by Fore, Jon
Chapter 10
Gabriel slept. The security of the roof over his head, the warmth of the fire, the high calorie meal sitting warmly in his belly all culminated in a deep dreamless sleep. That, or the exhaustion, both mental and physical, finally gave way. He didn't remember falling asleep. When he woke, he could not tell what time it was. Fug was laying against him and sleeping--hard. The poor furry guy was as tired as Gabriel.
What disturbed him, gave him the sense of unease was why he woke at all. The house was dark, utterly dark. The fire had burned down to a soft glowing pile of warmth. There was no noise, at least now. The room made him feel as though he was dead. Dead and interned in his own private mausoleum. Even the air was still and close, like an unwanted embrace. The thermometer had to be in the mid-fifties. Cold without the clammy.
Something had to have pulled him from slumber.
Rolling his wrist over, his watch illuminated, declaring it was 9:11 A.M. in complete defiance of the dark. The unease grew as he woke, became more insistent until the hairs on the back of his neck and along his upper arms began to stand in chaotic ranks. He had episodes of intuition before, but nothing like this.
Suddenly, without any sensory input, Gabriel knew he was not alone.
He groped around with his left hand, still lying on his back, looking for his flashlight. After hours of sleep, his eyes were as adjusted to the dark as they were going to be, but that wasn't good enough.
His right had found the heavy revolver, still holstered and on his hip. As he flipped the leather thong securing the weapon, his other hand found the metal tube of the flashlight. He gripped this and brought it up in concert with the revolver, and after flipping the light over, he depressed the button, exploding a headache's worth of light into the ceiling.
There was nothing there. He didn't know what to expect, but his imagination had put a large spider there, as big as a cow, suspended and fat and hairy, just waiting for the right moment to drop down on its silk and take him, him and Fug. But the ceiling was empty, just textured white, upper middle class, and unmarred. He felt his heart slow a bit, and his breath drew deeper. He didn't realize how sure he was something was there until there wasn't.
Fuggly lifted his head and looked at Gabriel, then quickly to a dark corner. A low, almost frightened growl rolled in the dog's chest.
Gabriel swung the light over, but found the corner as empty as the ceiling. "What is it Fug?” Then Gabriel realized that corner, that wall was adjacent to the garage, the garage where the horses were. But how could the dog know something was in the garage from here? The air was still completely silent, still unmoving, and then the eyes opened.
Two dark orbs appeared in the glare of the flashlight, and Gabriel felt his heart drop and his breath catch at the same moment. One of the orbs slide behind a wall colored surface, then reappeared, and Gabriel fired twice.
The sound was terrific in the dead silence. The blast of the gun lit the rest of the room with a muted flash. Near the orbs on the wall, flesh exploded into wet, blue slurry, and the thing that had hung there fell and thrashed, slinging blue fluid and that rancid potato stench everywhere. The creature began to lose its color, or its unnatural color, and became darker. Gabriel recognized it as one of the lizard things, and fired again, this time to greater effect.
The salamander shaped thing flexed in a clutching way, then fell still.
Gabriel's ears rang painfully.
Nothing like the smell of gunpowder in the morning. Well, gun powder and spoiled potatoes. You got to get out of here, Marine.
How the thing had snuck up on them, gotten so close without waking him or Fug scared Gabriel more than anything. Fug was his night time warning system, his alarm system, and he failed. It could have been the exhaustion, but still. A new spike of insecurity was driven into his back, between his shoulder blades, and he wanted nothing more than to bug out of here right now.
In the low light, that was difficult, but he grabbed everything he could find, including the precious toilet paper, and jammed it into his backpack and saddle bags.
Fug spent his time sniffing at the blue goo and the dead beast, his tail low.
Gabriel spared enough time to make one more trip through the kitchen, searching cabinets this time, and at the point of giving up, he opened one last cabinet to find a pound of coffee in an unopened can, and a carton of cigarettes. The first was a store brand coffee, the second was an opened carton of Marlboro Lights with two packs missing.
