The Flying Eyes

by J. Hunter Holly

  “When are the fools going to open fire?” Hendricks cursed. “They’ll come right through to us, if they’re not stopped!”

  The Eyes were nearly over the heads of the fighting force, and just as Linc opened his mouth to scream orders, the guns jerked up and spat orange fire into the morning. The simultaneous explosion of forty guns was a thunder in his ears.

  The Eye Linc was watching shot upward twenty feet in a convulsive jerk, hung there for an instant, then started a wobbling descent. There were two holes in it. It skimmed the heads of the men, coming for Linc’s group. Tears streamed out of the corners of it, dripping to the ground like a trail of rain. And as it neared Linc, blood started to come, seeping from the holes, mixed with fluid.

  Wes was pulling him down, trying to make him crouch with the rest of them, but the sight of the Eye bearing down, bleeding and dying, held him frozen. It halted fifty feet away, ten feet above the ground, soaking the land and the leaves beneath it with red. A glaze came over it as though it had drawn into itself, and as its life ebbed before him, he cursed it, eager to watch it die.

  But the glaze that spread across it reached the bullet holes and the blood congealed on the edges of them. The glaze continued to spread, and before his horrified sight, the sides of the holes firmed up, drew themselves together from a gaping hole to a red line, and then the line changed color, the fresh purple of a scar fading to a gray that softened out until it was gone from sight.

  The Eye was whole again—healed and whole—and it gazed at him with the same empty, alien expression he had seen before. He stared back, into the iris that was bigger than his head, accepting its challenge. There was a pull upon him, a bodily pull, drawing him closer to it, compelling him to walk into it. He wanted to rip it apart with his hands; he wanted to rid the world of the sight of it. He stepped forward.

  “You idiot!” Wes was upon him, knocking him down. “Get away from here. You haven’t got a gun!”

  Linc regained his feet and ran with Wes, sidetracking to go around the Eye. As he passed Hendricks, he heard the man muttering to himself, “They heal themselves. They congeal and heal, repeal the hole and make it whole.”

  Linc paused in his flight to grab Hendricks and pull him along. The reactor technician was out of his mind, his own eyes glazed, not with the healing power of the Eyes, but with madness.

  The three of them ran from the stare of the Eye, and found themselves in the middle of the melee. Around them the Eyes bobbed and swooped, and the ground was slippery with their blood. But they were healed over. The men were no longer a fighting unit, but a panicked horde of individuals. Bullets rained upward, piercing their targets, and the targets shot skyward, wounded and bleeding, only to return to the fight healed. And always, there was that pull, that constant pull upon Linc that impelled him to approach.

  Students bumped into him, their guns discharging uselessly. Others fired volleys at the empty air. The field had changed from order to chaos, with the cries and screams of maddened minds.

  Streaming blood from one of the Eyes fell on Linc and soaked into his shirt. Close by, a student jerked straight. His body stiffened, then went limp, and his gun fell from his open hands. He walked through the mob of running, whirling men, oblivious to the noise and jumble. An Eye sailed backward before him, the sun glinting on its healing surface. As Linc watched it the pull caressed him again, and grew from a caress to a tug. Another man, a policeman, joined the zombie student, and the Eye took him, too.

  Linc broke from the tug of the thing. Sweat from his own body was mingling with the now cold blood of the Eye on his shirt.

  “To hell with Iverson’s orders!” he yelled to Wes. “We’ve got to fight them off!”

  He dashed for the student’s abandoned gun and raised it to his shoulder, blasting away at the Eye that had now gathered four men and was leading them out of the battle toward the field beside the woods. He saw the searing tear as his shot hit home, smack in the middle of the Eye.

  “Bull’s-eye!” he shouted in triumph, and let go another blast. But the Eye bobbed upward, evading, and even as it did, he saw the wound he had made in it glazing over, the flow of blood halting, the sides of the hole growing together and scarring over.

  “Wes!” He swiveled to find his friend. “What are we going to do?”

