The Cemetery Children (The Jabodetabek Tales Book 1)

by Brian Craddock

  THE CEMETERY CHILDREN

  By Brian Craddock

  The Cemetery Children copyright © 2018 by Brian Craddock

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Brian Craddock

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Broken Puppet Books

  Even at night, the heat is oppressive. The sweat runs down our faces, making our trigger fingers slippery. We keep pushing on, because this is Jabodetabek and tropical heat is what it is famous for. The whole of Indonesia is, what with the equator being only some odd four-hundred miles away, but Jabodetabek more so because it is more than a thousand square miles of concrete trapping the heat of the day. In the old days when it was still known as Jakarta it was only one fourth the size, but since then it has been annexed and declared an administrative division with its own central rule, the only city in the world to be declared as such.

  A wall of flame billows to our right, fanning heat and light over the squad and momentarily blinding us. Bad fucking spot to be in.

  I get into a fast trot, spraying a few rounds of multi-impact ahead of me. They spiral through the screen of dust and smoke. So dense is the smoke it simply closes in the wake of the ammo.

  Indirect fire zips past my ears. Duck and roll. Take cover. The shell of a burnt out vehicle will do nicely. Westerling’s yelling for his Circus Battalion to do likewise, spewing a volley towards our hostiles.

  Gunnar slams in next to me, locking in a fresh bullpup. He gives me a sour look, says something about how I should have been the first out there.

  “Why else are you here?” he sniffs, then motions for me to cover him.

  I think to hell with going up, and simply hold my Adaptive Combat Rifle sideways and let off a pineapple. It shoots out with the distinctive poomp, and a few seconds later there’s an electric discharge blast big enough to rain blood and debris onto our heads. Typically, Gunnar’s off the moment the blast hits instead of waiting the requisite ten seconds for the discharge to dissipate.

  I’m hoping this run doesn’t turn into a fucking meat-eater. Pusat-Selatan II is such a ruined district that we’ve been at this all day with no relief. This area is meant to be neutral but we’ve been hitting obstacles every couple of hours. It’s obvious that Westerling has misunderstood both the enemy and the terrain. OBUA’s like this go kinetic quickly, and this one is slipping in that direction real fast.

  A pack of mongrel dogs shoot past, followed by an EV in flames that steers straight into our platoon as it emerges from the maelstrom of smoke and gunfire. There’s nothing I can do as our crew throw themselves from the approach of the flaming vehicle. Mahomet gets caught under the wheels and screams, his embedded biosensors emitting a high-pitched squeal as his organs are almost certainly crushed.

  “What the hell’s your squad doing up there, Mustang Meyer?” roars Westerling at our team leader, using the nickname most of us have for him but would never dare utter to his face.

  Corporal Meyer barks a few orders at us just for show, to placate Westerling, because even he can’t tell what’s going on. One of the things driven into us by the vets at the Academy was to trust the NCO’s above all else, but clearly there’s situs that best even them. We’re meant to be operating independently of Westerling but circumstances have meant he’s absorbed us into his platoon.

  Kernan kneels down beside Mahomet to check on him.

  The car continues to plough further into the maelstrom, sucking a hole in the smoke as it goes, and crashes into a wall, the capacitor spewing an electric charge that fries anyone within ten yards.

  “COIN unit engage!” orders Westerling.

  The rest of the platoon – bar our squad – start plugging rounds into the hedge of roiling smoke, making Swiss-cheese of the EV.

  The dogs flee from the sound of the rifles, darting past us once more as they scurry back into the wasted no-man’s land with their tails between their legs, perhaps favouring their chances back over in hostile territory. What do they care for allegiances?

  From behind the platoon a hypersonic rocket tears across the airspace above us and into a building over yonder on the far side of Pusat-Selatan II. I see figures fleeing from the structure as it burns and tumbles, but the flames are too bright for me to tell if they’re insurgents or civilians.

  “Sir!” I call across to Corporal Meyer. He evidently doesn’t hear me, because he turns away.

