The Gemini Effect

by Chuck Grossart

  Carolyn waited a few seconds for the colonel to say something. He didn’t. “Is there something wrong?” she asked. “I was told the vice chief of staff of the Army was going to call directly to explain my team’s arrival. General Worthington?”

  “Worthington called,” Garrett said, shaking his head. “You’re a little late, Ms. Ridenour. The city is clear.”

  “The city is clear?” Carolyn was shocked. Her stomach sank as she watched the C-130 bank to the southwest, climbing away.

  “Yes, the city is clear. No chemical, biological, or radiological agents found.” Garrett looked up at the speck in the sky that had been the unmarked C-130, clearly frustrated that he now had to deal with a bunch of stranded civilians. “And there went your ride.”

  Carolyn’s first assignment as a team leader wasn’t supposed to pan out this way. She could feel her team members staring at her, waiting for her to do something. Problem was, she wasn’t sure what to do. “Well, Colonel,” she said defiantly, “it looks like you’re stuck with us for the time being.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not,” Garrett said. “We’ll have a truck for you and your team available within the hour. Sergeant Major, take these people to the terminal and have their gear—”

  “The gear stays with us, Colonel,” she interrupted. If you’re going to be an ass, Carolyn thought, then I’ll return the favor.

  Garrett narrowed his eyes at her. “Like I was saying, Sergeant Major, have their gear taken with them to the terminal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ms. Ridenour, it’s been a pleasure. But I have work to do. Good day.” With that, Garrett strode off to take care of more pressing matters. Carolyn’s gaze burned dual holes into his back.

  “Ma’am, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the terminal and get you and your team settled until we can schedule transportation for you out of here. I’ll have your gear brought up to you.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Major.” In a small way, Carolyn was glad she wouldn’t have to work with Colonel Garrett Hoffman after all. What an asshole.

  CHAPTER 12

  An hour and fifteen minutes after Carolyn and her team were stranded at the airport, the first troops entered the city. On foot, they moved from house to house, building to building, slowly moving toward the center. AH-64 Apache gunships prowled overhead, looking for targets. Higher in the early evening sky, an AC-130U Spooky gunship slowly circled, awaiting a call for fire support.

  Structure by structure the troopers went. Looking in the corners. Looking in the basements. They found more evidence of the night’s terror. Pools of congealed blood. Torn clothing. Small bits of what used to be people.

  But nothing more.

  This was going to take some time.

  In the western sky, the bright orange orb of the sun kissed the horizon, signaling the end of one of the worst days in American history.

  Carolyn stared at the TV, wondering when she’d be able to get her team on the road back to Dugway. The televisions in the KCI terminal had been left on, and every single news channel was replaying the president’s address from earlier in the day.

  “. . . and take care of the people who have been affected. These animals, described as some sort of large rodent, are still in the city. As of now, they’ve stopped their spread and are remaining stationary. We believe they have an aversion to light . . .”

  Carolyn hadn’t learned all the facts of what had happened in Kansas City until she’d seen the president’s speech and watched the news. When she and her team had left Dugway, they were briefed that there might’ve been a biological or chemical attack in Kansas City—she was prepared for that. She’d been a team member in Cleveland and had a good idea of what her team was going to have to do once they landed. During the flight from Las Vegas, they’d been given no additional information and apparently hadn’t been pulled off the assignment once the city had been declared clear. Frustrating, but understandable. Communications in a situation like this—with thousands of different messages flying to and from a hundred different places . . . Well, sometimes the ball gets dropped. Obviously, someone dropped hers.

  As Carolyn watched the president’s address for the third time, something suddenly dawned on her. He said the attacks were from some sort of animals, and they hid in the buildings when the sun came out. No, not just animals . . . Large rodents. A mutation? And they’re afraid of light? She whispered to herself, “The spread stopped . . . when the sun came up?”

  Carolyn looked out the window as the last fiery rim of the sun sank below the horizon, and a chill snaked up her spine. It was a hunch at best, but she suddenly knew what might have caused this. And if she was right . . .

