“Get me that goddamn face!”
Ramsey dropped the eyeball and shoved Rockwell in the chest.
“It’s the punctum caecum!” he shouted. “There’s absolutely nothing I can do about it!”
Rockwell balled his fists and tensed as though about to lunge again. His cheeks were flushed and his chest heaved like a bull preparing to charge.
“It’s the blindspot,” Ramsey said, straightening his jacket. “Every eye has one. There are no photoreceptor cells at the point where the optic nerve enters the retina. No rods. No cones. No nothing. Just an empty space. With seamless visual stimulation, our brains just fill in that gap. But what we’re looking at here is a single millisecond in time. One frame of a movie. For all intents and purposes, nothing exists within that black hole.”
“Surely there’s something that fancy program of yours can do to fill it in.”
The effort required to maintain the pretense of patience made the veins in Rockwell’s neck stand out like green worms writhing under his skin.
“No,” Ramsey said. “There’s nothing more I can do.”
Rockwell stared at him for an interminable, uncomfortable moment.
“Then you’d better get started on the others.”
With that, Rockwell shoved himself to his feet and stormed across the field littered with corpses toward the far tree line. The smoke drifted around him, making it appear as though he were burning.
Ramsey sighed and collapsed onto his haunches. Can’t win for losing, right? He leaned over the computer and sent the image to the digital photo printer, which hummed for several seconds before commencing with its task.
He removed the eight-by-ten glossy from the tray and held up so he could clearly see it. The hackles rose across his shoulders and crept up his neck. His heart rate accelerated. He noticed that his hands were shaking as he peered through the eye of a dead woman into the featureless face of the monster who appeared to be tearing out her throat with its teeth.
Ramsey set the picture aside and again found his tongs. He wanted to make sure he returned the woman’s eye to her socket. It seemed the only small measure of compassion he could provide for the frightened girl who had fled the potential nuclear holocaust in her country only to meet with an even more violent end. When he was through and had closed her eyelids for the final time, he glanced at the line of bodies beside her. It felt as though all of them were looking right at him, eager to unburden themselves of the horrible knowledge they had taken with them to their graves.
* * *
Two hours later, they were on the move again, the refugee camp fading into memory like the residua of a nightmare. The smoke had cleared, the stench was gone, and no longer did the buzzing drone of flies interrupt his every thought. Ramsey removed his mask and breathed in the fresh air, allowing it to linger in his chest, cleansing him from the inside out. He savored the scents of evergreen needles and pine sap and the blossoms of wildflowers and the dampness of the moss in his sinuses. These were the simple joys often taken for granted, like the gentle caress of the breeze on his sweat-dampened face and the sensation of blood pumping through his strong legs. He was even thankful for the way his feet ached in the new boots and the way the helmet scraped the crown of his head and the pain in his back from the heavy pack. All of these things, the good and the bad, the pleasurable and the painful, served to prove that he was still alive, that all was right with the world, if only for this one moment in time.
More importantly, they distracted him from the images he had seen, now captured on the photographic paper in the case Moya carried. Ramsey never wanted to see them again. It didn’t matter, though. Once he had seen them, they had become a part of him, patches in the quilt of his own existence. He would carry the memories of the dead with him until the day finally arrived for him to join their ranks and expel them on his dying breath into the mist of accumulated sorrows that grew thicker in the air with each passing day. He didn’t want their memories, but it was the cross he had chosen to bear, the one he had set about building years ago with the inkling of an idea and a microscope.
They had all been the same, these visions of death, variations upon a theme of pain and suffering that should by all rights have been outside the realm of human experience. Not one had been an easy death, and had he been able to capture the sounds of their passing alongside the sights, the soundtrack would have been the tormented screams of the damned. All but the last, whose final memory must have been accompanied by the sounds of tearing flesh and splattering blood.