  Gunnar’s running along the top of a wall, his uniform smeared with blood. There’s a huge mural along the length of the wall that looks burned into the concrete, probably made using a flamethrower. Gunnar’s heading in the direction where the rocket came from.

  “Sir!” I try again, crossing the chaos to get closer, finding cover behind a half-destroyed statue that looks like a man holding up a pizza tray. “Sir, we’re up shit creek here!”

  Finally Meyer faces me, his jaw clenched. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about you, Callan,” he hisses. “My men are dying here.”

  He’s not wrong, but he’s doing nothing to rectify the situation. He stands out in the open like he’s just woken from a dream and hasn’t quite orientated himself yet.

  Without prompt, Laessig is off after Gunnar, but whether to cover his six or pull him back is unclear. We’re going by the seat of our pants here. What’s happened to our chain of command?

  Jones steps out, a total fucking soup sandwich, his fingers up like sharpshooters and he’s blazing away for all he’s worth, with just his hands! He’s dropped his gear, stepping out into no-man’s land all bow legs and grinning, high and off to the right, unloading nothing into nothing. His hands reload, his dickbeaters again at the ready, and I’m waiting for something to tear through him, rip him in half and leave him tits up.

  On the other side of the wasteland sits our objective, an insurgent stronghold in an old area called Kota Asli.

  But Jones keeps on shufflin’ like a celluloid cowboy across no-man’s land, and he eventually disappears from view. When the distant gunfire gives it a break for a second I can still hear the crazy cunt pew pewing away in some kind of sing song, beyond the ruins of the massive Selamat Datang Monument fountain. He’s expectant, on his own now.

  Peering the statue I’m crouched behind I spy a concentration of insurgents over by the five-storey shopping mall in Kota Asli. They’re using the outside infrastructure, a deep moat-like pedestrian walkway around the perimeter of the building to deter car-bombers during regular trade, to position themselves. Good spot.

  I press my finger pad against the Rifleman wetwire implant in my temple and radio to Captain Westerling to tell him about our friends over by the mall. With the co-ordinates sent I scuttle back away from my shelter, back to where the rest of my squad are.

  Mahomet is gasping as I pass him; the sweat is drowning his features. His face is all screwed up. I barely recognise him.

  Walling and Roisin push past, steering the railgun into position with Mustang Meyer overseeing.

  “We're rollin' with a lot of ass today,” crows Walling.

  They lock it down, set its co-ordinates, reconfirm by visual, and get the capacitors humming. Walling has the detonator in hand.

  “Right hand rule,” shouts Meyer, giving Walling the thumbs up.

  Walling fires the cannon.

  The speed and whipcrack of the ignition gives us all a start, as forty megajoules of electromagnetic energy blasts from the twin rails. We see the flas
h of the pulse before we hear it.

  Barely the blink of an eyelid later, and beyond the plume of static smoke at the end of the rails, we see the electromagnetic pulse hit home over in Kota Asli. It decimates the hostiles and pretty much the entire five-storey building behind them, sending up a massive cloud of dust. The beautiful song of an entire and supposedly impenetrable aion-glass building exploding echoes across no-man’s land to us.

  The whole weapon shudders as the internal components fight to retain their integrity. Railguns have a short lifespan. They usually tear themselves apart after a few years.

  The other thing is, the railgun might be accurate in its target but anything between the weapon and that target also gets hit by the electromagnetic pulse. That’s why the whole platoon has suddenly sucked its collective breath in. We’re waiting for the next bit, and it’s something we’ve never accustomed ourselves to, no matter how many times we’ve witnessed it.

  The din dies quickly. The sound of glass falling glass stops. All goes quiet.

  Now it’s just that massive wall of dust as it continues to swell and spread out from Kota Asli.

  Gunnar and Laessig climb down from a felled billboard, its mass of plastic fibres and laser diodes strewn across the road. Gunnar is grinning, eyes eager for the spectacle to come. It makes me sniff and eye him disdainfully. Laessig looks uneasy. The diodes crunch underfoot as they make their way over to us. Other than that, no-one makes a peep.