It'd been four weeks since Gabriel had a hot cup of coffee, and two years since his last smoke. He took the two items down and back to his packs. The coffee fit neatly it one of the saddle bags, and the cigarettes he dumped out into the top of his back pack, discarding the carton box. He took one pack and put that in his shirt pocket, then cinched his bags closed. The backpack went over one arm, the saddle bags over the other, and he closed the glass doors of the fire place before heading to the garage. Fug followed him to the door and waited patiently, his nose tinged a sickly blue color.
He found Lance and Big Guy standing stiff legged and clearly frightened. The buckets of water were nearly empty and the grass he put out was entirely gone. He dropped the bags, doled out the last of the stalks he collected from the farmer's field, then began packing the horses. Saddle first, then the packs, then the luggage bag on Big Guy.
Gabriel intended to get south today at a good clip. Riding hard enough, he might make Connecticut today, and was damned determined to try.
With everyone packed and ready to go, he reloaded his revolver from the rounds he hung off of Lance for easy access, and yanked the garage door opened.
Fug released a furious bark followed by a growl. Gabriel looked to the foot of the driveway to find two of those snaggletooth dog things and a group of the large beetle creatures. These last, Gabriel remembered, gutted a reporter on television at the beginning of the invasion. Somehow he had been found, and as Fug barked again, the creatures came.
Gabriel could not tell how many there actually were. They were large and black, glossy and jumbled together, so he drew and began firing into the group. The dog things hung back and Gabriel decided they were waiting for the beetles to finish before they attacked. That scared him more than anything. These things could actually think, reason, plan. This put a whole new facet on the invasion.
Backing up as he fired, working his way to Lance and the rest of the bullets, his left hand dry fired. His right fired once more, then itself, dry fired. The last two beetle things were too close to reload, and he dropped his revolvers. Drawing the large knife on his left hip, he dodged the first leaping creature, and grabbed the machete from lances saddle. As the beast slid past him on the cement, Lance caught it with a brutal kick, sending the beast against the cinderblock wall of the garage. A meaty crunching sound came from the impact, and the thing fell flat on its belly. On its back was a spider web of blue across its shell.
Gabriel jumped to one side, trying to work the next one between himself and Lance, and brought the machete down hard. He was surprised for a moment when the edge skidded down one side of the shell. Then he realized his mistake. Now he had two dog things behind him and one beetle in front of him, two terrified horses and a dog barking his face off. The only thing he could think of was to attack, attack hard and vicious, kill this beetle thing as quickly as possible. So he swung the machete again, this time finding purchase in the shell, but the thing reared up and grabbed the thigh of Gabriel's left leg in a sharp cutting claw.
Pain exploded as the meat of his thigh parted, as if by scissors. He brought his knife down in a wide arch, and it bit deep into the segmented leg, almost severing it. The beetle drew it back and came reaching with another. Gabriel could feel wet, warm and wet, running down his leg, and he was certain he was hurt bad. He swung the machete and this time severed that clawed appendage, then drove the tip of the machete at the underbelly, into the jointed collection of legs, and felt it bury deeply.
He knew the wolve
s were right behind him now, but there was nothing he could do until this was done. He yanked the blade from the underbelly, and was about to drive it in again but the beetle began to fall back to the floor, trying to get its shell back on top, but Lance had turned and kicked, with both hind legs. Gabriel saw the thing nearly vanish from before him, then it hit the wall, crunching like the first.
Gabriel spun instantly--hope now loose in his chest--to face the two wolf things. They were still at the end of the driveway watching, looking at him with some breed of intelligence, thinking. That was enough for Gabriel.
He grabbed the rifle butt and pulled it free from Lance, letting the oiled leather wrap simply fall to the ground. He brought the rifle around as he chambered the first round, and still the wolves just stared at him. He brought the rifle up, making a judgment call on the aiming part because at this range, the scope was useless. He fired, sending the bullet lower than he wanted, but it still opened the creature up at the lower chest and out the lower back.
