Most were animals. Great snakes writhed, as long as pythons, their scales flaking like dry skin, their eyes blazing red fires. Smaller snakes grew from their gums like teeth, hissing and snapping tiny jaws. The beasts coiled like intestines in the belly of the earth. Gargantuan rodents scurried between the serpents, hairless and warty and obese. They were as large as sheep and as miserable as diseased rats. Their jaws opened to shriek, revealing rows of tusks, and their vestigial eyes moved beneath membranes of skin. Strange aliens clung to the walls like starfish, but their arms were human arms, ending with human hands and grasping fingers. They had no faces, but lamprey mouths opened in their centers, hungry for flesh.
Animals? No. They had been animals once perhaps. They had changed. Worms. Pigs. Peasants. Twisted into these strange creatures of the pits. The yellow poison filled their eyes.
The jeep landed among them. And the horrors swarmed.
Snakes wrapped around the jeep, hissing, eyes dripping. Their jaws opened wide, and the smaller snakes inside thrust out like tongues, snapping at soldiers. Fangs tore into one corporal, injecting venom. The man screamed, swelling up like a balloon of flesh. The smaller snakes caught him like hooks and reeled him in. The larger snake opened enormous jaws, tore into the bloating man, and feasted.
Jon opened fire, shouting wordlessly. George was firing at his side. Etty had fallen from the jeep, and Jon glimpsed her among the snakes, screaming, flailing. The terrors surrounded her. Snakes wrapped around her limbs. The mutants drooled and tugged at her hair.
"Etty!"
Without hesitation, Jon jumped off the jeep—and into the horrors of hell.
He landed in the pit of snakes. Jaws rose before him, screeching, full of smaller snakes that grew from blood red gums. Jon opened fire, filling the jaws with bullets. The snake fell, only for a wrinkly boar to take its place and stomp toward him, hooves tearing into the floor of writhing snakes. The beast had two pale, hairless heads, each covered with a hundred red eyes like pomegranate seeds. Its twin mouths roared, full of rotting tusks. Jon's rifle clicked. Out of bullets. He fumbled for a fresh magazine, and the boar charged closer, closer, leaped toward him, and—
Jon emptied his new magazine into the creature.
The mutated boar drove into him, eyes bursting like overripe fruit, grunting and flailing in its death throes. Jon shoved it off, stumbled forward, and waded into the snakes. Etty was gasping ahead, drowning in the swirling sea of creatures. The snakes were pulling her down like quicksand.
Throughout the pit, Jon saw more jeeps, tanks, and soldiers sinking into the monstrous abyss. The creatures were everywhere—filling the pit, covering the walls, emerging from tunnels.
"Etty!" he cried.
She had sunk down to her chest, and she was still sinking fast. She reached for him, gasping for air. Jon placed once foot on a dead boar's head, another on a sinking armacar, and grabbed Etty's hand. He pulled with all his strength, but the snakes had a good grip on her.
"Jon, get me out of here!" Etty cried.
"I'm trying, you weigh a ton!"
He dug his heels into the carpet of mutants, but soon he was sinking too. The creatures were coiling around his feet. Once perhaps, they had been mere earthworms. Mister Weird's poison had seeped into the soil, mutated them, turned them into these scaly monstrosities. Jaws rose from below, widening, reaching toward him. Jon fired with one hand, tearing them down. He kept pulling Etty.
Around them, soldiers were battling more monsters. Jaws sank through flesh. Bullets tore through mutants. Strange bats flew through the pits—creatures with leathery wings and bloated human faces, biting soldiers, whipping them with spiny tails. Every moment or two, a serpent rose from the pit like a cobra from a basket, grabbed a bat, and devoured it.
"Sir. Sir. Please. A coin. A meal."
Hands scrabbled at Jon. Somebody pulled him back, spun him around. He found himself facing a Bahayan peasant. Mister Weird had deformed the woman, melting her face, pulling her eyes down to her jowls. Her children had melted into her body, fusing with her like parasitic twins, reaching out twisted hands, mouths opening and closing, begging.
"Please, sir, please, sir, help, help."
