by Maxey, Phil
“Where now?”
The captain opened the door and jumped out. “Anywhere around the square is fine.” He slammed the door closed.
“Err… okay.”
Carla did as requested and drove right, then swung a left, parking in front of the courthouse. The other eleven vehicles all piled into the open area and parked around the central square.
“Guess that’s the HQ,” said Bishop from the seats behind Carla, looking at the pillars of the courthouse.
Carla turned the engine off and looked at the imposing building but couldn’t see any lights inside. She also couldn’t see anyone coming to greet them.
She pushed the door open and jumped down onto the road. Most of the others were also leaving their vehicles and wondering what to do next. She spotted Joel in the distance and went to walk towards him when the whole area lit up as if it was daytime.
The hybrids all crouched, covering their faces instinctively.
“What the hell…” said Carla.
“Look!” said Bishop, pointing to the road they just came in on. A large garbage truck was parked across the two lanes.
Carla looked at the other five exits. Vehicles were blocking them as well.
Apart from the intense lights, which Carla could feel the heat from, spotlights were sweeping across the area. She realized they were trapped.
Could it be the corporation are already here?
As she searched the last hour and a half of conversation with Pachmayer for any evidence of that, she found herself grabbing her M4 from the cabin, and sliding into the shadow area between the vehicles. Some were doing the same, while others were pointing their weapons at the lights.
Across the square, Joel ran then crouched near the passenger's window of Dalton’s, Kizzy’s, and Amos’s sedan. The three of them and their human passenger were busy arguing when he knocked on the window making Amos jump.
The younger man pushed the door open ajar.
“I need your reading on who’s behind those lights, Amos,” said Joel.
Amos squinted, placing fingers on one of his temples. “There’s definitely hostility out there, but I can’t tell if they are the corporation yet…”
“We’re screwed…” said Kizzy.
“Not helping, Kizzy,” said Amos.
Dalton sat motionless, his eyes scanning for any available exits. Many others still inside the vehicles were doing the same.
A high-pitch whine was proceeded by a voice. A gravelly female voice which echoed around the square. “Everyone settle down now.”
Joel gambled that if it were the corporation they would have already started firing. He stood and walked forward, back out into the light. He noticed that across the neat lawn and past the statue at its center, Carla and a few of her soldiers were doing the same.
He walked towards where his senses thought the voice was coming from, which wasn’t the courthouse but the dark shape of a building that loomed high in the night sky.
“We’re here to help!” shouted Joel in the building’s direction, trying to ascertain exactly what window the woman with the megaphone was talking from.
“As you can probably understand, we’re protective of our little community here, and there’s the fact that I’ve never seen this many hybrids in one area since this whole shitshow started.”
Joel walked closer to the building.
Second floor… fourth window…
He stepped to the side, purposely moving into the shadow cast by one of the high-sided trucks. He caught the subtle differences of dark forms behind a window frame.
The building’s grand lower level was now just twenty feet away.
“To the man who is walking this way. Or whatever you are. You might want to stop. There’s three .50 Cals pointing at you, and enough ordinance to turn this small patch of land into an inferno. Which I presume even you hybrids wouldn’t be able to survive.”
Joel stopped. Carla, Bishop, and two more soldiers caught up to him, also stopping where he was.
“We’re no threat to you!” he shouted. “We came here looking for human survivors. We want to help. You should know the corporation is on the way here!”
“We know. What I’m trying to decide is; are fifty hybrids or however many you got down there, going to be a help or a hindrance in stopping them when they get here.” The woman’s words came out with patience as if she was deciding at that moment.
Joel went to talk, but Carla stepped forward. “Ma’am. I’m first lieutenant Carla Antos of the United States Army. I’ve come a long way with these people, and I vouch for them. We are all very good at killing vamps, which I think is the kind of help you’re going to need.”
For a few moments there was just silence, and then the brief sound of a door opening was followed by boots on the hard ground.
A phalanx of soldiers moved in unison, their heads covered in helmets with night-vision goggles perched on top. Despite the brightness around them, Joel and Carla could see the slight shimmering of laser beams emitting from the front of the twelve soldiers.
They moved as one, slowly but surely towards Joel and the others, stopping only a few yards away. The soldiers then parted, and a stout woman in army fatigues with four stars on her lapel marched confidently forward towards Carla, who saluted when the general was in front of her.
“At ease, Lieutenant.” The general then looked at Joel. “So you’re a hybrid?”
Joel looked surprised. “How—”
The general smiled. “Because it takes one to know one, son.”
*****
Joel looked up the staircase which rose to a point of light three floors above. The general led the way, moving quickly up the steps.
“There’s an elevator but there are better things to use our power on,” she shouted back down.
Through each stairwell exit he passed, he could see a large open plan office area on the other side, filled with men and women in uniform sitting at desks, lit by candles.
He and Carla finally reached the top and emerged into a hallway, with a number of doors branching from it.