The other wolf stood suddenly, its knees bending much like a frightened dog, looking at its ruined companion kick and bleed blue at the foot of the driveway.
Gabriel pulled the breach open, and slammed home the next round. By the time he lifted the rifle, the dog thing was gone. He had to use his other eye to find it loping off at a pretty good speed for the distant wood. Gabriel had no time to set the shot. Using his gut instinct, he leveled the rifle and fired.
It missed the creature, but only by a foot or less, blossoming dirt up behind the thing. Gabriel yanked another round into place, then leveled the rifle again, this time using DOPE to adjust his shot before firing.
The round struck the thing this time, but to the left of center and into the meat of the hind leg. Not an instant kill, but it would eventually prove fatal, or should.
The thing let go a horrid scream, and began dragging itself forward, its hind legs useless.
Gabriel took his time with this last shot, hitting the thing in the base of the neck, pretty much decapitating the beast. He lowered his rifle, then lowered the garage door. The feeling of dread was entirely gone now, replaced entirely with the torn-flesh pain of his thigh.
He reloaded his rifle first, rewrapped it, and put that back on Lance. Then he reloaded his pistols, and put them back in their holsters. Drawing the first-aid kit from the saddle bags, he sat to look at his wound. He could get the machete and survival knife later. The one cracked beetle was scratching at the cement, unwilling to give up on his death throes, and Gabriel wanted to get away from it.
He pulled the slice in his pants wider and found a deep wound, not just skin deep, but meat deep. The skin yawned teasingly. To him, the meat beneath looked like steak in a grocery store. That's going to need stitches.
Gabriel opened the first-aid kit and rummaged through, knowing full well that a home kit wouldn't have sutures. It was worth a try anyway. When he was sure it really didn't have any, he retrieved his survival knife and opened the butt-cap. Inside was a small plastic watertight tube, inside which were three sutures along with a couple of matches, a pencil, some safety pins and a small package of fishing tackle.
He opened the tube, drew out a suture, and laid it aside. In the first-aid kit he found a small bottle of alcohol, which he poured directly into the wound. At first, it felt cold, but the pain was quick to take over. Brilliant and electric, it made Gabriel whence audibly. Pain be damned it flushed the wound out, and Gabriel knew how important that was.
In the first-aid kit were also disinfecting wipes and he used one of these to clean his hands. His mind screamed at what he was about to do, but his common sense knew it had to be done. There was no way around this. Stitch it or wait for more monsters. His choice.
He opened the suture, laid it out to its fifteen inch length, gripped the needle, and looked at the wound again. Does it really need stitches? He jammed the needle in, perhaps too deep, and it wasn't too horribly bad. The skin was tender, more than tender, but it was just a needle. The next part, passing the thread directly through the wound, which hurt like living hell.
Leaving about three inches at the start, he continued. He wasn't entirely sure if he was doing this correctly or not. His first aid training had not included stitching wounds closed. Hell, he had sewn enough patches on his uniforms, enough tares in his fatigues, and that was all he was doing after all. Just joining the skin together, remarrying it until a bond could grow between the two sides. Luckily for him the wound was widthwise to the thigh, so keeping the wound closed wouldn't be too hard.
When he was done, he was coated in sweat and nauseous from the pain. That beetle had finally fallen still, so he rested there, breathing through the nausea until it subsided.
In the first aid kit, he found packets of aspirin. He took two out, opened them and poured four tablets in his hand. He looked to the canteen hanging from Lance, then tossed the pills in his mouth. He chewed them and dry swallowed, then laid his head back against the cool cinderblock wall.
He still had a long way to go from here. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and then into Virginia where he hoped the battle line was. He began to think abandoning his ranch might have been a bad idea. He was some fifteen miles from anything else, any other people. Why was it hard to believe he could have gone on unnoticed? He could be sitting in his chair, drinking warm pillaged beer, eating flat pillaged potato chips. Fug would be laying on the floor next to him, and everything would be fine. He could sit and listen to his radio, on battery that was, but every car had a battery, and there were a shit ton of cars abandoned everywhere.