  We all watch the wall of dust creep across no-man’s land.

  It’s the dogs first.

  They come first.

  We hear their feet scampering over the debris, their nails clicking on the stones, and in the thick of the dust from the carnage we’ve rendered, their silhouettes come closer. They’re running at a haphazard lope, without any sound save for their feet tripping and scooting along the destroyed earth.

  We ready our weapons.

  “Flame,” Meyer says.

  I’ve got my ACR primed already. I feel its grip; push it back into my shoulder. I fairly hug the thing.

  From the wall of dust the dogs finally come at us. I doubt they know we’re here, though. Their eyes have melted from their sockets, their noses burnt off their snouts, and their skins hang in bloody tatters around their bodies like loose bandages.

  We don’t think. We just act.

  Fire spews from our ACR’s and engulf the dogs, if they could still be called that. We burn them up as fast as we can, get them to stop moving as quickly as we can. It doesn’t pay to have half-skinned rampaging dogs snapping in your platoon. We down them all, and the smell of charred hair and flesh and burnt blood is making some of us gag. Vomit gushes from Laessig’s crumb-catcher.

  “Let’s go,” says the Corporal, and we start making our way into that stubborn cloud of dust.

  As effective as these electromagnetic railguns are for the task, they sure do leave an awful mess. I’m not up on the know-how of its mechanics beyond that it uses the principle of Lorentz’s Force, but I am well versed by now in its consequences. If it doesn’t crush your skull, it skins you alive. You die from shock and blood loss. But it’s not quick, and so we’re obliged to clean up. Makes for a better camp.

  Our hostiles, those who hadn’t been pounded to pulp by the railgun blast, rise like the undead and stagger towards us. Jaws hung loose, eyes dripping down crushed cheekbones like runny eggs, legs and arms bent askew at wrong angles. And their skin, just like with the dogs, hang in ragged ribbons around their torsos; drapes from their arms like sodden, bloody bandages, exposing the meat and muscle underneath. They moan and fall down, struggle to get back up again, crying out in pain.

  I pity them.

  We flame the fucking lot of them, and turn away in disgust.

  * * *

  The medevac sees to Mahomet, gives him an injection of nanoparticles, and suggests he’s for the meat wagon, but the Corporal barks back something about being unable to bring a helo in. The sap’s going to have to sweat it out, but he’s broken real bad. Kernan comes over with an autoinjector in her hand, but it could be anything in that thing, not necessarily meds. The way the medevac turns his back suggests it’s something illegal. Whatever it is that Kernan gives Mahomet, it does the trick. The bastard quiets down and gives us all some peace at last.

  Head count: Corporal Meyer, Kernan, Gunnar, Laessig, Walling, Roisin, Karman and me. Casualties: Mahomet. AWOL: Jones. No confirmed KIA. Not bad for a single squad with the mess we’ve found ourselves in.

  Kota Asli’s beyond the veil of smoke and haze that now encircles Pusat-Selatan II. There are pulses of light, gun-flash fire and Christ knows what else being dropped or detonated in that zone. Judging from the density of the smog that sits over it, Kota Asli must be a mess. I wonder if it’s even worth pushing on. But it’s not my call, and I can’t say how much of the insurgency stronghold there is still intact. But if the sky has bled fire and fuck knows what else all over it, I can’t imagine that the stronghold is living up to its name now.

  And then there’s what’s happening up there, beyond said bleeding sky. Our fine cannon fodder of the Stellum Corps, up there beyond our thermosphere holding back an attack from extraterrestrial beings, which isn’t so novel these days. We can hear the rumble, like a dense thunderhead, across the heavens. Sometimes I think it’s like the planet is being shook. Can’t fucking win these days: if it’s not down here, it’s up there.

