Empire ba-2

by Anthony DeCosmo

  Farway asked, “And you kicked his butt off the North American continent?”

  Johnny beamed with pride. “Smashed him with divine wrath, praise the Lord.”

  Farway leaned close to Johnny and said, “I wouldn’t be too happy about that, Reverend.”

  “Oh? And why would that be?”

  “Got to figure, that probably doesn’t sit too well with this Voggoth thing. Why I just bet he’s been steaming over that for a while now.”

  Brewer and Johnny shared a glance. Jon spoke, “That’s the type of thing that keeps me up at night. I wonder what’s going on in Eurasia and the Far East. I wonder what The Order is planning. Given the tricks they pulled on us in the first year alone, I’ve got to figure they’re up to something big.”

  A buzzer blared in the room startling Jon and the Reverend, both of whom nearly jumped from their seats. Empty plates rattled as the passengers’ knees knocked the tiny dining table.

  The Executive Officer grabbed a wall-mounted phone.

  “XO here…aye…rig for silent running,” he hung up and spoke to his Captain as they all stood. “That was the D.O. We’ve got inbound. Big.”

  The steady hum that Jon had listened to the entire trip faded as he followed the naval officers through the tight corridors to the bridge. Main lighting dimmed in favor of red emergency lights. The crew moved quietly to secure loose objects.

  Brewer and Johnny stood off and watched the command crew work.

  The XO and the Captain approached the sonar station. Unlike those Hollywood movies Jon remembered, no noise came from that station. Instead, he saw a monitor that appeared to display sound waves. That display outlined some kind of blob: the sonar contact.

  “Two hundred meters and closing,” the XO announced. “Helm, watch your trim.”

  Jon felt the boat move, flattening in the water.

  Without the hum in the background, he suddenly realized that the water was not silent. It made noise-sometimes a groan, sometimes a raking sound. Subtle, but there nonetheless. No doubt the rhythm the Captain had come to know during his years beneath the surface; the rhythm that had changed when the bad things came to the world.

  “One hundred fifty meters and closing,” came the XO’s update.

  “Fire control,” the Captain looked to the weapons officer. “Get two fish on deck.”

  “Aye,” the young sailor responded and communicated the order to load torpedo bays.

  “We don’t have the right angle, Sir,” the XO reminded the Captain quietly.

  “I know. I want to be ready this time. Just in case.”

  A noise from outside the submarine shimmied through the ship, shaking the hull. Men onboard raised hands to ears; Jon felt himself cringe. The noise sounded something like a ghostly moan or an animal’s cry.

  “Jesus Christ,” the sonar operator said a little too loud.

  “Easy, son,” the Captain placed a hand on the seaman’s shoulder.

  “It’s on collision,” the XO said. “Planesman, take her down another fifty at twenty degrees.”

  The Captain added to the order, “Nice and steady…nothing sudden. Fill the auxiliaries if you have to.”

  The indistinct blob dominated the sonar display. It was huge.

  “One hundred meters and closing,” the XO informed.

  Jon felt the sub descend deeper into the northern waters. He held on to the bulkhead doorframe to steady his balance. As he did, he spied Reverend Johnny. The poor man sweated bullets.

  “Steady…steady everyone,” the Captain whispered encouragement.

  “Seventy-five meters.”

  A sound in the ocean surrounding them started low and grew louder and louder. A gushing, turbulent roar, as if an underwater tornado spun in their direction.

  “Helm, take us down another fifty. Fill those tanks,” the XO ordered as he watched the sonar.

  The diving officer repeated the order.

  Louder. Louder.

  “Damn thing is big. Biggest one yet,” the Captain said.

  “Fifty meters.”

  The image on the sonar display grew better, more defined, showing outcroppings-almost like tendrils-sprouting from the main blob.

  The rushing noise grew until it filled the bridge of the sub. Jon tried to block it out of his ears but failed; the chaotic cacophony bounced through the tube of steel and reached right into his mind. The boat shook, buffeted by some maelstrom on the other side of the hull. The red lights flickered.

  Farway shouted, “Hold on!”