Dry up, Marine. Sound like a little girl who lost her mommy.
He swallowed once more, then dowsed the thing with the alcohol again. The burning was savage but not deep like before. That told him he at least had a good closure. He put a large swatch of bandage over the wound and used the medical tape to attach the bandage securely in place. He packed all this up, and stowed it back in Lance's saddle bags.
The leg was usable, if not a bit tight, and gave him little pain when he walked to the garage door. He yanked it open, this time with his eyes to the foot of the driveway. There was nothing there now, just a scattering of beetle corpses and enough blue ichor to coat it down to the street.
Big Guy fretted at the smell of the blood, the sour potatoes, but Fug stepped out gingerly, sniffing thoroughly. Gabriel remembered his father telling him once that there was no such thing as a bad smell to a dog. The old man was right. The air smelled like hell, so bad it was hard to inhale.
Gabriel mounted Lance, which did hurt his leg until he was seated. There was no pull on the stitches, and figured he had a good chance of healing if he spent most of his time in the saddle. He intended to do just that.
Riding to the foot of the driveway, leading Big Guy, Gabriel came to the road and turned in the direction he knew was south, and began heading for the forest area some distance away. Time for that marathon horseback ride. As far as Lance could carry him, for as long as he would before stopping.
He pulled his compass out to set his landmark to the south. There was really nothing he could see from where he was riding, not a hill or mountain or manmade structure higher than the forest, so resigned himself to check the compass often. He checked again, lined it up as good as he could while riding a horse, and the ground began to shake violently.
Lance froze where he was and locked his legs. Big Guy let out a nervous whiney, and Fug began to whimper. This was not an earth quake, or a normal earth quake. At least Gabriel hoped. The vibration was too fast, too high, not the deep throaty rumbling Gabriel expected. The compass needle spun violently to the west and vibrated as it strained, trying to point harder than it actually could.
Chapter 11
The adrenaline drained slowly from each of them, exhausting them again. Jackson and Maria, still starved for sleep looked slack-faced and semi-conscience in the rearview mirror. Vega didn't know what they had been through in the past week, but considering h
er involvement in the opening of the gate and the following invasion, she could at least imagine. She hoped it wasn't worse than that.
Vega herself was exhausted and found it difficult to breath, as if she couldn't catch her breath. She kept the car at a more respectable speed, hovering between sixty and sixty-five. Vega decided finding another traffic jam at eighty wouldn't be a good idea. The last time, they were just damn lucky, even with her training. The headlights just didn't go far enough ahead, and for the life of her, she could not figure out how to turn on the high beams.
She looked in the rear view mirror again and Jackson was still sitting there, his eyes open and not even acknowledging the fact she was looking at him. Maria was the same way, but her eyes were not as wide as his. "Why don't you guys try to get that sleep?"
Jackson rolled his eyes up to the mirror and smiled in a tired way, "I'm going to stay awake for a while, help you, you know, see the road," he offered.
"Well, it's going to be morning soon, then I will be able to see. Until then, I won’t go faster than this, I promise."
"Why don't you turn on the brights?” Maria asked without looking up.
"I can’t figure out how. It's not that important though, you guys sleep. I will need sleep here pretty soon too and I don't want to stop on this road if I can help it."
"On the floor," Jackson said.
"What?” Vega asked, returning her eyes to the road.
"On the floor, left foot, plunger switch. You got to step on it."
"Oh.” Vega searched the floor with the tip of her boot, and did, in fact, find a small metal barrel off to the left and out of the way. Putting the toe of her boot on it, she pushed and the brights came on in all their glaring glory. Now the road wasn't a soft distant yellow. These brights put out a huge white light that stretched way off and into the distance. "Wow. Much better."
"For sure," Maria said.
When Vega looked up, she saw Maria looking out the windshield.