  But Wes didn’t hear. He was yards away, a gun raised, shooting at another of the giants.

  The sound of gunfire grew less and less. The circle around Linc broke, cascading outward as men took flight. Those who did not flee stood in their places, numb, alone, unaware. Hendricks was one of them. He wasn’t muttering any more.

  Linc refused to run. The battle was useless against a self-healing opponent, but he wouldn’t run. These men, these boys, were here because of him, and he had to cover their flight. He shot upward, missing or hitting, it hardly mattered which, but the hits were at least a delaying action. The Eyes were massed over him and their seepings and weepings splashed over him, in his hair, on his face, but he wouldn’t run. Men in flight went limp and shuffled away, but he ignored them. Whatever Iverson said, this was his fight, after all. The Eyes wouldn’t get him.

  Wes backed into him, also fighting. Together, he and Wes would battle for the world. Then Wes’ hands were on his shoulders, shaking him, and Wes’ desperate shouts hit his ears.

  “Linc! Come to your senses, Linc! It’s no use! We’ve got to get out!”

  Linc heard, but couldn’t understand; then Wes’ shaking dashed sweat into his eyes and with the sting of it he came back to himself. There was no force left on the field. The battle was done.

  “Where’s Iverson?” Linc gasped, frightened. Nothing must happen to the old man. “Where are the rest of our own men?”

  “Iverson has gone back to the lab. Come on, Linc. Please!”

  Six Eyes were circling the bloody ground; two Eyes were escorting twenty men away.

  “All right,” Linc surrendered. “Retreat! Run!”

  He swung in beside Wes, blind with exhaustion, and twenty steps further on, stumbled over the body of a dead boy. He was riddled with bullet holes, caught in one of the frenzied volleys of his companions. Linc scrambled up and went on. Behind him, the pull on his back told him that the Eyes were coming, giving chase over the field, eager to add to their Linc of zombies.

  Collins was holding the door wide when they reached the lab.

  “We’re the last,” Wes told him. “Shut it!”

  Collins bolted the door. “Iverson and the other men are down in the assembly room,” he said.

  “Iverson—and how many others?” Linc asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Collins answered. “About twenty, maybe less.”

  Twenty, maybe less, out of forty-six! Linc met Wes’ glance, then strode away. He went into Iverson’s office and closed the blinds tight to bar the scene outside. He could see the field and the Eyes hovering beyond the window, waiting.

  He closed the blinds and slumped into a chair, aware of the ache in his body, of the exhaustion, and the filth that was all over him. He shuddered.

  “Don’t think about it,” Wes said. “Not right now.”

  “But it was such a disaster, Wes. Such a fool play. All of those boys—those men. If we could have won just a tiny victory… But as it is, their loss was senseless. It accomplished nothing. I just gave their lives away.”

  “You can’t take all the blame. If you’re determined to place guilt, then I’m guilty, too. So is Iverson.”

  Wes was trying to give him relief, but he couldn’t accept relief, not yet, not with the horror still so close. Collins, coming through the door, was a welcome interruption.

  “What were you guys doing out there?” Collins asked harshly. “I got here and found nobody at work, and when I went outside I saw you out there. What was that supposed to be—the ‘simplest solution’? Shoot ’em up? Fight fire with fire?�
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  The barbs hit Linc full force. “And where were you? If you saw what was happening, why didn’t you come out and help?”

  “Thanks for your usual vote of confidence,” Collins slashed back. “I saw, all right; and I saw ahead and knew what was going to happen, so I stayed here. If I hadn’t been here, Iverson wouldn’t have made it back. An Eye almost got him. I pulled him in. Maybe you think Iverson’s just another puppet to play with, but I hold him higher than that. So does the government. He’s a man who can’t be replaced.”

  “So?” Linc could think of no retort. “I already know that.”

  “Then why did you take such a chance with him?”

  “Because we thought it would work,” Wes said. “An attack on a vulnerable eye-—we thought it would work. So did Iverson.”