Bullets slammed into the poor bundle of flesh. Into the mother. Into the babies on her torso.
Etty had managed to pull her gun free.
Jon looked at her.
"It was a mercy," she said. "I would do the same to you. And expect no less from you."
"Guys, come on!" George cried, shouting from his sinking jeep. "Get back here!"
Jon finally freed Etty from the squirming mass of serpents. He pulled her back to the jeep, for all the good that did. The vehicle was sinking into the pit of mutants. The soldiers stood on the roof, firing their rifles, trying to hold back the monstrosities.
Jon stared upward. He could see the sky, but it was a far climb.
This is a dream, he thought. This cannot be real. This is just a nightmare.
The snakes parted.
A soldier thrust up from below, dripping poison. He was a private Jon knew, had drank with, played cards with. Now he was naked, milky white, and eyeballs blinked across his torso. Another head grew from him, balanced atop his original head, upside down, blinking, trying to speak.
"Help…" the new head whispered.
Jon cringed, turned away.
The snakes pushed up another soldier. A young woman, a corporal Jon knew, had once shared a battle ration with. She smiled at him hesitantly, dripping poison.
"Jon…"
Then her hair slipped off. Then her skin slipped off.
Mister Weird is everywhere here, Jon thought. He fills the underground. He's pulling us down. Into a nightmare we created.
"Where are the goddamn helicopters?" George was shouting.
The jeep sank deeper. Now only the roof was visible over the wriggling carpet of snakes. Then the roof was gone, and they were down to their ankles.
"Soon we'll be in the poison," George whispered. "We'll rise again. Just more monsters in this pit."
"And maybe we're already monsters," Etty said, eyes haunted. "As above, so below."
"No." Jon said. "No! I won't let this happen to you. To us."
I must come back to you, Maria. I promised. I won't die here.
They sank to their knees. The sea of creatures swirled around him. Something grabbed Jon's leg. Was pulling him down. More troops disappeared into the pit, rising again, mutated, screaming.
"We're in hell," Etty whispered. "In hell, in hell…" She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer in Hebrew. "Shma Israel! Adonai elohenu, adonai echad…"
"There's no way out!" George said. "The goddamn helicopters aren't coming."
But Jon was not ready to give up.
As above, so below, Etty had said.
Jon looked up.
And he saw more of the horrors above. The strange human starfish clung to the cliff walls. The deformed human bats were flying.
"Climb them," Jon said.
"What?" George frowned.
The jeep was sinking faster. They were now up to their waists in the sea of mutants, and the poison sizzled around their boots.
"George, lift me up!" Jon said.
George hoisted him up, and Jon scrambled onto the giant's shoulders.
The bats were swooping, hissing, their bloated faces twisted in sneers. Their eyes bugged out. They had been human once. They still had human spines, human hands at the tips of their wings. The legs had withered, and sheets of skin quivered between their wrists and tailbones.
"To Mister Weird, to Mister Weird!" a bat chanted.
"Be like us, be like us!" hissed another.
One of the bats swooped toward Jon, mouth opening to reveal sharp teeth.
Jon leaped off George's shoulders.
He reached up and caught the bat.
The creature screeched, beat its wings madly, and bit Jon. Teeth sank into his shoulder, and he howled.
But the bat kept
flying. And Jon clung on. The serpents were snapping their jaws below, and Jon remembered seeing them feeding on the bats.
"Higher, you bastard!" Jon said. "Or I'll drag you down into the pit."
The bat thrashed, screamed, bit him again. "Let me go, pute!"
It had a Bahayan face. That face was bloated, deathly pale, the eyes red. But Jon could see humanity there. Deformed. But not completely erased. Maybe once this poor soul had been a rice farmer. Before Mister Weird.
"Fly back up," Jon said. "Fly above. You don't belong here underground."
The mutated bat looked at him. And suddenly her eyes were human. They shed tears.
"Rise back into the sunlight," Jon said. "Don't die here in the darkness."
Weeping, the bat rose, carrying Jon.
"Rise, sisters!" the mutant cried. "Rise from hell. We were human once! We were farmers! We're not demons. Rise with me! Rise to the sun."