  It’s all quiet down here though, for now. With a fifty percent stand-to, we decide to get a makeshift camp going; decide to hunker down until the morning light. We get the EIO fired up, get ourselves some electricity, heat some water, and boil all the brine and nasty shit from it.

  I can feel eyes on us from the darkness, the residents of Pusat-Selatan II doubtless watching from their darkened homes, envious of our power and water. Last week in Kota Asli the West Papuan Separatists Movement destroyed the turbine generators on the HDPE penstocks of PLN Areo, the company in Rajamandala responsible for supplying (mostly) desalinated sea-water to the eastern and southern parts of Jabodetabek – known colloquially as the Old Districts – and with it went most of the power-grid this side of the city, too, because before PLN went private the Government had transferred most of the city over to hydroelectricity. With no water the LHP plants . There’s a continuing reign of chaos from self-starter cells popping up across the urban sprawl, but especially from Kota Asli where successive governments have long since washed their hands of the lawless, over-cramped living conditions. Locals there actually have their own separate power source: a network of commercial generators and old-school solar-based technologies that assist in supplying electricity without State intervention.

  Our mission is to take control of the neighbourhoods of Kota Asli where the damaged part of the penstock pipeline is, so that engineers can get in and repair the damaged turbine generators. Insurgents have swarmed the area since the power outages, and they’re usually pretty well equipped weapons-wise. Sometimes even better than us, though they don’t possess anything as impressive as a railgun.

  However, the battle raging in the heavens is starting to make the boys nervous.

  It’s hard to keep a handle on the situ here with various terrorist factions all at it, let alone advance our mission, and for tonight we have four OP’s rotating in three hour shifts in case any factions make a surprise advance. One of the observation posts is above where I sit with Laessig.

  “Shit, man,” he says, “I’m tired but I can’t sleep, you know?”

  “Me, too,” I reply.

  He screws his face up. “You taking the piss, Callan?”

  “No, man,” I say earnestly, but the look on his face tells me he thinks I’m full of shit.

  Stuff this, I don’t need this hassle. Just walk away, Callan.

  There’s a cemetery called Taman Prastasi to our left that was swept by Roisin for IED’s only an hour ago, so I wander in and find it as quiet as the proverbs advocate cemeteries are.

  But re
ally, it’s too quiet.

  Nothing moves in here, and that suggests I’m not alone. I bring my ACR up and flick on the sensors and the multi-impact mode. It immediately sends a signal back to my squad that I’m ready to engage hostiles. I get down low and wait, listening hard to the silence before me, blocking out the sounds of the platoon behind me, the sounds of the city beyond.

  I wait, and I hear the platoon go silent behind me, gather themselves for a fight.

  Nothing is showing on the thermal scope: just the flat grey of tombstones, as if everything is smothered in ash.

  Something whistles through the air, almost inaudibly, and even as I’m pricking my ears to the sound, something hits me hard on the helmet, and my first thought isn’t that I’ve been shot, not at all, because it’s nothing like that. My first instinct is that I’ve been turtle-fucked; some prick out for a laugh and throwing his own bowler at me.

  But there’s no-one near me, and no follow up assault. I notice a rock sitting on the ground behind me. It wasn’t there before.

  I flick off the multi-impact, relax a bit. I touch the Rifleman wetwire implant.

  “Ten four, guys,” I say, transmitting the message.

  The platoon relaxes; the noise of the camp resuming, the usual touchpad poker or field stripping.

  “Throw another rock,” I say, getting to my feet, trigger finger still eager, “and I might just finish this place.”

  Silence.

  I make a gesture with my hand, holding it palm up and letting my fingers open wide all at once. “Ka-boom,” I add.

  The sound of shuffling, and from a dark hole in the ground beneath a fallen tombstone I see a bony hand creep out. It’s small and lean, white as the moon, and beyond it appears the bulbous head of some apparently alien thing, eyes huge and dark. It creeps from the hole, dragging its tiny body behind, all ribs and scrawny legs.

  From behind some of the other tombstones I see more little faces appear.