Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth)

by Michael Langlois

  “You’re not leaving me here like I’m some helpless invalid!” Able to walk or not, there was nothing wrong with Leon’s lungs.

  “It has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact that we have to go into the woods.” I didn’t realize that I was using my let’s-be-reasonable voice until it was too late.

  “Fuck you, Abe. You don’t even know where the place is. I grew up in these woods, so without me, you can just sit your ass right here. And for your information, the trail is almost wide enough to bring the damn truck down.”

  He yanked the passenger door of Henry’s truck open and hauled himself up with one hand on the armrest inside the door and the other on the passenger grip attached to the dash. His forearms and biceps bulged as he lifted his body into the truck. Once on the seat, he used his hands to swing his legs the rest of the way inside, and then slammed the door.

  I folded his wheelchair and put it in the bed of the truck without comment. Naturally, Leon had attached a pistol holster to the side and a shotgun sleeve to the back.

  I got behind the wheel while Anne and Chuck squeezed into the jump seats behind us.

  Henry leaned in through the open driver’s side window. “I doubt there’s any cell reception out there, so be back before dark. Don’t make me drag my saggy behind out there to look for you.”

  Leon said, “It’s daylight, we’re all armed to the teeth, and the only activity that boneyard has seen in a hundred years has been stoned teenagers having sex thirty seconds at a time. We’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t be cocky, boy. Remember what happened the last time you were sure that things were going to go easy.” I could see in Henry’s face that he regretted saying that as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

  Leon’s eyes went hard and he turned away to look out the window. There was nothing to say after that, so I started the truck. We lurched away down the gravel drive, leaving Henry by himself, staring after us.

  We drove for a good half-hour, alone on the beautiful single-lane roads that twisted through the heavily forested region. Trees crowded close to the road on either side of us, pine and maple and birch, creating patchwork walls of green and red and yellow.

  A carpet of dropped leaves obscured the edges of the road, leaving us to follow a narrow black strip of asphalt down the center. We eventually turned off on a dirt track that was popular with hunters, as it led to a wide field where you could park or set up a camp before heading out into the woods lugging deer stands and ice chests full of beer.

  I shut off the engine and we all piled out, glad to get out of the truck and away from the awkward silence of the drive. A few minutes later, Leon was in his chair with pistol and shotgun holstered, leading us down a footpath into the woods. His breathing was loud but steady as he manhandled the chair over the endless sticks and ruts buried under the thick carpet of leaves that covered the trail.

  Anne looked up at the trees as she walked. “This place is beautiful, Leon. I feel like we’re the only people in the world.”

  “Wait a few weeks and you’ll see plenty of orange vests out in these woods. Me and Uncle Henry used to hunt every year when I was a teenager.” A tiny smile broke through his anger. “We didn’t get shit most trips. The only times I got lucky in these woods was in the cemetery with a blanket and a bottle of whatever was cheapest at the corner store.”

  “In a graveyard at night? I can’t believe you talked any girls into coming out here to have sex with you on top of a bunch of dead people.”

  “It sounds better if you say under the stars instead of on top of dead people.”

  “Still gross.”

  “When you live with your folks, it’s all about the privacy. And the booze.”

  We chatted and walked for about twenty minutes. Leon refused to let anyone help him with his wheelchair, so by the time we arrived, he was sweating with the effort despite the chill in the air.

  The Needham-Hawley graveyard was over a hundred years old, and sprawled over five acres of land. The gates were long gone, but the rusty remains of a waist-high cast iron fence could still be seen stretching around the perimeter in bits and pieces.

  Leon stopped at the entrance. “What. The. Fuck.”

  The entire graveyard was covered in gaping holes, fresh dirt, and the shattered pieces of rotten, age-blackened caskets.

  5

  Even after all these years, it felt weird walking into a place like this without my squad at my side. I could almost hear Shad suggesting that we throw a bunch of grenades in first, just to see what would happen, and Two-Penny telling him to shut up.