The bats cried out through the pit. Their human souls shone through tortured eyes. Their bodies were deformed, twisted, monstrous, but they still had human hearts.
They lifted soldiers from below. These soldiers from Earth had bombed their villages. Had poisoned their land. Had butchered millions of them. But the bats lifted them nonetheless.
Because they are human, and we are the monsters, Jon thought.
The bat carried him to the surface of the world, then dropped him by the open pit. Another bat carried Etty. It took four bats to lift George, and they struggled and strained, but finally dropped the giant beside his friends.
Other bats were carrying other troops. But not many. Jon didn't know how many jeeps and tanks had fallen, but the canyon spread into the distance. He didn't know if the Bahayans had constructed a huge booby trap, or whether the canyon had naturally opened, a wound in the decaying flesh of the world. Perhaps it did not matter.
This was all our doing, Jon thought. We mutated this land, and the poor souls who live here still help us.
"Jon…" Etty pointed. "Your boots."
Jon looked. Down in the pit, his boots had sunk into the poison. Eyeballs now grew from the leather, blinking.
Jon cringed and kicked them off, pulled off his socks, checked his feet. Thankfully he saw no eyeballs or extra toes.
George pulled off his own boots. One had a smacking mouth.
"I'm finally going to be sick for real." George turned green, then spun away and threw up.
For long hours, the army tried to fish out survivors. But in the pits, the soldiers were mutating, screeching, scrambling up, death in their eyes. They had to shoot a few of the poor souls, knocking them back down into hell.
Finally the helicopters came. By now they had nothing to do but drop napalm into the pits. The creatures below squirmed and screamed and died. Jon stood on the edge, gazing down, watching the flames consume hell.
The survivors climbed into beaten jeeps and armacars. Some soldiers grew extra ears and eyes. Some had melting skin. All had haunting memories.
And the army rolled on.
Chapter Eight
The Drumbeat
The road north was long, and every moment chipped off another piece of George Williams's soul.
The Human Defense Force rolled through lands of despair. George drove his jeep. He drove through burnt jungles. Over poisoned fields. He drove past villages where mutated souls crawled and begged, raising heads with no eyes. He drove as enemies fired from charred trees, and bullets picked out soldiers around him. He drove as bombs exploded on the roadsides, destroying jeeps, even the heavy armacars and tanks. He drove as every moment another soldier died. He drove through hell.
George Williams hated it here. Cold sweat kept trickling down his back. His heart kept pounding against his chest. His belly kept roiling with ice. His guilt kept haunting him like ghosts in a castle. But he drove onward, and he never looked back. Because he had made a vow. He had to protect Jon Taylor, and George would drive into hell and back for his friend.
He looked over at his friend. Jon sat beside him in the jeep, manning the machine gun mounted onto the hood. He was staring ahead, eyes dark, face hard.
He's changed so much in this war, George thought.
Only months ago, Jon had been the maestro. The leader of Symphonica. A sensitive boy with long black hair, soft pale skin, and reflective eyes. A boy who spent hours at his piano, composing by candlelight. A poet's soul. But now George saw a stranger. A man with tanned and scarred skin, callused hands, a cold stare. A soldier.
"Hey, Jon. Do you remember the time we met?"
The words just came spilling out. George blushed a bit. Sometimes that happened. He would be thinking to himself, and words just tumbled from his mouth.
Jon glanced at him. "Huh? What's that, buddy?"
George looked back at the road, cheeks hot. "Never mind."
They drove in silence for a while longer. The train of armored vehicles snaked ahead and behind them. Ten thousand soldiers—all moving north, heading through the wastelands toward Basilica, capital of North Bahay. To battle. To death or victory.
George took a deep, shaky breath.
I never wanted to fight a war. But whatever I face there, I will face it bravely. I will do what I've always done. Protect my friend.
Finally Jon broke the silence.
"A blue crayon," Jon said.
George looked at him. "What's that?"
"It was a blue crayon you had," Jon said. "In kindergarten. I wanted to use the blue one. But you had grabbed it first. You ended up breaking it in two, then giving me a half. I believe I drew a dinosaur."
