Some people in town on vacations were lucky enough to capture footage on video camera. In the days that followed, their footage would be shown on all the major news networks, much like the video images of the planes that plowed into the World Trade Center towers. Those images would depict horror and widespread panic. They would also provide a first-hand glimpse of the creatures that were invading Atlantic City en masse.
To Robert Fegley, who was still looking out his tenth story hotel room through his binoculars, what was going on below was horrific beyond description.
And it was just beginning.
Robert felt a giant, icy fist suddenly seize his heart and squeeze. His left arm went numb, and the binoculars tumbled from his hand. He clutched his chest and fell to the floor.
What’s this, he thought. Heart attack? That’s not fair…
He was dead within a minute.
He was one of the lucky ones. Outside, the carnage continued.
Chapter Two
Taneytown, Maryland
3:00 PM
The old man watched the skies. The sun was still shining bright as it began its descending westward arc. Sunset was just a few hours away, yet the sun refused to go quietly or gently into the night. The old man respected that—felt a kinship with the orb. It was doing what he could not.
No sense dwelling on it, he thought. And besides, this isn’t so bad. It could be much worse.
He breathed deeply, inhaling the aroma of fresh cut grass and hay. The sky overhead was blue and crisp. Bees buzzed in the clover at his feet, and two hummingbirds fought over a red feeder, darting angrily back and forth, trying to get to the sugar water inside.
It was another perfect end to another perfect day.
The old man leaned against the white fence, watching the stallion run. It galloped past him, mane blowing in the warm summer breeze, coiled muscles working like clockwork cogs beneath its skin. The old man envied the horse. His own mane had long since disappeared and his muscles were more rubber than steel these days. He’d grown soft, and this angered and depressed him in ways nothing else could.
He sighed.
Retirement. Day Four Thousand and eighty-two. Horseshit… These were supposed to be the happiest days of his life—the golden years. Forget what they told you in high school when you were a kid, that those were the best days of your life and you’d never forget them. Hogwash. He barely remembered high school and what little he did remember wasn’t happy or joyous. Those memories were filled with a shocked amazement that he’d been that naïve, that stupid and careless. Young men had no clue about the world around them or the things in it. The mysteries of women. The value of a dollar. Respect. Careers. Responsibility. Fear. Wars…
So, clueless, they ended up getting shipped off to places like Vietnam, and no, those weren’t the happiest days of their lives.
They certainly hadn’t been his.
The old man had done two tours of duty in Vietnam, as well as participating in Grenada and Desert Storm, all while fighting the Cold War and Congressional overlords between excursions. He’d served many administrations and shaken hands with some of the most important men in the world, and while he was fiercely proud of his service, they weren’t the best days of his life. They were days of duty and obligation, of discipline and orders and rules of engagement. And after a lifetime of that, after the final war, when they’d chased the Iraqis out of Kuwait and had been ordered to stop at the border rather than taking Saddam out of commission once and for all when they had the chance—after all of that had come Phillipsport.
The old man shivered in the summer heat. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, and it had nothing to do with the temperature outside. It was a cold sweat.
Phillipsport had been the worst tour of duty of them all. He’d witnessed things there he’d never seen on the battlefield. Things no man, no matter how evil, would do to another human being.
Because the enemy in Phillipsport hadn’t been human…
Part crab, part sea scorpion. Oversized, some bigger than a large dog. Nothing like them in the fossil record, yet the scientists had told him the creatures were millions of years old. Like sharks, they’d been relatively untouched by evolution.
He’d arrived in Phillipsport on October 23, 1994 at the end of a ferocious storm, Hurricane Floyd. It formed late in that year’s slow hurricane season and hit New England with a fury. He’d been dispatched to Phillipsport by order of the Pentagon in an effort to oversee operations. Standard homeland disaster ops, buy the book—a nice coda to his years of service. The mission parameters changed while in route, and that was always a sign that shit was hitting the proverbial fan—when peacetime orders became fluid. His troops were now ordered to assist the National Guard and put a lid on the hysteria that was leaking out of the town. Something about creatures coming out of the stormy ocean, ravaging the town, attacking and devouring people. It was unbelievable and his initial reaction was, you’re sending me and my men to chase things that don’t exist? He’d quickly learned otherwise when he reached the outskirts of the village and saw first-hand the destruction and carnage.
And then he’d seen the things himself.
He’d initially caught fleeting images; large crab-like things with scorpion-style stingers running through town—and hideous amphibian creatures that walked on their hind legs like a human. The old man had been part of the first convoy that made an attempt to get into town. They’d seen the things fifty yards away and the old man had given the order as per the pentagon: shoot first, don’t ask questions. His convoy stopped and commenced fire on the creatures, obliterating them.