  The glass windowpanes in the airport terminal started to vibrate, ever so slightly. From outside, there was a muted clicking sound, a strange chattering noise. Coming from the southeast. From the city. Even inside the terminal, it could be heard.

  She could feel it.

  The darkness had come.

  Like millions of bats pouring out of an underground cavern to rule the night, they came.

  THE SECOND NIGHT

  CHAPTER 13

  “Movement! We have movement! Pilot! Target target target!”

  As the AC-130 slowly circled above the darkened city, its infrared night-vision targeting sensors suddenly lit up with hundreds—no, thousands—of targets, each glowing with demonic intensity, moving fast from hundreds of different locations, all at the same instant.

  The pilot had been intently watching the oil pressure on engine three, and the call from his infrared detection set operator had startled him. “Say again?”

  “Jesus Christ! They’re all over the place!”

  He definitely heard him that time. The pilot dipped the wing of his gunship and looked through his targeting sight to his left. What he saw chilled him. “Holy mother of God.”

  The ground below him was alive with the bright green infrared signatures of thousands of small targets flowing outward from the darkened buildings slowly rotating clockwise below his orbiting gunship. It was an almost liquid wave of targets, each abandoned building erupting like a miniature volcano spilling bright green lava out of every crack, flowing fast toward the troops on the ground.

  The combat-proven gunships were designed to deliver truly fearsome firepower. They carried a single 105mm M102 howitzer, capable of firing anywhere from six to ten rounds per minute, an L60 Bofors 40mm cannon capable of delivering either single precision shots or a hellish volley of 120 rounds per minute, and a GAU-12 25mm Gatling gun capable of spitting out 1,800 rounds per minute. During the last ten years of conflict, the deadly AC-130s had drawn enemy blood hundreds of times. The misguided mullahs hated seeing these things circling their safe little caves. It was usually the last thing they saw before they were cut to pieces by a hail of good old American steel. The AC-130s could deliver surgical firepower or, if the situation called for it, area saturation. In layman’s terms, that meant Fuck it. Kill everything.

  This was one of those situations.

  “Call ’em!” the pilot screamed into his headset, ordering the radio operator to inform the ground units that his aircraft was about to engage. “Spooky’s going hot!” All right, you little bastards, let’s party.

  At the same instant the ground troops received the frantic warning call from the gunship’s radio operator, the AC-130’s 25mm Gatling gun belched a long tongue of flame toward the ground below. The WRAAAAAAAAHH from the screaming minigun could be heard from inside the cockpit, even over the gunship’s four thundering Allison turboprops. The rate of fire was so intense that the hundreds of white-hot shells etched a blinding line through the air from the gun’s spinning barrels directly to the ground below. The flaming laser beam of 25mm shells danced across the ground like a death wand wielded by an evil god, an aerial meat grinder shredding everything it touched.

 
Hundreds of the creatures vaporized in clouds of blood and gore, but hundreds more took their place. Moving fast.

  The 40mm Bofors started pumping out rounds as well, each a glowing streak of death screaming down from the orbiting gunship and impacting the ground with a shower of sparks. Bam bam bam bam bam—the 40mm shells slid rapidly through the feeder as the weapon hammered away. The smell of burning cordite filled the inner spaces of the gunship.

  A shudder shook the plane as the mighty 105mm Howitzer fired, sending high-explosive anti-personnel shells toward the swarm of targets, shredding hundreds with each powerful explosion. Kra-BAM! A six-second delay. Kra-BAM!

  The gunship was firing fast and furious.

  But still, the things came.

  Unstoppable.

  To the east and west of their position, two other orbiting gunships opened up on different parts of the city. The night sky suddenly brightened with the fury of the gunships’ coordinated wrath. The abandoned city was bathed in an unnatural, hellish glow.

