A pair of Marines from Epsilon grabbed the Crawler they’d sedated by its front limbs and dragged it out while Gibson’s team provided cover.
The thumping stopped, and a flicker of thermal signatures appeared in the gap.
“Incoming!” Gibson said.
The two Marines from Epsilon released their captive and brought their weapons to bear just as a pair of Crawlers shot out of the hole. Shotguns exploded, and XREP rounds crackled noisily in time to alien squeals. One of Epsilon’s Marines got caught thrashing alien arms. Long glassy claws slashed his flak jacket into ribbons; he screamed, then fell silent, coming down hard on the pavement.
Both Crawlers lay on the driveway with him, their limbs spasming in time to electric shocks. Gibson fired off an extra XREP cartridge, just to be sure, and then tranq darts whistled out, and the aliens ceased their frantic movements.
“Man down! Medic!” Spooner said.
“On it,” one of Gibson’s men said. It was Private Clarke. Gibson covered him with the others as he ran over to check on the fallen Marine from Epsilon.
“Stay sharp. Three down, one to go,” Spooner said.
“Copy,” Epsilon One replied.
Silence fell and the smoke from the grenade dispersed with a sudden gust of wind. There was no sign of the fourth Crawler.
“Epsilon Two, check the hole,” Spooner ordered.
“Yes, sir.” Epsilon Two hurried out of formation and peeked around the corner. Gibson braced himself.
“All clear!”
Gibson’s aim wavered as some of the tension left his muscles.
“Double check that, private,” Spooner said.
“Thermal’s clear, sir, but it’s a shit show. Three civilians down.”
“Signs of life?”
“No, sir. Plenty of guts but no glory.”
Lieutenant Spooner blew out a breath and looked to Clarke who was pressing black gloves slick with blood to the fallen Marine’s chest. He walked over quickly, and Gibson joined him. The man’s green eyes were open, roving from face to face, but he was spitting blood, and his chest had collapsed beneath a shivering crimson pool.
“Shit,” Spooner said and dropped to his haunches beside the man. “Charlie, you’re going to be okay. We’re gonna get you out.”
Blood bubbled from Charlie’s lips, but no words came out.
Spooner grabbed Charlie’s hand and held it up in a tight fist. “You’re gonna be just fine. Hang in there.” To Clarke and Gibson, he said, “Hoist him up!”
Gibson hesitated. He knew a lost cause when he saw it, but he did as he was ordered and took Charlie’s shoulders. Clarke grabbed his legs, and they walked with him toward the trio of Humvees parked out front.
Halfway down the driveway, Charlie’s eyes glassed over and ceased moving. Gibson and Clarke stopped where they were.
“He’s dead, sir,” Clarke said, sounding confused.
“Yes he is, private,” Lieutenant Spooner replied, “but he didn’t have to know that.” Turning aside, he nodded to the rest of Epsilon and Alpha teams. “Net and tie those bastards, and let’s pack it in!”
They carried Charlie’s body to the back of one of the Humvees, mopped the blood as best they could, and then laid him in the spacious trunk beside their extra gear.
Panting from the exertion, Gibson turned to see Lieutenant Spooner leading the other men as they carried three tied and sedated Crawlers between them.
Gibson eyed the cargo area where they’d laid Charlie. At least one of the Crawlers would have to ride with him. He didn’t like the idea of the Marine’s killers riding alongside his body. He was just about to give Spooner an earful about it when he heard the lieutenant say, “Pop smoke!” Followed by the clink of another pin being pulled from a grenade.
Purple-colored smoke poured into the night, pooling in the streetlights. Marines set their alien burdens down. The lieutenant had signaled for air evac.
Relieved, Gibson walked over to Lieutenant Spooner to address another concern. They still had one Crawler unaccounted for. “What are your orders, sir?”
Spooner glanced at him. “We wait for these assets to be collected, then continue the hunt, Corporal.”
“Oorah, sir.”
“Oorah,” Spooner replied, nodding.
Chopper blades sounded in the distance, growing swiftly louder and nearer. The lights from two separate helicopters came tracking across the sky from the nearby Princeville Airport.
Gibson heard an exclamation from one of his men—it sounded like Dekker—and he whirled around to see a different kind of light tracking across the sky—vertically. More exclamations followed, and they watched a blinding, electric-blue plume of light sail into the sky.
Gibson gaped at it, shielding his eyes from the glare as it soared ever higher. The roar of its ascent reached their ears moments later, followed by an ear-splitting boom as it broke the sound barrier.
“Looks like we found our missing Crawler,” Spooner said.
“ET go home,” Dekker added.
Chapter 37
Corporal Lee stood guard on the darkest side of the CDC’s operations center. He watched the trees rustle with the wind, heard his fellow Marines chatting to pass the time, and wondered how many of them were also infected. There was no way to tell. The differences in their behavior were so vague that anyone could miss them. Lee knew that, because he’d been analyzing his own behavior over the past twenty-four hours, watching his every move, listening to every word that escaped his lips, and he had yet to catch himself acting out of character. Such dedicated self-analysis might have been strange, or even deranged, under any other circumstances, but he had nothing better to do.