The next twenty-four hours had passed quickly and even now, reliving it in his mind, it all seemed like a dream. Two thousand troops had been called in and a command center had been set up ten miles outside of town. The storm hampered their efforts somewhat, and the old man had seen some of his men killed by the things they’d been sent in to fight, but he’d lived through it. The nightmares occasionally came back to remind him, but even now, after the mandatory therapy the brass had made him take, all he remembered were brief snatches of the battle that had raged; bursts of gunfire and shattering, scaly skin; visions of dead and dismembered people littering the streets of the quiet seaside town; and the things…the things that had walked on two feet like a man…the creatures that at first glance seemed both amphibious and reptilian by their rough scaled skin, webbed clawed feet, and ugly mouths filled with rows of razor sharp teeth. Their eyes had been the worst. Those cold, black eyes…
The enemy had put up a fight. They were relentless. They seemed to adapt easily from saltwater to freshwater, and infested the local streams and lakes as well as marauding across the land. He’d immediately called in for reinforcements and an additional two thousand troops were on their way up from Boston when the storm abated and the creatures suddenly headed into the ocean, never to be seen again.
He retired after Phillipsport. Bought this farm and intended to breed racehorses. He lost himself in things like bloodstock and genetics and breeding practices, learned how to read a pedigree analysis; hired a staff— everything from a groundskeeper to a biomechanics specialist; surrounded himself with green, rolling pastures in a small, still-rustic region of the country.
These were supposed to be the happiest days of his life.
But then the old man realized that his life had passed before him, and he hadn’t been aware.
These weren’t the happiest days of his life. These weren’t anything.
He was just filling in time, marking off the spaces on another short-timer’s calendar. He was bored. And restless. Sad.
Old.
The horse galloped past him again, neighing proudly.
Enjoy it while you can, the old man thought. It’ll be over before you know it.
A lawnmower coughed and sputtered to life from inside one of the utility sheds, interrupting his thoughts. That would be Roberts, the groundskeeper, getting ready to cut the grass.
The old man turned away from the fence and walked back towards the yellow, two-story farmhouse. His arthritic knees popped, and he winced. The pain was getting worse. By seven this evening he’d be immobile if he didn’t rest now. Maybe he’d check the kitchen, see if May, his cook, would fix him a bowl of chicken corn soup. Then he’d relax in the den for the evening, smoke his pipe and read. Try to lose himself in a book.
So that he wouldn’t have to think.
As he approached the house, the screen door banged open. May ran out, her face pale, her eyes wide and shocked, her bottom lip trembling. The old man had seen that look before, thousands of times, in fact. It was the face of terror.
His pulse quickened.
“What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
May pointed back inside the house. “The news…Oh, it’s terrible, sir.”
His stomach fluttered. “A terrorist attack?”
“No, worse. Come look!”
She dashed back inside, and the old man followed her as fast as he could. His knees cried out as he climbed the porch steps two at a time. He winced again. In truth, he was surprised that May was still here. She lived in the farmhouse, as part of their arrangement, but her plans had been to go see her son and daughter-in-law this holiday weekend. May had a new granddaughter.
The thought of grandchildren made him sad.
The big screen television was on in the family room (he grimaced every time he thought of that—family room—he had no family, only a bitter ex-wife who’d died of breast cancer ten years before), and the volume was turned up loud, filling the house.
“—numerous casualties, Phil. In addition to the creature’s attack, we’re now getting reports of looting and other crimes. The scene here is absolute chaos.”
Creatures. The old man stopped. Did that reporter just say creatures?
May stood in the family room, staring at the television. The old man joined her, sinking into an overstuffed leather easy chair. The springs groaned along with his joints.
“It’s terrible,” she repeated. “All those poor, poor people.”
The old man shut his eyes to the images flashing across the screen. He’d seen them before. Seen them every time he closed his eyes, in fact, just like now.
“And we’re now getting word,” a distraught anchorman reported, “that the creatures have come ashore at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. Again, if you’re just joining us, Atlantic City, New Jersey has been attacked by…”
“What are they, sir?” May’s voice trembled. “What in God’s name are they?”
Frowning, the old man rubbed his forehead. A headache was blossoming behind his eyes.
“God didn’t make those things, May. Someone else did.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve—”
The phone rang, interrupting him before he could say more. Sighing, he picked it up.
“Yes?”
There was a moment of silence, and the old man was ready to hang up, convinced it was a telemarketer. Then, there was a series of faint clicks. A voice on the other side spoke—young and hesitant. Nervous.
“Colonel Livingston?”
“Who is this?”
But he already knew. Not the speaker. He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew who the caller represented.
“Are you watching the news, Colonel?”
“I am, indeed.”
“Then you know why we called, sir. You reportedly dealt with these things before, though we’ve been unable to find the file.”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Lieutenant Harper, sir.”
The old man glanced up at May. Her eyes were filled with tears, yet still she did not look away from the screen.
“You can’t find the file, Lieutenant Harper, because the brass buried it deep where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“I understand that, Colonel. I know they gave you a hard time. But we need your expertise now.”
“What’s the sit-rep, Lieutenant? And don’t feed me what I can learn from watching the news.”
“We have confirmed sightings all along the Eastern seaboard, from Maine to the tip of North Carolina. The creatures are slaughtering everything in their path.”
“Jesus…”
“Yes. It’s bad, Colonel.”