  The pilot watched as the wave of targets sped outward, still spilling by the thousands from the darkened buildings, from the sewers, from the hiding places. He knew his crew was killing them by the hundreds, but still they came. There were too many of the goddamned things!

  He saw tracer fire below to the south of his position.

  The ground troops had made contact.

  He swallowed. Hard.

  CHAPTER 14

  Captain Pfortmiller’s soldiers had been sitting atop their line-abreast formation of Bradleys, waiting for the order to saddle up and move into the city, when the strange clicking noise, the earsplitting chattering, shattered the dead-quiet countryside like a rolling thunderclap.

  “What in the holy hell is that?” Pfortmiller asked no one in particular.

  The command net erupted all at once. The radioman, Specialist Gorhau, cupped one earphone with his hand, pressing it against his ear. “Cap, there’s movement in the city . . .”

  The WRAAAAAAAAHH of the AC-130’s Gatling gun could barely be heard over the muffled thunder of thousands of clawed, muscular legs tearing across the paved streets, concrete walkways, and grassy areas of the city. The ground was vibrating. Through the vehicle’s steel tracks. Through the ceramic armor. Through the hard rubber soles of their combat boots. Like a mild electric shock.

  “Jesus, there goes the gunship,” Pfortmiller said. “What the hell are they shooting at?”

  The orderly chatter across the command net was suddenly replaced by frantic calls of contact by the forward units, from the east, from the west. Calls for fire support. And then, screams.

  Pfortmiller sat atop his Bradley fighting vehicle, watching the fire rain down from the gunships, listening to the unnerving chattering sound coming from the city in front of him and the electronic disarray on the radio net. Whatever was happening, it was happening way too damned fast. They were supposed to move into the city in less than twenty minutes. So much for that plan, he thought.

  He could hear the sound of automatic weapons fire, forward from their position. Tracers arced low across the sky, bright streaks across his night vision goggles’ field of view. “Here they come! Positions! Now now now!” he yelled, trying desperately to be heard. His troopers reacted instantly, racing to whatever fighting positions they could find.

  He tried to break through on the command net: “Empire, this is Saginaw. Empire, this is Saginaw! We have contact to our front! Please advise, over!” Nothing. The net was a complete jumble of uncoordinated, unintelligible radio calls. Except for the screaming. He’d been in combat before, but it was never like this.

  The chattering was incredibly loud, getting closer.

  He watched as tracers from the forward firing positions suddenly ceased. One by one, they went silent.

  We’re getting overrun. The realization made his blood run cold.

  If he’d had more time, he could’ve gotten his troops back inside their Bradleys, but he knew it was too late. As he slid inside the armored troop carrier and started to pull the upper hatch closed, he saw them. Thousands of pairs of pinpoint lights—glowing eyes—racing toward his position. The ground was covered with them.

  He slammed the hatch closed and screamed his orders into his helmet microphone: “Saginaw, fire at will! Fire at will! Fire at will!” He knew with a sickening certainty that there were no friendlies remaining to their front. Their field of fire was clear.

  He ripped off his night-vision goggles and peered through his infrared viewer. They were less than fifty yards away, tiny yellow orbs glowing like the eyes of the devil himself. Running among the horde were other things, on two legs, leaping like gazelles with each step. He’d never seen a real monster before.

  The Bradley’s gunner opened up with his 25mm Bushmaster cannon, the loud bam bam bam bam bam bam of the rapid-fire gun shaking the interior of the armored vehicle. Pfortmiller’s viewer flashed as hundreds of bright tracer rounds slammed into the onrushing wave of things. His troops were firing.

  He watched helplessly as the rampaging horde slammed into his position. His troops fell where they stood, covered by the squirming mass, pieces of their bodies torn and thrown into the air by the monstrous frenzy.

  He could hear the muffled thunder as they covered his Bradley and feel the vibration as they ran past his position.

  The things were still coming, filling his viewer’s field of view.

  Captain Pfortmiller knew he was a dead man.