  It sounded like being stuck in a wind tunnel of water. The vibration increased ten fold. The boat sloshed sideways and down like a surfer caught under the curl of a crushing wave.

  Jon staggered. Several muffled cries came from the crew.

  “It’s right over us!” The XO yelled the obvious.

  “Diving officer, I need more weight!” The Captain commanded.

  “Aye!”

  Reverend Johnny slammed his palms into his ears and cried out, “Be gone, beast! I say BE GONE!”

  “Hey, hey,” the XO reported. “It’s moving off. Target is moving off.”

  The vibration slowed. The sound reached its pinnacle…and then eased. Whatever monster passed the Newport News, it paid no interest to the submarine. Apparently, what had once been one of the most dangerous predators in the deep was now just another fish, an inconsequential fish at that.

  Slowly the roaring subsided and the monstrous blob on the sonar display faded away.

  Jon Brewer backed into the bulkhead and slid to the floor of the control room.

  His body…his hands…even his sanity shook uncontrollably.

  14. Shadow Falls

  Name: Shadow

  Secondary Name (s): Walking Death; Blackness; The Dark

  Classification: Giant ethereal

  Organization: Solitary Chaotic

  Physical Characteristics: Five to ten stories tall and lanky; completely black in appearance-no features discernible. No physical examination ever conducted, does not show up well in photography (video or pictures).

  Description: Information incomplete.

  Notes: Only confront a shadow if armed with multiple heavy weapons.

  — Anita Nehru, Hostile Database 3 rd Edition

  “General, Sir! I believe we should take cover, Sir!” Woody “Bear” Ross boomed.

  Stonewall answered, “I do believe you have presented a reasonable course of action, Cap-”

  Before Stonewall could finish “Captain,” Woody pushed his superior officer into a drainage ditch alongside the road.

  The bombs hit a few yards from where the men had stood. Instead of the typical BOOM or BANG, the Hivvan weapons made an electronic buzz as the ‘blast’ created a deadly energy field several meters in diameter.

  No shrapnel. Instead, patches of dirt and chunks of pavement melted and warped.

  “I say, we haven’t seen Screamers since Richmond,” Stonewall took note of the enemy air power. “I thought we hit all their air bases.”

  The two enemy ‘planes’ climbed into the twilight sky and banked in a u-turn, aiming to swing about and hit the advancing column on the open pavement of I-95 yet again.

  Most of that column abandoned the highway, but several bodies covered in third degree burns lay dead as a result of the first run.

  “Sir, this could mean that they are aware of our intentions.”

  “Hmmm. A distinct possibility, Captain Ross,” Stonewall considered. His eyes suddenly widened and he yelled, “Princess!”

  Kristy Kaufman-on horseback-approached. She and her mount remained on the Interstate, looming above Garrett McAllister and Woody Ross huddled in the ditch below.

  “Yes, General?” Kristy acted unconcerned about the two slender, single-seat aircraft circling around toward her position.

  Stonewall glanced at her, then at Ross, and said in a voice with the slightest waver, “I believe it would be prudent for us to contact Tactical Air Control. What do you think of m
y suggestion?”

  The Screamers descended in earnest. Their wings glimmered in the sunlight, as did the two intimidating, scimitar-shaped appendages at the front of each craft. As they dove, the flying machines emitted a siren: a horrifying scream.

  Kristy answered Stonewall’s suggestion, “I suppose that would be a good idea, Sir.”

  Stonewall looked at Kristy, then to the approaching planes, then at her again. “Yes, um,” he staggered. “These Hivvan machines are no match for our boys, um, so one call should take care of this problem…um…”

  The screams grew louder.

  Yet Kristy did not move.

  Stonewall tried to sound unfazed. He said, “Yes, well, I am inclined to agree with intelligence’s theory that the Hivvans are accustomed to using aircraft only in support of a ground-attack. These, um…” he glanced at the closing fighters. “…these lizards are not much for air combat.”

  Ross added, “Haven’t seen them for a while. Thought we hit all of their forward air bases.”

  A shrieking filled the air as the Screamers made their run on the human army along Interstate 95.