Six people. Four men. Two women. Each of them butchered by different faceless apparitions with wild hair, light glistening on the masks of blood they wore like war paint. Some glimpsed slender fingers with filthy, hooked nails. Others caught a flash from sharp teeth, dripping with strands of saliva and blood. And still others had the misfortune of staring their deaths in the eye and seeing their painful fates reflected back at them.
Six had been enough for him. For all of them. And still they were no better off for their newfound knowledge. They didn’t know exactly what attacked those poor souls any more than they knew where the enemy now lurked. All they knew with any kind of certainty was that at any minute the skies could fill with missiles and radiation and ash. And that they were isolated in the wilderness with whatever had slaughtered more than a hundred refugees with such speed and ferocity that not a single survivor had been spared.
Ramsey peered through the canopy overhead, praying for just a glimpse of the sun. He treasured the birdsong and the sounds of the needles and branches rubbing together and the shapes and colors of the leaves on the elms and the ashes. He focused on the crunching sounds of the soldiers shoving through the bushes both ahead of him and behind him, on the sounds of their breathing and their footsteps, on just the simple fact that their presence meant that he wasn’t alone.
He focused on anything and everything in order to distract himself from looking down and seeing the automatic rifle he now clutched in his trembling hands.
Or the droplets of blood that had dried on the groundcover like wilted crimson flowers.
Or the fresh tracks they followed relentlessly to the northwest.
V
None of the men spoke of the nature of their quarry. They didn’t have to. Their concern was written into the lines of their faces, the set of their bulging jaws, their mannerisms. A nervous energy radiated from them, like so many downed high-tension cables snapping between them. Ramsey may have been a soldier once upon a time, but he was nothing like these men. While they eagerly tracked their prey, rifles unwavering in their grasps, anticipating the seemingly inevitable confrontation, all he felt was fear. He couldn’t think of a single logical reason why anyone would attack a helpless refugee camp, let alone with their bare hands and teeth. There was obviously something very wrong with the people whose passage they followed, an element of savagery and violence that could only be described as inhuman.
The individual footprints were impossible to differentiate. They were placed one on top of the other in chaotic fashion so as to obscure potential distinctions and hide their numbers. Gleaning any specific details from the bare granite, lush grasses, and spongy detritus was a hopeless proposition.
What in God’s name was he still doing here? He had served his purpose. Rockwell knew how to use his equipment. They didn’t need him anymore. And now that he had successfully demonstrated the capabilities of his prototype, he would never have to go looking for funding ever again. There would probably be stacks of cash waiting in his lab when he returned, enough to build a dozen new units to replace this one if he left it behind. So why didn’t he just turn around now? He could follow their trail all the way back to the temple where the chopper had dropped him off what already felt like a lifetime ago. It couldn’t be too hard to locate the nearest town from there, could it?
He glanced back over his shoulder. The forest appeared to be following them, swallowing their path behind them. Moya had tied the Pelican cas
e by its handle to the pack on his back in order to free both hands for his weapon. His fingers clenched and unclenched their grip. His eyes roved from one side of the path to the other, peeling apart the branches and leaves to penetrate the lurking shadows, never once blinking. Behind him, Grimstad walked in reverse, guarding their rear with his rifle firmly seated against his shoulder. As though they expected the attack to commence at any second.
As though they sensed something that he didn’t.
The prospect of striking out on his own was more terrifying than simply going with the flow. At least there was safety in numbers, he figured, and hoped the refugees hadn’t felt the same way. He couldn’t stomach the prospect of facing that valley of death again, especially all by himself. He only wished that Rockwell, who carried their sole means of communication, a secure satellite uplink in a case in his pack, would use it, but despite Ramsey’s most well-reasoned arguments, Rockwell had refused, stating that he would only use it in case of a genuine crisis. If this wasn’t one, then Ramsey sure as hell didn’t want to be around for the real thing. Besides, Rockwell had said, an emergency evacuation was too risky. Sending a chopper across the border into North Korea, even one flying the U.N. flag, could be seen as an act of provocation, and could provide just the slightest nudge required to push Kim over the edge. What he didn’t say, yet still made perfectly clear, was that they were expendable in the grand scheme of things. When faced with the prospect of mass casualties and global war, their lives were inconsequential. Their mission, which no one would actually clarify for Ramsey, was of the utmost importance; however, they, as a unit, were not. Only a select few in the highest places even knew they were here, and they would undoubtedly deny that knowledge should it ever come to light.