  I motioned for the others to hang back and stepped into the graveyard. If there was something dangerous in here, I wanted it to go for me first.

  My baton scraped against its holster when I drew it, the sound like a shout to my ears in the still air. The weapon itself was dull silver and slightly thicker than a broom handle, with a small crossbar sticking out of the side. It was warm to the touch. My worst enemy had given it to me right before he tried to get me to kill him with it. Its name was Hunger.

  The ground was hard and weedy where undisturbed, but near every grave was a deep hole surrounded by a halo of fresh earth. Many of them had fragments and splinters of wood trailing out of their depths, and more often than not, ragged strips of cloth. There were no body parts, just the remains of clothes and coffins.

  I walked up to the nearest hole and peered in, revealing a short shaft that angled down into the side of the casket proper. A musty but not unpleasant smell reached me as I bent low to inspect the deep claw marks in the soil that made up the walls of the shaft.

  I walked further in, trailed by the others. Near the center of the graveyard I heard a faint scratching sound, so I looked back and held one finger to my lips.

  Anne’s Fobus combat holster clicked softly as she thumbed the release and drew her weapon in one smooth motion. It was a Sig Sauer P250 compact tactical pistol, configured for 9mm.

  On the way to Henry’s place a few weeks ago, we had stopped by her apartment so that she could pack a few bags. The first thing that she had put her hand on was the P250.

  Chuck drew his battered Taurus, and Leon reached into his side mounted holster for the new Heckler & Koch HK45 that he had purchased to replace his service pistol, returned when he got the medical discharge from the Marines. I guess the 9mm hadn’t seemed manly enough. I would have felt ridiculous standing next to all those guns holding a tonfa if it weren’t for the fact that Hunger was a hell of a lot more deadly.

  As we approached, the scratching noise stopped, leaving only the sound of our breathing. Leon leaned forward in his chair with his head cocked and rolled himself forward very slowly, the wheels of his chair rising and falling over each bump and clod of dirt in his path. A stick cracked.

  The grave in front of us exploded. Dirt flew in all directions as something the size of a Great Dane burst from the dark hole. Slick white skin, thin and smooth like a frog’s, covered bunched and corded muscles at haunch and shoulder, becoming dark and mottled at the ends of its arms and legs. The limbs were out of proportion with the body, longer than you would expect, and all four ended in a powerful looking hand that was clawed, but otherwise appeared human.

  A pair of shiny black spider eyes floated over a lipless mouth full of needle-sharp teeth as thick as a finger. They were spaced a good inch apart from each other and were clearly designed to interlock when the jaws were closed.

  The creature shot past me on a collision course with Leon, its claws throwing up chunks of dirt and weeds as it gained speed. Leon fired a split-second before the creature slammed into him.

  The crack of the gunshot echoed out into the silent woods.

  And every single grave in the five acre cemetery vomited forth a shrieking nightmare.

  6

  While the graveyard was small by today’s standards, five acres is still a square with sides over a thousand feet long. And we were smack in the center, surrounded
by pissed off, corpse-eating nightmares looking to defend their territory.

  Anne reacted first. She’s a lovely person both inside and out, and enjoys shopping and flowers and talking about bands that frankly all sound the same to me, and for the most part is exactly the kind of charming person she appears to be.

  But underneath all of that is a woman who was relentlessly trained from childhood by her grandfather to put bullets into things she doesn’t like, as quickly and accurately as humanly possible. That part of her is without humor or pity, and is frighteningly efficient.

  Anne’s aim snapped to the nearest creature’s head, and she fired her P250 twice in rapid succession, the shots so close together that they seemed to merge into one stuttering blast. The top of the creature’s skull vanished in a grisly spray that painted the headstone behind it.

