty eyes, and he knew he had to decide what he was going to do. There was no one to tell him what his next step should be. In a crisis the mind works at a stunning speed, and in a cascade of rapid thoughts, he decided the creature in front of him wasn’t Jenny. Lifting his shotgun, he aimed and prepared to fire while shouting to Jas, “Run!”

  Jas had already reloaded her AR-15 and ignored his order. With her gun ready to fire, she grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him towards the door. Jenny was still struggling to rise from the sofa and he stepped back with Jas.

  “You can’t kill it. We need to lock it up,” she shouted.

  No amount of bullets had taken Jenny down. As her flesh had been blown away from her face and body, all it had revealed was a rubbery blackness. The thing on the sofa was not his wife and it seemed to be impossible to kill. It reminded him of the woman who’d fallen three stories, then got up, and run back into the building. Whatever these things were, they didn’t die easily or possibly at all.

  They covered the short distance to the door, and seeing the key was still in the deadlock, he pulled it closed. Jenny was clearly on her feet, and she was hammering at the door, howling in frustration. Jas was leaning her back against the window in the stairwell with her head bent, and she was breathing deeply.

  Finally looking at him, she said, “That was close.”

  In a stunned tone that reflected how he was feeling, he replied, “That was my wife.”

  Through the shock, he felt the dampness around his belly and looked down at himself. Gingerly running his fingers across his shirt, there was a slight indentation where the knife had penetrated.

  Watching him, she said firmly, “We need to patch that.”

  He kept a first aid kit in his car and he was fairly sure the wound was superficial. Nodding, he looked back at the door that continued to emit a muffled banging sound. It had been his home for thirty years, and he remembered painting the door a deep, dark blue. His entire life had been behind that well-painted door, but now it was gone. His wife was effectively dead, and the thing that wanted to kill him wasn’t anyone he knew. In the hours they’d spent driving around the city, witnessing the murders and devastation, he’d still believed the situation was retrievable, but now he knew it wasn’t. Life as he’d known it had changed forever, and whether he liked it or not, he had to step up.

  “We have to go.”

  “Where to now?” She asked uncertainly.

  Jo had told him to get people to Kirtland Air Force Base, and for the first time he was ready to follow his orders. “We need to start looking for survivors and telling them to go to the base.”

  “Survivors?”

  “Yeah, that’s what anyone left alive is…a survivor.”

  “Jonesy?” A voice asked hesitantly.

  It was Missus Starling’s voice, and he looked up the stairwell at her anxious face. “Missus Starling?”

  Her wrinkled face was framed by flyaway white hair and it creased into a shy smile. “Call me Clarissa.” Waving her delicate, blue-veined hand at him, she added, “We’re all up here on the fourth floor. We’ve been waiting for help to arrive.”

  Following her loosely fitting, polyester clad legs up the stairs, she led them into a top floor apartment. There were only two apartments on this level and they were both large
r than his own. Inside the generous lounge were seven people, mostly in their fifties and sixties. These were the people who hadn’t gone to work that morning, and had stayed secured in their apartments while the city fell apart. Although he wouldn’t call any of them friends, he knew them all well enough to speak to.

  Doug from the second floor asked, “What’s going on?”

  Louise from the first floor said, “We banged on your door, but Jenny didn’t answer. Is she okay?”

  John from the second floor said, “Sorry, but I broke into this apartment figuring it was safer if we all stayed together.”

  Geoff from the third floor added, “The TV isn’t working anymore and neither are the phones…not even the landlines.”

  Clarissa said, “You’re hurt. Let me get you something for that.”

  They were all eager to talk to him, but he didn’t know what to say. Remembering his wife and her attempt to kill him, he knew what he had to do. The city was infiltrated with creatures like Jenny and they needed to leave. It wasn’t safe to stay, but he had no idea how he could move seven defenseless people. Guns didn’t kill these creatures and he had no way to protect them.

  Clarissa had returned with a box of bandages, a damp towel and a tube of antiseptic cream. Sitting heavily in a chair, he allowed her to undo his shirt and wipe at the blood still seeping from the cut.

  “Are you okay, Jonesy?”

  Finally finding his thoughts and his tongue, he replied, “Yeah. Jenny is…changed. She’s turned into one of them.”

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know.” Waving his hand at Jas, he added, “This is Jas, she works at the precinct. These creatures are tough and I haven’t seen one die yet.”

  “Why are they killing people? What’s wrong with them?”

  More questions he couldn’t answer, but while Clarissa applied a sticky bandage to his belly, he replied, “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. The last orders I have are to send people to Kirtland Air Force Base. Effectively the city has fallen and you need to get out.”

  John nodded at him confidently. “Finally we know where to go. I knew we had to leave, but I didn’t know where to take us.” Leaning closer to him, he asked, “If we take two cars we can all fit, but what are the roads like out there.”

  He didn’t know John well and looked at him quizzically. “Are you prepared to take everyone out?”

  “Hell, yeah. I’m not gonna sit around waiting for some unstoppable asshole to come in here and kill us. The city isn’t safe.”

  Staring at John’s creased face and grey hair, he said, “Weapons won’t help you. Your best chance is to move fast, and get away from buildings and congested areas. I’d come with you, but my last orders were to tell people to head to the base.” Turning to Jas, he added, “You should go with them.”

  “Nope,” she replied dourly. “I’m not doing that. I might not have my badge yet, but your orders are my orders too.”

  It was obvious she wasn’t going to change her mind readily, and he didn’t see much point to arguing. “Fine. We’ll go with them as far as the outskirts and try to find more survivors as we go. Once they’re clear of the city, we’ll need to look for more people and help them get to the base.”