  “Somebody should have consulted me.” Collins was nasty. “I could have told you what would happen. I saw a guy poke a stick right through one of those things last night, and I saw the thing heal itself up.”

  Then it wasn’t only a futile fight, it was a senseless fight, stabbed through Linc’s mind. He had sent men out when they didn’t have a chance, and he could have known it if he had taken the trouble to find out.

  “Where were you to be consulted?” he shouted at Collins, needing to take the self-recrimination out on somebody. “You gave up last night, and went home. And then when you got the information about the healing capacity of the Eyes, you didn’t even report it.”

  “Okay, so I went home. But would you have consulted me if I had been standing right next to you?” Collins’ eyes were sparking. “That’s not the way you work, Hosier. Not Lincoln Hosier. He’s the whole show, the whole department. You don’t use your assistants, and you know it. You’ve never made use of me. You wouldn’t have last night.”

  “I haven’t made use of you because there’s nothing in you worth making use of! ” Linc let it come.

  “Linc,” Wes stepped between them. “Now isn’t the time.”

  “Now is the time! I’m standing here, covered with blood and drippings from those ungodly things, and he dares to accuse me of stupidity. Of murdering those men who went to carry out my plan. I won’t stand it!”

  “You don’t have to stand it,” Iverson said from the door. “I’ve heard enough, Collins. Anything you’re saying about Linc, you’re also saying about me. Remember that. Now—with that fact in mind—do you still wish to charge incompetency?”

  Collins looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, sir. The tension—the heat of the moment.”

  “We’ll forget it, then,” Iverson turned to face Linc’s belligerence. “You’re a mess, boy,” he said, and it was both gruff and gentle. “Take a shower, wash that blood out of your hair, and go home. We’ll give this over to the National Guard this afternoon.”

  “You’re not giving up on it?” Linc asked.

  “I’m not giving up,” Iverson said. “But you need rest. So do I. So does Wes. Look at him, Linc. Double the mess he is, and you’ve got a good picture of yourself.”

  Linc glanced at Wes. He was a shambles of a man. His face was dirty with mud and caked with fluid; blood streaked it, and his eyes stood out like marbles in a dark hole. His clothes were matted and caked, and Linc saw that the man was utterly exhausted.

  He gave in to Iverson on the strength of Wes. He headed for the door, then turned back. “I’m not going to give up, Doc. I was out there, and I felt what they can do to a man beyond the horror they generate, and I’m not going to give up until I see them destroyed. It’s too personal now. I have to finish it.”

  Wes grasped his arm and led him down to the locker room where hot showers waited, and a clean change of clothes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Kelly was at the house, doing her best to make the rooms cheerful. She had the drapes drawn and the lights on, creating a cozy world of cushions and carpets. But Linc wasn’t able to enjoy it. Wes relaxed in the big chair, Ichabod at his feet, a pipe in his mouth. Linc roamed from living room to kitchen.

  Kelly was cooking dinner. The housekeeper hadn’t returned after her departure on the day of the game. Kelly turned from the stove, eying Linc, and there was something in her expression that made him realize she wasn’t offering solace, but asking it. “You can help me cut up stuff for the salad, if you like.”

  “Don’t bother with anything fancy, Kel.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. There’s no sense in going without food just because you’re worried. And I’d like company. I’ve waited in this house, keeping busy simply because I had to, and now I’d like some friendly talk.”

  She wanted lightness, gaiety, to counteract the bitterness and fear of the long day she had spent waiting. She wanted him to be a rock for her to cling to. A week ago, he would have been anything in the world for her, but not tonight. He was too exhausted.

  “The things I have on my mind don’t make very gay conversation,” he said.

  “Then go back to Wes. Let me cook in peace.”

  He went to her, wanting the feel of her, the comfort of another human body close and safe with his. He put his arms around her, forcing her to stop the stirring motion.

  But she squirmed away. “For heaven’s sake, Linc, not now. What do you think I am?”