  “Princess, if I may suggest-”

  “You know, General, I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure I’m entirely fond of that nickname.”

  “What? My dear, I do not think that now is the time to worry about such trivial matters.”

  She said, “It does not convey the, well, oh what is the word I’m looking for?”

  A whistle in the air suggested bombs falling toward Earth. Soldiers shouted in anticipation of the pending destruction.

  “Respect. Yes, that is the word. Respect.”

  “Captain Kaufman,” Stonewall conceded without a trace of his usual charming accent. “I suggest you get the Hell down here now!”

  Kaufman managed a smile of satisfaction and then spurred her horse to cover. The bombs sizzled on the road above. This time claiming no casualties, but only by the thinnest of margins.

  She dismounted and shuffled through a pack in search of a radio transmitter. As she did, Stonewall stood, dusted dirt from his Civil War era uniform, coughed, and said to her in a voice quite contrite, “Ms. Kaufman, please do me the favor of never doing that again. I am quite sure I would be lost without you.”

  “Why General!” She spoke as she assembled the gear. “You are certainly the charmer, aren’t you?”

  “I endeavor to be so, this is true. However, I would find this situation much more agreeable if a few of our fine fellows would-oh how to put this? — saunter on by and shoot our noisy friends from the heavens. Could you possibly arrange that, Captain?”

  “Dasher One this is T-A-C do you copy?” the radio crackled in the veteran pilot’s ear.

  “Uh, Roger that, TAC this is Dasher One. Go ahead.”

  “You should have bandits painted on your screens,” the TAC officer radioed.

  “Roger that, TAC. We’ll be hitting Gomer in thirty seconds,” the Veteran pilot ended his conversation with the Tactical Air Control station operating with the 2 ^ nd Mechanized Division.

  “Hey Billy, you good over there?” he asked his wingman as they flew a pair of F-15s.

  “Yeah-I mean, roger that.”

  The veteran pilot had been in the New Jersey Air National Guard before the world went to Hell. He had served in the Persian Gulf region and flown CAP missions over New York City the month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America.

  On the other hand, Billy was a rookie. Before ‘all this’, Billy trained to fly Learjets for private corporations. The Apocalypse claimed his young wife and the rest of his relatives. Now the twenty-seven year old ‘kid’ attacked alien aircraft in the North Carolina sky.

  Of course, Billy’s scant experience was far more than most of the guys learning to fly in The Empire’s tiny air force. Planes were not a problem; pilots were. More specifically, pilots surviving flight school.

  “Just relax,” Dasher One told Billy. “These things are sitting ducks. We’re going to make them go away before they even know we’re coming.”

  “I’m frosty,” Billy said once and then nervously repeated, “I’m frosty.”

  “Yeah, well don’t shit your bag. Just do like we did in training. We’ve got stand-off missiles and they don’t have any shit like that. They won’t even see us. You copy?”

  “I copy, um, I mean solid copy.”

  The veteran told his wingman, “Hey Dash-Two, you know who called us in?”

  “No man, who?”

  “That’s Stonewall down there. These Screamers have been taking pot shots at him.”

  “Stonewall? Really? Holy shit.”

  “So what you say we make these things go away?”

  Dasher Two answered enthusiastically, “Hell, yeah.”

  Dasher One radioed Tactical Air Control to let them know that he and his wingman were close enough to take control of the combat situation: “Judy. I repeat, Judy.”

  The Screamers-distant specks silhouetted by sunset-entered firing range.

  “I’ve got a heat-lock on Alpha Bandit,” Dasher One transmitted.

  “Um, yeah, a roger that. I think-I mean I got a lock on Bravo Bandit.”

  “Then let’s do it. Dasher One, Fox Two.”

  Dasher One launched a heat-seeking air-to-air Sidewinder missile. It blew out from under his wing and raced across the sky with a vengeance.

  Billy spoke, “Ahhh…oh yeah, Dasher Two, Fox Two.”

  Another sidewinder roared through the blue sky.

  The two pilots watched their scopes. The bandits-first one, then the other-flickered and disappeared.