  Chuck fired wildly at a creature that was charging at Anne’s back, but missed. It abruptly changed course and leaped onto him a split-second later, slamming him to the ground in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

  Two seconds in, and already half of us were down. By some miracle I was in the clear, so Anne and I had a few precious seconds to help the others.

  I bellowed over the din of the screeching creatures. “Help Chuck! I’m going for Leon!” Anne nodded and bolted for Chuck, already trying to line up a safe shot.

  The creatures seemed confused, dashing around randomly and blundering into tombstones and other creatures, and more often than not lashing out on impact. The way they were turning their heads toward the ground made me think that the daylight was blinding them.

  That would have been good news, except that I saw one of the creatures rake furrows into a headstone with its claws after crashing into it. Blinded or not, if we didn’t get out of the swarm soon, we were going to be torn apart.

  An enraged creature bleeding from an encounter with one of its own was racing towards Leon. He saw it before I did and was desperately yanking on the stock of the shotgun behind his head, since his pistol had been emptied into the first creature.

  The shotgun was pinned to the ground beneath the seat back, with Leon and the dead creature on his chest pressing down on it. There was no way it was coming free.

  It was pure luck that I was close enough to body check the inbound creature before it reached him.

  We hit the ground with me on the bottom. It had to weigh three hundred pounds, easy. The impact took my breath, and before I could recover it had wrapped all four limbs around me. Two of its clawed hands tore into my back and the other two dug into my thighs.

  I barely managed to get Hunger between its teeth when it went for my face. Broken bits of fang dropped down onto me as the massive jaws slammed shut on the metal bar between my hands. It bore down and shook its head like a dog, but I kept my grip on Hunger, barely. It was even stronger than it looked, and it looked like it could chew up an engine block.

  As I struggled with the thing, a flash of red caught my eye. Sparing a glance to my right, I had a moment of surreal clarity in the midst of the chaos. A bushy-tailed, black-eared fox darted nimbly across the graveyard, weaving between charging creatures and bounding lightly over headstones. It had something in its mouth, and was heading right for us.

  I only had time for a quick glimpse. The creature on top of me was pulling hard with all four of its limbs, digging its claws deeper into my back and legs. Muscles jumped and bunched under its hairless skin as it forced its head closer to my face. I gave it everything I had, but I couldn’t keep it from slowly closing the gap. I was waiting for it realize that at this distance it could just let go of the bar and bite my head off.

  Hunger flexed in my hands. The bar between the creature’s teeth went flat and razor sharp. I let my arms relax, drawing the creature’s head as close as I dared, then shoved forward with everything I had. The blade sheared clean through its head, cutting through teeth, jaw muscles, and the back of its skull.

  Hot black fluid splattered across my neck and face. I shoved the corpse off of me and got shakily to my feet, just in time to see the fox drop a leather tube next to Leon and bound away, untouched by the madness around it.

  A few yards distant, shots were being fired. Chuck was firing from the ground while Anne stood over him shooting in the other direction. It was useless. The noise was attracting more of the things than they were killing.

  My back and legs were torn up pretty badly, Anne and Chuck would be running out of ammo in moments, and we were no closer to getting out of this nest than we were when the attack started. We needed to run.

  I heaved the dead creature off of Leon, and another one leaped onto me from the side. It hit me high, staggering me, and its teeth sank deep into my neck and shoulder. I expected it to start tearing chunks out of me, but instead it jumped off like I was a hot coal.

  We sprang apart and stared at each other. I could feel its moist, dank breath on my face. It ran a black tongue over bloody teeth and squinted at me in the light. Then it raised its muzzle high and let out a strident, piercing call. A deeper cry answered from underground, the sound issuing from the burrows all around us.

  Every creature in the graveyard froze.

  The deep scream came again, louder this time, sounding like a cross between an enraged cougar and tearing sheet metal. As one, they turned and headed back into their tunnels.

  We were alone.