George couldn't help but laugh. "I don't remember that. I thought the first time we met was when you stole my toy truck."
Jon gasped. "I'm not a thief!"
"Oh you were a horrible thief in kindergarten!" George said. "Always stealing everyone's toys. Never sharing. Very possessive."
Now Jon laughed too. "Do you remember that time in first grade? When that big kid—I think his name was Ron—stole my chocolate milk? Now there was a thief! God, I hated that kid."
"I remember that day," George said. "I clobbered the little brat. Pity the milk spilled."
Jon sighed. "Even back then you were protecting me."
"Back then I was a little smaller." George touched the scar on his head, a memento of the brain tumor. "Before my old friend Timmie the Tumor did his work on me."
Those memories kept bubbling up. The painful years following those idyllic days of crayons and toy trucks. Growing larger and larger, passing six feet, growing still. Being ten years old and taller than his father. Doctors and clipboards and medicines. Reaching six foot six, and more doctors, and his mother crying. And growing taller still. Thirteen years old and told he might not reach fourteen. The bullying at school. The name calling. The beatings.
Kill the hippo!
Stomp the elephant!
Beat the freak!
George couldn't help it. A tear fell. Whenever he remembered those years, it happened.
Sitting beside him in the jeep, Jon patted his shoulder. "It was a hard time."
George wiped his eyes. "And you were there for me, Jon. When I kept growing. When the doctors cut the damn thing out of my brain. The long days in the hospital. You were there. So now I'm here for you. And whatever happens in the north, whatever horror we see in the war—I'll be there for you."
A voice rose from the back seat.
"Oh my God, you two dicks! You're going to make me cry, you are. And I fucking hate crying." Etty hopped into the front seat and squeezed between them. "You assholes. I'm teary-eyed now."
The jeep was designed for three to sit in the front. But George was so large that Etty could barely fit. Her slender body pressed against him. Her thigh was warm against his thigh. And George couldn't help it. He blushed again.
Thankfully, if anyone noticed, they were quiet about it.
George glanced at her. His cheeks heated some more.
For a moment—really just a second
—he admired her. Her smooth skin. Her silky black hair. Her eyes so large and green. Some people mocked her, said she looked like a tarsier. But to George, she was the prettiest girl in the galaxy.
He looked away hurriedly, cheeks so hot he worried he'd burst into flame.
"So, Etty…" George gulped, trying to think of something to say. "Do you, um, like music?"
She looked at him. "Sure."
"Ah!" George said. "That's interesting. I like music too, you know. Um, music is nice."
He cursed himself. He sounded like a goddamn idiot. Why was the touch of her body breaking his brain?
"Georgie, you okay?" she said. "You need to drink something?"
"I could use a beer," George confessed. "I miss beer. Once we get back to Earth, I'll take you to the Fox and Firkin pub in Lindenville. They have the best damn beer on Earth."
Etty raised an eyebrow. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
George nearly crashed the jeep. His cheeks were definitely on fire now. "No! I'm not! I mean…" He gulped. "If you want to, we can… But no! Of course not. Unless you want to. I mean—Jon can come too! Unless you don't want him to." He winced. "Do you?"
Etty grinned. "Like a threesome? Kinky!"
George nearly fainted.
Jon rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Etty, stop torturing the boy."
Her grin only widened. "But it's fun! I love torturing people. It's my hobby. Sometimes I even—"
A boom shook the air.
Fire blazed ahead.
An armacar tumbled off the road, burning.
A second later, trenches opened along the roadsides. Enemy troops emerged, shouting and firing rifles.
George grabbed Etty, pushed her down, and shielded her with his body. Bullets whistled overhead. George kept driving the jeep, hunched over, protecting Etty.
Jon swiveled the jeep's machine gun around. He unleashed hell, pounding the roadside with bullets. Hot casings flew, clattering to the jeep floor.
Along the road, soldiers died. Blood sprayed. Machine guns rattled. Bullets streaked back and forth.
"George, let me go!" Etty said.
She squirmed free, loaded her assault rifle, and opened fire.
Earthlings (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 2) Page 6