They were on their own, and they all knew it.
Billions of people were counting on them to stop a war before it started, whether they realized it or not. And if everything played out as planned, they never would.
By the same token, if they too were slaughtered like the refugees, their bodies would be left to rot in the middle of these godforsaken mountains.
Ramsey turned around again and bumped into Wilshire from behind. He hadn’t seen him stop. The soldier whirled and glared at him, then quickly looked back to where Rockwell stood motionless at the side of the trail, a dozen paces ahead, staring down the barrel of his rifle into a thick copse of Mongolian oak trees.
The wind rustled the leaves overhead, and somewhere in the distance he heard the cry of a hawk.
Ramsey held his breath and waited. No one moved. What did Rockwell see?
Slowly, one cautious step at a time, Rockwell pressed silently through the tall weeds and disappeared into the forest. The seconds stretched to minutes, and Ramsey found his finger fidgeting with the trigger of his rifle. He shifted his weight, eliciting a crinkling sound from the detritus. Wilshire shot him another disapproving look.
What was Rockwell doing back there?
And then Ramsey smelled it. He had been so focused on watching and listening that he hadn’t noticed the smell of feces until the wind shifted and blew it into his face. The scent was fresh, but there was something wrong with it. It was a sickly aroma that reminded him of a cross between carrion and diarrhea.
The wind shifted again and Rockwell emerged from the shivering branches. Ramsey couldn’t read the expression on the soldier’s painted face, but apparently the others could. They were moving before Ramsey even knew they were about to.
He followed them through the overgrowth to where Rockwell waited in the shadows of the oaks. The sunlight filtering through the leaves created kaleidoscopic patterns on his face.
Ramsey recoiled from the stench and scrambled to get his mask back out of his pack. The smell was different than the one in the clearing, but every bit as repulsive. It was how he imagined it would smell if a herd of cattle had been strung up from the boughs, gutted, and their bowels and viscera left to rot. Even the mask barely attenuated the vile aroma that seemed to have found its way inside his nostrils, where it promptly curled up, died, and began to rapidly decompose.
None of the men spoke. Instead, they communicated with glances, as only men who were privy to each other’s every waking thought could. Despite his recent arrival, it didn’t take Ramsey long to catch up. The detritus was spattered with loose stool. As were the leaves of the lower canopy, the trunks of the trees, and the shrubs surrounding them. It looked like a cross between oil and tar had been dumped from the sky. And Ramsey knew exactly what caused stool to blacken.
Blood.
The spoor was black and runny because it consisted of little more than straight blood.
But how had it ended up spattered across just about every available surface?
Ramsey swatted the swirling cloud of bloated black flies away from his face and followed the eyes of the other men up into the trees, to a point roughly twenty feet above them, where the bark had been scraped from a thick branch the width of his calf. The exposed wood beneath was gouged with parallel gashes, the edges crusted with sap. Nearly every one of the branches up there was similarly scarred. At first, Ramsey was reminded of what deer and elk did to pine trees with their antlers, but those markings were much closer to the ground, not where the only way to reach them was with an extension ladder.
He flashed back to the similar wounds on the bodies in the clearing and shivered at the thought.
Wilshire knelt beside a particularly foul puddle, dabbed his fingertip into it, and rubbed it against the pad of his thumb.
“Less than twenty-four hours old,” he whispered.
“They spent the night in the trees?” Grimstad said.
“No,” Wilshire said, wiping his fingers on the ground. “Not the night. The day. I suspect they’re moving under the cover of darkness.”