  7

  I grabbed the back of Leon’s wheelchair and started to heave him upright. My torn back muscles gave out on me about halfway up and I nearly dropped him. I eventually got it done, but it cost me. I had to hang on to the handles of his chair to keep from falling over myself while I waited for the pain to recede.

  I hadn’t really been hurt since Belmont, but before that I would generally heal from injuries within minutes or hours, depending on how much damage there was to deal with. It had taken most of a week to repair all the damage I had done to my chest and heart with Hunger.

  Anne walked up and showed me her pistol. The slide was locked back, empty. “Just in time.” Blood was seeping through her shirt, down low on her left side. I watched her release the slide and holster her gun. Her hands trembled.

  Anne was always tough during a fight, but afterwards you could see how hard it was on her. Patrick had created someone with inhuman concentration during a crisis, but who was no more ready emotionally for this kind of horror than anyone else.

  “You okay?” We were keeping our voices low, nearly whispering.

  She nodded a little too quickly. “Just a scratch. Chuck’s cut up pretty badly, though. I think we need to get him to a hospital.”

  “Can he walk?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll give him a hand.” I started to walk past her, and she gasped.

  “Oh my god, Abe!”

  “What?”

  “Christ,” said Leon. “You look like you had a nap on the floor of a slaughterhouse.”

  Anne gingerly put one hand on my shoulder and took a closer look. “Your entire back looks like hamburger.” She gently moved some of the ragged pieces of my shirt aside. “Some of these tears are down to the bone. I’ll take care of Chuck, okay? Just wait here.”

  As always, as soon as she was needed she took charge and acted like nothing in the would could touch her. Her gaze hardened and she stood taller, but you can only pull on your reserves like that for so long.

  She went over to where Chuck was trying to get up without moving the upper part of his body. He was a big boy at over six feet tall, and had the build of a construction worker. He weighed over two hundred pounds, easy. Anne, on the other hand, was barely over a hundred pounds with her shoes on.

  Nonetheless, she squatted down and worked one arm around Chuck’s waist. She took a deep breath, and with a grunt, lifted him smoothly onto his feet.

  “Steady,” said Anne. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine. Just kind of sleepy all of a sudden.”

  I exchanged a worried glance with Anne. “That’s p
robably not good. What do you think?”

  “Girl Scout first aid lessons don’t exactly make me a doctor, Abe.”

  “How about being the smartest person available at the time?”

  “That part’s certainly true. As far as I can tell, he’s got a bad bite on one arm and one thigh, and some deep cuts on his chest and stomach. The blood loss doesn’t seem to be too bad, so I’m guessing it’s mostly shock that we’re seeing here. We need to get him to the emergency room, though, and soon. Of course, that’s just my opinion, which I just pulled out of my butt, so he could be dying right now for all I know.”

  Chuck spoke up, weakly. “I’m not dying. I been hurt worse at the quarry plenty of times.” He walked slowly next to Anne, leaning on her shoulder and cradling one bloody arm against his chest.

  Leon pounded one of his numb legs with a fist. “Goddammit. I wasn’t worth shit back there, and now I can’t even help with the wounded.”

  “It’s not like I’m any more useful than you,” I said. “Anne’s doing all the work.”

  The pain in my back was already starting to fade, but I chose not to mention it. “Did you notice what happened back there? Those things took off and left perfectly good food on the table. The first one to get a good mouthful called the whole thing off.”

  Leon shook his head. “No, that’s not what happened. The one that bit you didn’t call it off. All he did was run it up the chain of command. The boss under the graveyard is the one who called it off. It don’t matter that they look like a pack of animals, they’re smart.”

  “I guess it wasn’t enough for them to be built like a tank with fangs, they have to be organized, too. Speaking of animals, did I really see a fox run across the graveyard and deliver your mail, or was that just the blood loss getting to me?”

  Leon let his wheelchair roll to a stop. He pulled a tube made of pale leather out of his lap and held it up. “It happened. There’s something inside, but I haven’t opened it yet.”