The brass had us pack up the evidence in a body bag; Abagull’s body still attached to the creature. We loaded it into the chopper, too.
Less than an hour after their arrival, the brass was seated on board that helicopter next to us heading back to the U. S. of A. All of them were stern and tight-lipped, no-one so much as acknowledging the corpse packed into the cargo hold.
When we arrived in the U.S., the chopper touched down on a classified base in the Colorado Rockies. We were instructed to load Abagull’s remains into the back of a cargo truck and await further orders. As soon as we were done, General Morris jumped behind the wheel and ordered us to board the truck. Before we even had the doors closed, the truck took off up a ragged mountain road for a short drive to a base built into the mountainside. Morris informed us that that this was the base that civilians knew as Area 51. It housed a shitload of delicate and confidential information, and wasn’t actually kept in one stationary location, but moved every few years to ensure that there was never a reliable location to be tracked back to, in the unlikely event that there was an information leak.
When we arrived, Morris said to leave the body in the truck and follow him into what looked like a hangar jutting out of the mountain’s face. Inside the hangar, we were treated to a house of horrors. Strange creatures, in different stages of development and deformity, all resembling the thing we’d seen come out of Abagull’s body. They were floating in glass jars filled with formaldehyde or some other preserving fluid.
“Gentleman, we’ve been studying these creatures for decades,” Morris stated matter-of-factly. “In fact, these things are the real reason that Area 51 was created, and they didn’t come on any flying saucer.”
We all looked at each other, trying to process the info being dropped on us all at once.
“They come from right here,” continued Morris. “As distasteful as it sounds, they came from right inside the human body.”
“You’re telling us that this is some kind of bio weapon that the enemy is infecting us with?” said Albright.
“No, I mean that’s what we originally thought, and that’s what we still tell those on the ground, to keep them from asking further questions, like we did with you,” Morris said with a sad grin, “but we’ve come to realize that it’s much more complicated than that.”
“So just exactly what have me and my men been exposed to, sir?” asked Albright, trying to keep an angry tone of disrespect out of his voice.
Morris sighed. “You haven’t been exposed to anything that didn’t naturally occur in your body.”
We all looked at him, puzzled.
“From what we’ve come to understand from our research and analysis, every human being has the potential trigger to manifest one of these things,” Morris said, defeat creeping into his voice.
I cleared my throat as I exchanged worried looks with my comrades.
“I’m sorry sir, but I still don’t think what you’re saying is clear enough to for us to understand,” I said.
“The long and the short of it, Private,” said Morris with a slightly bitter edge, “is that it appears that every human carries a potential seed for one of these things, located in the human appendix. From what we’ve discovered, the parasite responds to particular radio frequencies and manifestation is triggered by a radio frequency out of our current range of capability. The creatures gestate inside the human body, growing a spine-like extension that attaches itself to the host's spinal cord. Once it takes hold the parasite grows into the human neural receptors and fuses with them, overtaking the consciousness of the host. Essentially, the human becomes the creature growing inside of it.”
We all stood, silent and dumbfounded for a moment.
“So like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers?” Freeman blurted out.
“Yes, something like that, Private,” Morris said with an ironic grin.
“So what is our course of action regarding this threat, sir?” Albight said, trying to regain his composure.
“The same course of action we take whenever this situation heats up. Pack up the base and move it,” said Morris. “Since you men have seen one of these things, and you are already aware of this classified information, you’re our default moving men. Load everything you see in this hanger into the truck outside. When you run out of room, we have plenty of other transportation available for requisition.”
With that, we set to work loading the cylinders and jars into crates and packing them into trucks and helicopters on the base. We worked non-stop for hours loading specimens and machinery of all sizes. Radio frequency panels and charts, diagrams, all sealed up and removed as if the research facility had never existed.
When all of it was packed and we thought that we were finished, Morris approached with a serious look on his face. He was silent for a full minute before he spoke.
“All right, you’ve done a great job, men. It’s time I showed you the really confidential stuff,” said Morris.
We all looked at each other.
“You mean this ain’t the real confidential stuff? You get a Bigfoot in drag somewhere or somethin’?” asked Freeman.
Without answering Morris pulled out a plastic card on a metal chain, turned and walked back into the open hangar. He marched up to a red door, turned and faced the following soldiers, grinning.
“Bigfoot is old news, son; we eliminated those bloodthirsty cavemen years ago,” said Morris.
With that he swiped his card through a slot on the side of the door. It opened with a vacuum-sealed hiss, and he stepped inside with the rest of us close behind him.