  “Tactical Air Control this is Dasher One. Ah, read bandits one and two gone away. We’re bingo here, RTB.”

  “Dasher One, General Stonewall McAllister sends his thanks,” came the radio reply.

  The veteran pilot said, “See Billy, you’re getting the hang of this after all.”

  Nina sent word to Wrightsville via a supply truck driver that Denise Cannon was safe and spending the evening with the Hunter-Killer team.

  Nina did not know why she let Denise hang around. She told herself that with a Shadow haunting the area it was safer for the girl not to travel. Besides, Denise dropped a number of hints that she wanted to stay, although she would not openly admit it.

  In any case, Denise and Nina shared a supper of beef jerky (from the crates in the back of the Humvee) and apples in an old conference room at City Hall.

  Eventually, Nina asked Denise about her past.

  The daughter of a middle class family, Denise was six when the end-of-the-world came. Instead of memories, her recollection of those days came in muddled nightmares of monsters and fires and frantic riot police battling hideous beasts and helicopters whirring overhead and cars grabbed by some massive monster.

  In the years since, she lived on the run with the other children and the chaperons from the center as led by Jim Brock. At first they lived day to day, scrounging for canned food and drinkable water; hiding in burned out buildings and basements.

  Eventually, Brock’s group found their way to Wrightsville Beach where they settled into vacant beachfront properties and made contact with other survivors.

  Those survivors cooperated. Fishing, gardening, hunting, and scavenging for left over food stocks kept them alive. At least most of them.

  The stoicism-the I really don’t care about all this adolescent attitude — wavered as she remembered watching people die of infections and illness. Worse, her mind stored crystal-clear memories of hiding in dark corners and ignoring cries for help while monsters found others. Friends; children even younger than her.

  For the people of Wrightsville Beach, survival did not mean fighting. Other than a few low-caliber handguns, knives, and homemade spears, they owned no weapons. When something dangerous prowled the area, they could only hide. If a bad thing found one of their number, the others merely watched as it devoured or carried off the hapless victim.

  Nina explained that The Empire
had arrived; that order and safety came to Wilmington and now it would be the monsters hiding and running.

  It all sounded good to Denise. The big guns and battle-hardened dogs made Nina’s assurances sound real.

  Then the Shadow came.

  It started around 2 a.m.

  Nina and Denise slept on small cots in second-floor offices across the hall from one another. K9s stood posts throughout the building and Grenadier patrols roamed the grounds.

  The stars flickered in the sky with only scattered clouds trying to obscure their light.

  A breeze blew across the empty streets and over City Hall coming in from the northeast. On that breeze rode the hint of a sound. A sound far too soft for human ears, but the dogs heard.

  The K9 sentries on the front steps stood and tensed. Their sensitive noses sifted through the air for clues.

  Again the noise came, a fraction louder but still hidden among the chirp of crickets, the flutter of flags atop poles, the noise of litter scraping across the pavement in the wind.

  Perhaps the buzz of insects. Or maybe the crackle of static electricity?

  The breeze faded but the sound came again, loud enough to reach human ears this time, loud enough to illicit growls from the Dobermans guarding the main entrance of City Hall. Loud enough to stir a little girl from sleep.

  A fuzzy, electric-sounding burst.

  Eleven-year-old Denise Cannon sat up in her makeshift bed: a wool blanket and a raggedy old pillow on the carpeted floor. As she rubbed her eyes, she realized that she had been in a deeper sleep than she remembered having her whole life. With Nina and the Grenadiers around, she felt safe: a new feeling to her.

  Alas, that feeling faded as a sizzling noise seeped in from the dark outside. It sounded as if someone tried to tune a radio station but found only static.

  Denise heard a new sound, one from the hallway. A scratching noise.

  She opened her door. A portable light at the end of the hall fired a thick beam of harsh illumination down the corridor, flooding most of the passage in brilliant white but also creating sharp shadows along the ceiling and floor.

  The black and gray Norwegian Elkhound named Odin pawed at Nina’s door across the hall. That door opened and Captain Forest stuck her head out. She wore sweat pants and a tank top while holding a pistol in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other.