“Which means that they have an eight hour lead on us,” Rockwell said. “At the most.”
“Where are we in relation to the site of the detonation?” Grimstad said.
“Sixteen kilometers north-northwest of here,” Moya said.
Ramsey finally made the connection.
“Then if we follow our current course, the trail should lead us straight to it.”
“See?” Moya said. “I told you it would be useful having a college boy around. We never would have figured that out otherwise.”
“Stow it,” Rockwell said. “He’s the only reason we have the slightest idea of what we’re dealing with here.”
“If we push it, we can be there before nightfall,” Wilshire said.
Ramsey glanced up through the shivering leaves, hoping for a glimpse of the sun, but instead saw only dark shadows with wild hair clinging to the branches, claws buried in the wood. He understood the implications. Unless the tracks they were following veered in a different direction, they would potentially overtake their quarry before sunset.
His grip grew slick on his rifle.
A stray thought forced its way to the forefront of his mind. Was there a relationship between the detonation and the vicious marauders they now followed? Based on the timing, it had to be more than mere coincidence.
Ramsey lowered his eyes and caught Rockwell’s stare. Within it, he saw something more closely resembling recognition than confusion, knowledge as opposed to curiosity.
What did he know?
This was all wrong. He had been summoned from Ft. Detrick after these men had already discovered what happened in the refugee camp. They were witnesses to the fact that the people had been attacked by tooth and nail. He understood now. They hadn’t needed Ramsey to figure out what had happened, but rather to show them the face of an enemy they already knew existed, to confirm whatever suspicions they already had.
They knew. They had known all along.
“Tell me what’s out there?” Ramsey said, stepping into Rockwell’s personal space. “Whose tracks are we following and what kind of trap are we walking into?”
Rockwell cocked his head, almost as a predatory bird
might, and appraised him with a smirk on his face.
“Saddle up, doctor,” he finally said. “We have a long walk ahead of us.”
And with that, he turned and strode back through the bushes, leaving Ramsey standing in the wretched copse of oaks, wondering what in God’s name he had been volunteered for and if anyone had ever expected him to make the return trip.
An overwhelming sense of isolation settled over him and he threw himself through the underbrush to catch up with the others.
* * *
They smelled the smoke long before they saw it; a black smudge that diffused the afternoon sun over the sharp crest of the next ridge. It took more than an hour and a half to pick their way over the steep incline to a point where they could slide down the loose granite and scree, slaloming between rugged escarpments and the trunks of trees that rooted themselves to the windswept terra by spite alone, until they reached the bottom of the valley, where a crystalline lake sparkled through the forest. The first thing they saw was the reflection from the hood of a jeep…and then the body sprawled across it.
A haze of gun smoke clung to the evergreen canopy like smog, an entirely pleasant smell compared to the coppery biological scent that grew stronger with every step. It wasn’t the cloying stench of decomposition. Not yet, anyway. Soon enough it would turn, as the gasses swelled and the fluids settled, but for now, the mere scent of blood freed from its vessels was easily enough filtered by their respirators.
They emerged cautiously from the tree line onto the terminus of a rutted track that might once have qualified as a road, but from which now grew waist-high weeds and brambles. Wilshire used a pair of shears to snip the barbed wire fence on the opposite side, which featured rusted warning signs written in Korean every thirty feet. The only symbol Ramsey recognized was a fairly self-explanatory skull-and-crossbones that would have served as a reasonably effective deterrent under normal circumstances, but even more so now that its promise was clearly fulfilled at the far end of the clearing before them. Three olive-green Jeeps were parked just beyond the edge of the field, the grasses obscuring their grills, their headlights still shining. The overhanging branches did their best to hide their windshields. The Jeep closest to the lake to the north looked as though it had tried to make a break from cover, only to strike a tree trunk with its crumpled right front quarter-panel and send its driver straight through the glass and onto the hood, where carrion birds squabbled over the mess they had made of the man’s neck and shoulders. His hands were plucked of flesh to the bones.
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