In the center of concrete walls lined with video monitors and all sorts of testing equipment sat two chairs. In one sat a sweaty, dishevelled U.S. soldier, naked from the waist up. A young, good looking black man in his mid-20s. In the other chair sat a small, equally sweaty, but fully formed creature that looked like the thing that had come out of Abagull. Both bodies were strapped down to their chairs and covered with electronic sensors that led to the machines. Between the two bodies ran a long, black, bony cord covered in a layer of tissue. It ran from the lower back of the creature and into the open side wound of the soldier, treated and packed, with some sort of clear plastic device keeping the wound open, possibly for inspection. I would guess that the I.V. running into the soldier was some sort of antibiotic to prevent infection.
“Men, meet Private Abrams,” said Morris.
A look of contempt crossed both faces, that of Abrams and of the creature in the other chair.
“That was the name of my human host!” both restrained prisoners spat out with contempt simultaneously, the creature with a raspy, hissing voice.
We all froze in shock, trying to comprehend what was happening between the soldier and this creature.
“Private Abrams,” Morris continued unfazed, “was pulled from his barracks and brought to a med-tent where he was stationed in Kabul because he was screaming about a pain coming from his side. The attending physician diagnosed him with appendicitis and ordered an immediate surgery. Imagine his surprise when he cut Abrams open, only to have a monster lunge out and slit his throat.”
At the mention of the now deceased physician, both the creature and the soldier grinned a sick, twisted grin of pleasure.
“Thanks to the fact that I was already on the ground in Kabul when the report came in, we were able to subdue the subjects and transport them alive to this location in order to study the infection.” Morris glared at the creature sternly, displeased with its apparent pleasure.
“We study you,” the Abrams/Creature combination jeered again. “You could not pronounce my real name with that fat human tongue.”
The creature and soldier, moving in perfect synchronicity glared in contempt at all of us in the room.
“We have been with you for centuries. We are always with you. We activate in small sleeper cells, waiting for the day when we can overtake all of humanity.],” it snarled.
“I think you’ll find humanity
is made of tougher stuff than that,” retorted Morris.
It laughed.
“We visited you when you were still crawling in the dirt and eating your own feces. We altered your very DNA. Every single one of you is a soldier in waiting; our drones are manifested and nurtured by your own biology.” The two-bodied creature laughed. “You are our cattle and we are preparing to harvest you. You have no choice in the matter.”
“Yeah, well, that may be true, but with the info we’re getting from examining you, we’ll be able to prevent it,” barked back Morris.
The creature inhabiting both bodies burst into a fit of evil laughter.
“Stupid human!” it chuckled. “Everything I see, everything I hear, is fed back to my people’s hive mind. It’s instantaneous. Even back to our home planet.”
“That’s impossible!” Albright stammered.
“No, it isn’t. We are each a piece of the mother and always connected. Your scientists have been researching the phenomenon for generations. You call it quantum entanglement.” The creature hissed. “Believe me or don’t, it makes no difference. Everything you have said and done in front of my human host has been instantly recorded and seen by my people in deep space. All your research and technology, the location of this base even. This conversation is being watched even as we speak by an armada of warships already on their way here!” The creature and the human host released another evil laugh.
Morris’s face grew red with anger and he drew his sidearm.
“Well, they won’t be learning any more!” Morris yelled, and blew a hole through Private Abrams head.
A fine red mist was still wafting in the air when the alien let out an agonized scream and began convulsing. Morris stepped forward and the creature flailed its claws, which he easily caught and held down. He looked right in its eyes and his other hand closed around its throat.
“It’s not nice to laugh at people, you alien sacks of shit,” Morris said through clenched teeth mere inches from the creature’s face.
Morris finished strangling the thing to death, and then told us to pack up everything in that room, including the bodies, into the trucks.
A couple years later, Morris swallowed a bullet under strange circumstances. Unable to live with what he saw, Albright retired and opened up this surplus store. I was his contact for military surplus and helped him get a few choice weapons under the radar. Freeman and I were given the fast track up the chain of command in exchange for our silence.
When the shit came down and people started taking action on the base, rounding up civilians and building a radio tower on the base, we thought this would be the best place to come. We could get Commander Albright’s opinion and stock up on a few choice supplies that we’ve been cut off from at the base.
Chapter 8 – Here Comes the Boom!
“And that’s how we ended up here,” said Hauer.
The five men and one woman in the room all looked at each other.
“So what do we do now?” said Kiebler.
“Well, Albright’s got a huge stock of military weaponry here,” said Freeman.
“There’s been talk on the CB of survivors gathering near the Memorial Coliseum,” said Albright.
“We’ve got to find others who may need help,” said Alvarez.