Soldiers saluted the general as she passed by them. Joel and Carla followed her into a large office. He noticed screw holes on the outside for a removed name plaque. Just below it, someone had written, ‘General Galloway’s office.’
“Take a seat,” said Galloway.
The room was a corner office and would have had good views of the northeast if it had been daytime.
Joel and Carla sat in two of the three old chairs which creaked. The general's desk was sparse except for a few small piles of A4-sized folders. She sat and then reclined slightly in her more comfortable chair.
“Captain Pachmayer gave me the bullet point version of how you two and your friends ended up in my camp. I want you to give me the complete version, and then sometime after you have rested I want you to give it again to one of my officers.”
“Of course, ma’am,” said Carla. Joel looked at her. He had not seen the lieutenant so eager to please before. He also noticed something else in her expression. Hope.
Carla went to tell her story, but the general stopped her and asked Joel to go first. Twenty or so minutes later both had recited their tales. Joel described everything including the tablets, Jasper, and what he had learned from his time at the mountain. He was too tired to do anything else.
“And you still have this tablet?”
“The scientists have it.”
“But it’s no longer working?”
“It doesn’t seem so.”
“Hmm… and I thought we had an adventure getting down here and surviving. What you just told me tops that… and...” The general sighed, and slid her hand over her face.
It was the first time since Joel had met her, that he noticed her age. He guessed she was mid-sixties, but her hybrid metabolism had given her the energy of someone half that.
“I knew nothing about any tablets. What was happening in Colorado was kept from us, but we were in cont
act with the compound until it went dark… And then we presumed the corporation had gotten there.”
“How did you learn of them?” said Joel.
“Through our contacts with other camps. At first, we thought it was other branches of the military that were still operating and were helping these people, but then one by one the camps also went dark. Finally, we got a message from the camp a few hundred miles north of here—”
“We saw it…”
The general sat forward. “You saw it? What happened?”
“We didn’t really see any townspeople, just lots of the corporation's hardware.”
“That’s going to be really helpful. The more we know of what we’re going to be up against the better chance we have of stopping them…” She shook her head. “They were good people. I would send a squad up there every week to exchange supplies and information. Anyway, that’s how we learned of the corporation, they managed to get us a message before their comms were shut down. That’s when we learned whoever was doing this, was not the US military. At least not anymore.”
“Are you in contact with any remaining camps?” said Joel.
“Just two. One in Virginia and another in Maine. So far they are holding off the vamp attacks, and we have warned them about the corporation. Neither though have many former US military, so… who knows if they will hold out when the corporation comes knocking. I just know I have to keep the people in this camp secure and be ready for what comes next.”
She stood. “Get some rest. I’ll expect both of you to be back here at zero four hundred hours.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rynon looked at the modern technology around him and smiled. He had no idea what the animated neon bars and symbols meant but they were doing his bidding, and that’s all that mattered. The world had changed in some ways but had remained exactly the same in others. Humans still acted as their nature dictated, it’s just they had new toys to play with. The last he had seen of the kingdom he once ruled, was a dust storm building on the horizon and Freon’s armies, mostly made up of humans bearing down on himself and his brothers-in-arms. The door to the tomb and then the sarcophagi would be their only salvation, little did he know that Freon, on not being able to access them, would build up the landscape around, burying them for the thousands of years that followed until ironies of ironies, it would be a human that would dig them back out. He was thankful to the Drak for that at least.
“Show me his cell,” said Rynon to the Alkron worker sitting at the desk in front of him.
The screen changed to show a crestfallen thing, sitting on a small bench, in a bright room. No lack of light for him. No dim warm space for him to relax in. He needed to know, to feel he had been beaten. Perhaps if he accepted his fate, he would be allowed to take up his place at the feet of the kings. But before then he would be forgotten.
Rynon walked to the large table which doubled as a digital screen, showing the corporation’s forces across the continent.
“We have a communication incoming from Ms. Mathews, sir,” said a woman behind him.
He nodded and Iona’s face appeared across the table.
“The camp is completely under our control, sir. The humans have been sent to the blood farms, and we identified twelve more Alkrons, including what I’m told could be a type forty-six, sir,” said Iona.
Rynon raised one eyebrow as the screen became pixelated and then returned to full fidelity.
“We are waiting on more fuel for our helicopters, sir. Once we have that, we will ship the possible type forty-six back—”
“No. Keep them there. My two brothers will be with you soon. Hold your position and await further instruction.”
Iona nodded, and the screen returned to the map of the United States.
*****
“So you been having any problems with vamps getting through your fence?” said Bill to the lone soldier who had been given the task of taking him, Max, Rachel, and Josh to their abode.
They all sat in the back of an army truck, the last four from this particular group that had been found a place to stay.
The young soldier sleepily looked across to the old man. “Uh?”
The truck bumped along a road. Bill and the others had no clue where they were or where they were going, but they presumed they were still within the camp’s walls.