  With a terrible screeching noise, the upper hatch of the Bradley was ripped off its hinges, the steel wrenching and splitting as it was torn free.

  Pfortmiller looked up into the face of evil. Two yellow eyes buried in the face of something that just couldn’t be real burned bright as they stared back at him. Rows of black, razor-sharp teeth filled its grinning mouth.

  A long, clawed hand gripped him by the top of the head, his skull cracking loudly as the powerful claws found purchase. It wrenched his body out of the Bradley with a single pull and threw it to the ground. It was eaten in a matter of seconds by an undulating black mass of claws and teeth.

  Next came the gunner.

  And then the rest of the crew.

  The thing standing atop the empty Bradley licked its bloody claws with a long, leathery tongue, savoring every drop. A low moaning escaped its lungs. It leapt to the ground, running toward the others, covering large distances with each long stride. Moving fast.

  It could smell them.

  CHAPTER 15

  Transfixed by the strange vibration of the terminal windows, Carolyn suddenly noticed that the activity outside had intensified—people were running around the tarmac like ants whose hill had been kicked by a mischievous kid.

  One of her team members leaned close and asked, “Carolyn, what do you think is going on?”

  “I don’t know, Matt.” But she did. They could all see the bright flashes of fire streaking to the ground from the gunships in the distance. Her team had all heard the president’s speech. They knew what the gunships were firing at, but none of them wanted to acknowledge it.

  A door opened twenty yards down the concourse, allowing the outside sounds to enter, and an armed trooper ran inside, turning toward their position. The shrill clicking and chattering was deafening. It abruptly ceased as the door slammed shut.

  “Ms. Ridenour?”

  Carolyn stepped forward. “I’m Ms. Ridenour.”

  “Ma’am, you and your team have to follow me.”

  “What’s going on, Sergeant?” Carolyn’s throat suddenly felt tight, constricted, as adrenaline pumped into her bloodstream. She could see a twinge of fear in the sergeant’s eyes.

  “You’re being air-evaced out of here.” He quickly glanced at the tarmac, and then back to Carolyn. It was going to be close.

  “Why?” Carolyn asked, surprised at how shaky her own voice was
. “What’s happening? What is that noise?”

  In no mood for further questions, the sergeant spoke clearly and forcefully, like a father telling his daughter to quit playing in the road because there’s a car coming. “Ma’am, you need to get out of here. You need to follow me now.”

  Carolyn and her team turned toward their gear, which was neatly stacked ten feet away.

  “The gear stays. Y’all don’t have a whole lot of time.” The sergeant, tired of explaining himself, turned and headed back toward the tarmac door at a slow run.

  “Jesus, Carolyn,” Matt said. His eyes were wide with fright.

  “I know, I know.” Carolyn was scared too, but this was her team, and it was time to be the team leader and take charge. “All right, people, you heard him. Let’s go! Quickly, before our ride leaves without us.”

  Carolyn and her team ran after the sergeant, who’d already propped open the door and was waving them through. The unnatural sound was even louder now, and Carolyn knew whatever was making it was getting closer.

  As she stepped through the door, automatic weapons fire rattled from the far southern edge of the airport. She could see the tracer fire. The air smelled hot, electric. For a second, one of her team members stopped on the metal stairway, frozen stiff by what he was seeing. The sergeant grabbed him by the jacket and literally dragged him down the stairs, sending him sprawling onto the tarmac.

  The sergeant screamed to be heard. “Follow me!” He pointed to a helicopter in the distance, its dual rotor blades beginning to rotate.

  There was more weapons fire. From the eastern part of the airport. Closer than from the south.

  Good God, they’re all around us! Carolyn realized. Her stomach sank. She’d never been so scared in her entire life. It was happening too fast! They were nearly forty miles from the center of the exclusion zone, ten miles from the edge of where the things had stopped at daybreak—how could the things have moved so far, so fast? Her heart was beating so hard she felt as if it would burst from her chest and go bouncing toward the helicopter without her.