  “My girl, maybe?”

  She ignored his statement. “I’m not here to be mauled. I don’t want to be mauled. Go pet Ichabod, if that’s what you want.”

  He was too tired to play games. He spoke his mind. “Why do you keep coming around if you don’t even want my touch on you? You’re no prude, Kelly. Why don’t you ever let me near? You’ve got to make up your mind someday.”

  “Does it have to be today? You pick the worst imaginable times for your love-making. You have no sense of timing; no sense of delicacy. If you think I’ll fly into your arms just because I’m frightened, you’re dead wrong. I might need comfort, but not that kind.”

  He left the kitchen before he said anything more and made a worse shambles than there already was between them.

  Wes was staring into the flames of the fireplace, deep in his own thoughts. From the look of him, no one would guess that just hours before he had been on a bloody field, fighting horror.

  “You sit there like nothing had happened,” Linc complained. “How do you manage it?”

  “Maybe it’s because I know what to put on my conscience and what to toss away.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re letting this morning’s fiasco eat you up. You have to put it out of your mind—forget it—and start fresh.”

  “I know that.” Linc rubbed his head, as though the physical action could clear away the muddle from his mind. “But those boys—I told Iverson they were too young!” His voice was rising, repealing the anger he had thrust at Collins. “Almost none of them came back, do you realize that? Two dead of gunshot wounds, and fifteen taken away by the Eyes. I didn’t go with the Eyes. You didn’t go. But those boys did. And they’re all lost because, as Collins said, I picked the simplest solution I could find and rushed into it without weighing the consequences.”

  “Don’t heap yourself high with blame, Linc. It doesn’t belong on you. You fought your guts out this morning. You were the last to leave the field.”

  “But how can I reconcile—”

  “I’ve made some cocktails,” Kelly said from the door. “I want everybody to drink deep and liven up.”

  She handed the glasses around, and Linc gulped his down.

  “Ichabod is great company,” she was saying to Wes. “Now I know why you talk to him all the time. He does answer, in his own way. I may steal him and take him home with me.”

  “Nope,” Wes smiled. “A man’s woman and his dog are sacred to him. They’re untouchable.”

  “The dog part, anyway,” she answered. Her eyes sparkled brightly, perhaps too brig
htly to be genuine, and certainly too brightly for Linc to stomach. “If you had a woman,” she asked Wes, “would she actually mean that much to you? Would she be untouchable?”

  “In theory, yes. I can’t say in practice, because I’ve never had a woman.”

  “Don’t I know it! Maybe we can change all that one day. If there ever is another day—free from the Eyes.” She frowned. “I’ve felt so guilty and useless, running about, cleaning house, while you two were fighting for my life.” Wes reached out and touched her hand. “But there was nothing better you could do.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  The moment between them was close and warm. Linc averted his eyes. He hadn’t been able to say things like that to her. Wes always knew the right words. And he took advantage of the fact.

  Then Kelly’s dark gaze was on him. “Linc just sits here like a gloomy bear. He won’t even talk to us.”

  “If my company is that dampening, I’ll remove it,” Linc stood.

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t go stiff on us,” Wes told him. “Kelly was only trying to tease you out of the mood.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand teasing at a time like this,” he answered nastily.

  Wes withdrew his hand from Kelly’s grasp, and his face was full of the kindness he always offered. “If you’ve got things on your mind, friend, talk about them. Let us listen and help.”

  “Yes, talk if you must.” Kelly was watching him, toe. “I thought this was just one of your moods. I didn’t realize you were really troubled.”

  He wanted to accept her offer, to make use of her sudden concern, but he threw it aside, because he didn’t know how to use it. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to make a sandwich, and then I’m going to bed. You two have fun.”

  He left the room, torn within himself. On the one hand, he had done what he knew Kelly wanted; but on the other he had thrown them together again. He always threw them together. Wes spent more time with Kelly than he did. Wes might say that it was time he didn’t want, but he never refused it.