  Turning back to John, he asked, “What kind of car do you have? My Malibu is parked just outside the front door. The biggest risk is getting everyone into the vehicles. Once we’re able to move, we’ll run down anyone who tries to kill us.”

  “We should take any food supplies and weapons we have,” John replied. “My car is parked on the road and it’ll carry five people.”

  “The roads are pretty congested. You might get stuck,” he replied.

  “We can’t plan for the finer points, Jonesy. We’ll just do what we can as we can.”

  He nodded. “Okay. You can’t stay here anyway. I’m not sure what help is coming or even if it is. Your best bet is to get to the base. Hopefully they’ve got some sort of defense there.”

  “You mean you don’t know?” Louise asked in disbelief.

  “No one knows anything right now,” he replied. “It’s all happened so fast and everyone was affected. It’s meant we don’t know what troops are left.”

  “There’s no National Guard? No police?” Louise asked in horror.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s left, but whatever there is, it isn’t organizing itself quickly.”

  “That’s true, Louise. We haven’t seen anything on the street other than the killers and their victims,” John added.

  “I know, but I assumed there was something somewhere…I mean, who’s going to protect us from these murderers?”

  “We’ll take care of ourselves,” John replied firmly.

  He’d just lost the woman he’d been with for thirty years, and feeling numb, he nodded to John and said flatly, “That’s where it’s at.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE: A little respect (Jo)

  “It’s only been twenty-four hours since the first murders. How can we be losing the cities already?”

  She ran her hand through her short, dark hair, and although she’d only washed it the day before, it felt greasy and heavy. Leaning closer to the speaker on her phone, she replied, “It’s what happens when one half of the population turns against the other and kills them. It’s not something the police force are designed to deal with.”

  Another impatient voice echoed hollowly through the crackling speaker. “Where are your officers right now? Do you even know?”

  Despite her deep exhaustion, she felt a spark of angry indignation at his implied accusation. “Do you have any idea what’s happened out here? Or did you just cover your own asses, scuttle into your bunkers, and leave the rest of us to deal with it?”

  The original speaker interrupted her. “Okay, there’s no need to lose our cool here…”

  Glancing out of her window at the smoke from numerous fires oozing across the skyline, she then looked at the street and the clusters of abandoned vehicles. The cars and road were streaked with bloodstains, and the idle bodies of the dead were lying haphazardly in and around the vehicles. After she’d spoken to Jonesy, she’d ordered everyone to evacuate the city and sent the people to the airbase. Unable to get through to anyone in command, she’d made an executive decision, and now they were telling her she’d done the wrong thing.

  Clenching her teeth tightly, she replied, “I haven’t slept in over thirty-six hours. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m alone, and I’m stuck topside in a city full of homicidal maniacs. Don’t you dare fucking tell me to stay calm, or I swear I will reach down this line and tear you a new asshole.”

  “Okay, Commander, we’re all under pressure here so let’s keep this civil,” a voice said sternly.

  The past twenty-four hours had frayed her nerves to breaking point and she shouted, “Just shut the fuck up. You have no idea what’s going on up here.” She knew she was in shock and reacting inappropriately for her rank, but she couldn’t stop herself. “You left us!” She roared indignantly. “You abandoned us!” Leaping to her feet, her entire body ached with unused adrenalin. “Outside my window are hundreds of dead bodies. The city is burning. One of my officers saw the murderers leaving the city. They tore their own faces off! They’re not human!”

  “What…?”

  Almost triumphantly, she declared, “Yeah, I thought that might shut you up. Thousands of so-called people were seen leaving the city. I don’t know where they were going, but many of them don’t look human anymore. It’s like…they’re shedding their skin and underneath they’re a blackened, rubbery sort of creature.”

  “You mean they were human?”

  “I assume so, but I don’t know any more than what I’ve just told you. The city was invaded, which is why I told everyone to head to the base. We need to mount a defense from there.” There was no reply from the people on the other end of the line and she asked, “Why don’t you know any of this?”

  “The President called a stat
e of emergency so we all went to the bunkers, but they had problems. The comms didn’t work straight away, and the techs had trouble getting us in contact with one another.”

  “Are they working now?”

  There was a pause and then a voice said, “Yes and no. Some of the bunkers are in contact with one another, but…some aren’t responding anymore.”

  After the insanity of the past day it made perfect sense to her, but it shouldn’t have. The invaders were just average people who’d turned into something else, but no one knew who would change and who wouldn’t. It was inevitable some of the people who’d gone to the bunkers would turn into killers, and then all hell would have broken loose. Wearily closing her eyes, she imagined what must have happened to the people trapped underground with homicidal maniacs.

  With that thought, her eyes popped open again. “Oh, and that’s the other problem. The little fuckers bounce. From what I’ve heard they’re almost impossible to kill.” Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she asked, “How do you know you’re safe where you are? It’s very likely some of you will change, and then you’ve got a real problem to deal with. You can’t hide underground. You don’t know if the person next to you won’t try and kill you.”

  Her words were met with what seemed to be a stunned silence. A phone in the main office began to ring, but there was no one left to answer it. She didn’t want to ignore the phone, it might be one of her officers calling in with an update.

  “Just hang on. There’s another line ringing.”

  “Are you the only person there?”

  “Yes. I told you. I sent everyone to the airbase.”

  Not waiting to hear their reply, she walked out of the office and into the main room, trying to work out which phone was ringing. The main room looked as abandoned as it was. Paper was strewn across the floor, and filthy coffee cups were sitting on every desk. She’d long since abandoned her shoes, and padded in her laddered tights to each desk, closing in on the sound of the ringing. Finally, she found the phone in the middle of the cluttered desks.