“Well of course it’s bad, son. And there’s no need to call me Colonel. I’m retired now.”
“Not any more, sir. You’re being reactivated. As I said, we need you. Your transport has already been dispatched. ETA one hour and forty-five minutes. We’ve set up a command center at Fort Detrick.”
The old man’s joint pain was forgotten. He listened for a while. Indicated that he understood. Then he hung up.
“Bad news, sir?” May asked, wiping her eyes.
He nodded, his eyes not leaving the television.
“Is it…is it because of this?” She pointed at the screen.
“You know I can’t tell you that, May.”
“Should I be worried?”
He rubbed his forehead. His temples throbbed. “Where does your son live?”
“A few miles north of Virginia Beach. They’ve got a little place on the water. I was just getting ready to leave—get a head start on traffic—when the news came on.”
“Don’t go.” Livingston’s voice was harsher than he’d meant it to be. “It’s not safe.”
“Why?”
“Because of their proximity to the ocean. Call your son. Suggest they come here instead. Hell, demand it.”
“But, sir, we wouldn’t want to impose—”
“You won’t. The house will be empty. I need to pack a bag. I’ll be going away for a while.”
“How long, sir?”
He paused. “I don’t know. It’s possible that I may not be back.”
Outside, the lawnmower droned on.
The happiest days of Colonel Augustus Livingston’s life had just gotten worse.
Chapter Three
Several miles off the coast of Little Creek, Virginia
3:30 PM
“This fucking sucks.”
Cortez nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it does. But what are we gonna do, man? C.O. wants to play war games before we come in, then we gotta play war games. That’s just how it is.”
Macker frowned. His creased brow was red from exposure to the sun. “Fucking bullshit, man. We’ve been playing war games the last four fucking months. That’s all we been doing. Fucking North Atlantic cruise. Fucking NATO. Fucking bullshit.”
Cortez grinned. Macker was always like this, and their current situation did nothing to improve his mood. The entire deployment had been a bad one for him, from getting dumped by his girlfriend back home via a “Dear John” letter on the night before they left port, to the marijuana bust in Naples, Italy which had sent him to Captain’s Mast, where he’d lost two months pay and a rate, and had ended up doing chow line duty. Macker was in a foul state of mind—and storm clouds were brewing, both on the horizon and on his brow. Once Macker got going, you couldn’t calm him down. He ranted until exhaustion or alcohol subdued him into sleep. Cortez decided to wind him up further, because he was bored and there was nothing else to occupy him.
“This is the Navy,” Cortez teased. “This is what you signed up for, Macker. Adventure awaits you and all that bullshit. We do more before six in the morning than most people do all day.”
He began singing The Village People’s “In The Navy.” His deep baritone rolled out over the sea. Macker interrupted him.
“Fuck the Navy. And fuck you, too, Cortez.”
“Hey,” Cortez jeered, twisting the knife deeper, “don’t forget, now that you got busted down, I outrank you, Seaman Apprentice Mack. So show some respect, bitch.”
“Fuck you. Fuck your respect. Fuck the Navy. Fuck these stupid-ass war games.”
The rest of the sailors onboard the long, squat M-6 boat laughed. There were six of them; Cortez, the boatswain’s mate; Macker, the signalman; RM3 DeMar
s, who was currently napping between two benches; the two Marines, Lance Corporals Leigh and Rabbit (they called him Rude Rabbit); and Ensign Pitts, six months out of the academy and a real pain in the ass—but they’d finally broken him in during this deployment. They were assigned to the U.S.S. Blumenthal, a troop carrier currently anchored several miles behind them, along with the rest of the fleet. The ship was returning from a four-month tour of the North Atlantic, where it had participated in NATO exercises (Operation: Bright Star), and had ports of call in Naples, Italy; Rota, Spain; Dover, England; Haifa, Israel; and Kiel, Germany. They were due to dock in Little Creek, Virginia, after which Leigh and Rabbit would return to Morehead City, North Carolina with the rest of the 24th M.A.U., and the others would see their families and loved ones, all of whom were waiting. And the timing was perfect, too. One mother of a hurricane was churning approximately two hundred miles south east of them and heading in their direction. Its edges were now expected to hit Virginia, with the worst of the damage further south. The water was already growing choppy from the storm’s activity, even though the sky was empty of clouds.
Despite the latest threat from the weather, their C.O. had delayed their arrival, wanting to impress the brass with one more round of war games, this time right off the coast. And here they sat, mere miles from home—all the distance in the world.
Cortez licked his chapped lips. They tasted like sea salt.
“This fucking sucks,” Macker said again, just in case anybody hadn’t heard him the first time. “It’s the fucking Fourth of July tomorrow. The fuck are we doing out here?”
Ensign Pitts stood up and smoothed his khaki uniform. “Quit your bitching, Mack.”
The angry sailor fell quiet. He began chewing his fingernails.
A group of dolphins leapt from the water on the port side, chattered in excitement, and then swam towards the shore. The sudden splash woke up DeMars. He blinked in confusion.
Clickers II: The Next Wave Page 4