“We need a base of operations,” said Hauer. “This building won’t last long, and the best place to house our resistance needs space to house people, security, and access to medical care and equipment that can be salvaged.”
He looked at the group as the weight of what he said sank in.
He looked sternly at the group, “I want that hospital.”
We stared around the room at each other intently. Before anyone could speak the world turned upside down. There was a deafening sound as all the windows in the front of the building shattered inward, pelting us with glass shrapnel. Two armoured host soldiers like the ones who had killed Banyan walked in through a now empty window frame. But I didn’t have time to worry about the soldiers as I watched them walk in because of the simultaneous explosion behind us. The back wall collapsed and buried Albright and I in tons of rubble.
Chapter 9 - Rubble
“Jace!” Kiebler screamed, nearly inaudible over the roar of the destruction.
One of my arms was sticking haphazardly into the air between two large pieces of brick wall that were slowly crushing it.
She began to pull at a huge piece of debris that she had no hope of moving on her own.
The tremendous weight of the wall made my breath shallower every time I exhaled. A large chunk of debris put steady pressure on my torso, squeezing the air out of me like a huge boa constrictor, allowing a little less air in every time I breathed.
Through an opening in the rubble I could see the light of day.. I could see just enough to know that Alvarez and Freeman had opened fire, Freeman with his mini-gun, and mowed down the two armored soldiers who had entered the store. One of them stirred, beginning to rise and move forward again. His jerky movements made it clear that he’d been injured, but was forcing himself to rejoin the fray. Despite the struggle, the host soldier regained his footing. Standing upright, he turned and levelled his weapon just in time to take the full blast of a rocket-propelled grenade mid-torso.
“Die, fucker!” Alvarez roared.
The force of the rocket flung the host soldier backward into the air, off his feet and out the broken window. It then exploded and sent small bits of flesh, bone and armor flying in all directions.
A shard of bloody armor-turned-shrapnel whizzed past Alvarez’s head, close enough that it moved his hair before lodging in the part of the building’s sidewall that still stood. Alvarez stared at the piece of metal that could have been his death warrant for a second, then released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding before hefting his rocket launched back onto his shoulder.
Alvarez and Freeman each aimed their grenade launchers out the store’s shattered front window at their assailants, who I could not see from my vantage point. They released a volley of RPG’s, which were followed by a series of explosions and battle groans from outside the store.
At about this time I realized that my breathing was not quite shallow, the pressure barely allowing any air in, as my vision began to fade. Just as I thought I was taking my last breath, the tremendous pressure suddenly lifted. Air rushed into my lungs so quickly that it was painful. As the light poured in on me and I began to see more clearly, I could tell that Hauser had joined in Kiebler’s rescue attempt. He stood over me like a triumphant savior, using a pry bar with the surplus store tag still attached to lift the weight of the large boulder off of my body.
The tearful Kiebler scrambled into the opening, moving the smaller boulders that had now been loosened and freeing the arm that was wedged in the debris.. A pins-and-needles feeling rushed over my bruised arm as the blood began to return to it. Kiebler gave me a quick once-over, checking for injuries.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said, her voice still hoarse from screaming.
Apparently the volley of RPG fire had worked, because Alvarez and Freeman now joined in the efforts to remove Captain Albright and me from the wreckage of the building.
The group worked together in the dusty air to move smaller boulders and pry larger ones away from the pile.
Hauer hoisted my good arm over his shoulder and lifted me from my nest of stone and metal. Kiebler helped him gently set me down on the side of the mound of brick and mortar that was my tomb just minutes before. Aside from some scratches and bruises, I was none the worse for wear.
“Never thought you’d be getting saved by the biggest biceps in this man’s army when you woke up this morning, huh, Bradley?” Hauer said cheerfully, slapping me on the shoulder.
Although I still hurt, I managed a grin, but before could answer, our attention was directed elsewhere.
“Master Sergeant Hauer, this isn’t good.” called Freeman, perching on the edge of another opening in the rubble, this on
e stacked a bit higher than mine had been. On the other side of the mound Alvarez stood upright, staring down into the pit that they had exposed. The two soldiers had removed all of the building fragments that had toppled on top of Captain Albright, who lay motionless, covered in blood, his right leg entirely crushed. It looked awkward and unreal, pulpy and wet. Lumpy like the limbs of the straw dummies my brother and I used to make on Halloween in hopes of scaring the neighbours when we were kids. For a second I forgot the differences that I had with Max and wondered if he was okay somewhere, if he even knew what was going on, or if, wherever he was, it was a place that had so far been miraculously untouched by the insanity I found myself immersed in.
EnEmE: Fall Of Man Page 4