“Have vamps been getting through anywhere in the camp’s walls?” reiterated Bill.
“Oh… umm… yeah on the south wall, well it’s not really a wall, more a collection of stuff we found to make a wall. You know, trucks, farm machinery, anything that would be strong enough to keep the vamps out. But there are gaps and the biters sometimes find them.”
Bill nodded. “I see. And where would these ‘gaps’ be? I just would feel safer knowing what areas to avoid.”
“Umm… Like around Braxton and I think there’s a problem with the wall at Fairfax as well. Yeah, you should stay away from down there. Especially at night.”
“I will definitely do that. Thank you.” Bill ignored Max’s eyes that were frequently looking at him.
The truck stopped and the soldier got up, jumped out and then pulled the rear guard down. “This here’s your place. There are supplies already inside including water and a bit of food. There’s also some wood out back for you to start a fire, but it’s already too late to do that tonight as we have a no lights, or, err, fire policy after eight p.m.”
Those in the truck nodded then got to their feet and slowly dropped down to the road which reflected the rear lights due to an earlier rainfall.
The soldier switched on a flashlight and walked up a small muddy bank pushing through the overgrown grass, which then flattened out until he arrived at the front porch of a structure that looked like a shack’s attempt to be a single-story home. A sheet of plastic covered a hole where a window should have been.
The soldier waved for everyone to follow him, and he stepped up to the screen door, pulling it back, then pushed open the front door which seemed not to require unlocking.
By the time Bill and the others were walking over the threshold, the soldier had already lit two candles, illuminating a moderately sized living room which contained a sink, kitchen counter, and a rusting, old, iron oven. The soldier pointed at it. “Use that as a wood burner in the morning. But make sure you peel that plastic back from the window and keep the door open so the smoke don’t build up.”
The newcomers looked at each other and then nodded to the soldier regardless.
“Right, I’ll leave you to it then. There’s a meeting for all of you at zero nine hundred hours. You’ll be debriefed and given some more supplies to bring back here.” The young man nodded once more and left.
Rachel went to talk when Josh walked through the messy living space, down a narrow dim hallway, and into one of the four rooms the property contained. The door slammed behind him.
“We should see if there are any blankets in the other rooms,” said Rachel. She went to walk away when Bill held up a hand.
“We can’t stay.”
Rachel looked surprised. “You want us to leave, now?” she kept her voice low, looking over her shoulder to the hallway.
Bill moved closer to her, pulling his small pack from over his shoulder and shaking it. “They’re going to take this if we’re still here in the morning! We have to leave, now!” The two looked back at the hallway.
“And what about Josh?” she said the archeologist's name almost as a whisper. “We agreed we would tell him, a hybrid would come in useful!”
Bill and Max exchanged a brief glance.
Bill leaned in even closer to Rachel. “We don’t think it’s wise. We’ll wait a few more minutes and—”
The door in the hallway swung open, and Josh fell out into the shadows. “You’re going to leave me here?”
The other three realized he must have overheard them despite their attempts to keep their conversation quiet.
“We have to leave this place, Josh…” said
Rachel.
He moved into an area of light being cast by one of the candles. His eyes were red, his face unshaven. He looked ten years older than his true age despite the Scourge virus flowing through his veins. “I know of your plan to take the tablet. You thought you could keep me from knowing. But I know, yeah. I heard. You think as humans, you know what’s best for the tablet?”
Words tried to form in Rachel’s mouth, but nothing came forth.
“You’re a scientist, Josh, you know the tablet cannot be allowed to stay in the hands of the infected, it has to be—”
Josh fell to the ground on his knees, being plunged back into shadow once again. He muttered to himself as if in debate with another entity.
The other three looked at each other, each one not knowing what to do. Rachel broke the deadlock and moved towards her old friend. “Josh—”
Before any more words left her throat, Josh had a grip of it. A clawed hand held her captive. Josh was now standing, his blackened eyes fully visible within the candlelight.
Bill pulled the only weapon he was allowed to keep when the soldiers confiscated all the others and raised it high to bring down on the hybrid, but, instead, in an action that was just a blur to the humans in the room, he snapped the neck of Rachel, and swiped his hand across the throat of Bill, sending an arterial spray of blood across the stained brown sofa and rotting floorboards. As Bill grabbed his throat, Max and the thing Josh had become looked at each other. The older man turned towards the door, which was only a few yards away, but before his leg had even lifted a few inches from the floor Josh’s extended incisors were plunged into Max’s leathery neck.
Bill stumbled around for a few more seconds then fell in a slump to the floor.
Josh’s face was one of glee as the last remaining drops of blood oozed from the gaping wound on Max’s neck, and then he let his once friend also drop to the floor.
He stood looking at the scene around and started talking to himself, his words intermingled with laughter.
“Strange pitiful humans! Always dying!” he shouted, then spun around in a mad dance. Spinning and laughing.