Lee had given up screaming silently in the hopes that a whisper might escape his lips. After a whole day spent clawing the walls of his numb, nerveless prison to no effect, he’d realized that there was no escape. Somehow, something had hijacked his spinal cord. He couldn’t speak; he couldn’t move; he couldn’t even blink; he was a spectator watching helplessly as something else did all of that for him.
Lee kept going over the past week in his head, trying to decide when the switch had occurred and what had been the catalyst. The answer seemed fairly obvious. The alien organism everyone was searching for could have taken days to incubate and reach the critical mass it needed to take over his body, but Lee didn’t think so. He believed it had taken mere hours to do so, and it had happened right after his encounter with Lily Blossom.
She hadn’t introduced herself as Lily Blossom at the time; she hadn’t even given him her name. She’d just sauntered up to him at his post guarding the back exit of the Lihue PD and French-kissed him until he couldn’t think straight. Then she’d whispered something filthy in his ear: “First time’s free.” And then she grabbed his hand to pull him away from his post. He’d resisted for a moment—duty first—but his buddy, Private Nolan, had put his mind at ease.
“Relax, that’s just Lily Blossom. She’s harmless. Go on, Corporal, I’ll cover for you. You’re in for a real treat.”
So Lee had followed Lily back to her room at the Mahalo Motel, and there she had gone on to treat him to the best night of his life. She’d even stuck around afterward—not the typical wham bam typical of most working girls. Riding high, he’d nodded off, and when he’d woken up a few hours later, Lily was gone, and his body paralyzed.
At least, he’d thought that he was paralyzed, but then he’d watched—watched himself get out of the bed, get dressed, and leave the motel room. Convinced he was dreaming, he’d tried screaming himself awake, but that hadn’t worked.
And it still wasn’t working—Lee heard a branch snap and saw himself turn toward the sound. A pale monster crawled out of the shadows, crouching low to the ground on four bent legs. Lee screamed his silent screams as the Crawler crept toward him.
None of the other Marines guarding this side of the CDC compound seemed to care, and yet all of them were watching the alien approach the fence. Four of them lowered their shotgun
s, letting them hang free from the shoulder straps in a way that no Marine ever would. That was a tell right there, but none of the nine men in Lee’s squad seemed to notice. Not even Sergeant Colton. I guess that answers how many of them are infected. But he should have known that by now. He’d watched himself contaminate their coffee this morning.
Four skinny alien arms unfolded from the Crawler’s forelegs as it reached the fence. Claws clacked and scraped against the chainlink fence, making it ring and shiver in the night. Lee’s head turned, and he saw his squad mates watching approvingly as the alien climbed the fence, dropped down, and then slunk silently through the grass to the nearest white canvas tent.
The doctors and lab technicians in the compound would all be fast asleep, none the wiser that their very own Lily Blossom was headed their way. Something told Lee that their encounter wasn’t going to be anywhere near as pleasant as his had been.
Chapter 38
“I caught them doing it,” Beth said, nodding through the windows of the restaurant to where her dad and Melanie sat outside at their own table making eyes at each other over their coffee.
“Doing it?” Don’s grandmother, Sarah, asked in an overly loud voice. “You mean they were having sex?”
A few people looked up.
“Shhh.” Beth turned with a frown to see Don whispering in her ear.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was shouting,” she said.
“That’s okay, Nana,” Don said, patting her hand.
Sarah gave him a trembling smile and took a sip of her coffee.
“Don’t you think that’s strange?” Beth pressed, her eyes on Don.
He scratched his cheek through his beard. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
“It’s definitely strange,” Beth confirmed.
Chef Jones came by with a tray of plates and coffee. Each plate had a brown plastic bag on it with the letters MRE in a bold black font. Don and Sarah each took a plate, then Beth reluctantly took hers.
“Mmm-mmmm Asian beef strips,” Don said. “Breakfast of champions.”
“Refill?” Chef Jones asked, nodding to the coffee pot.
Beth frowned and shook her head. “I don’t drink coffee, remember?”
“Of course. I was speaking more to them,” Jones replied.
“I’ll have some more,” Don said, holding out his mug.
“I still have mine,” Sarah added before taking another sip.
Jones topped up Don’s mug and departed the table.
“What should we do?” Beth whispered once she was out of earshot.
Don glanced around inconspicuously, then shook his head. “Your dad tested clean. We all did. If people are acting strange, it’s probably just because they’re living for the moment, not worrying about the future. Surviving an alien invasion will do that.”
Beth frowned. “What about the synchronized behavior we saw yesterday? Groups of four, remember?”
“Synchronized...” Sarah trailed off. “What’s she talking about, Donald?”
“Don’t worry; it’s not important,” he replied, patting her hand.
Don favored Beth with a patient smile. “Do you see it today?” he asked.
Beth looked around, taking a moment to study people’s movements carefully. “No, but...”
“Then it was just an aberration.”
“Like my dad’s hookup with the grieving widow of a newly-wedded couple is an aberration? I can’t speak for her, but he’s never been so impulsive. He’s not like that.”
“So what are you saying? She raped him?” Don looked like he was trying hard not to laugh.
“Well, no, but...”
“Your dad’s single, Beth. Maybe she came onto him, and he thought, screw it—pun intended.”
“You didn’t see him. He wasn’t himself yesterday. He spent the whole day in bed staring at the ceiling like a zombie. Now look at him!”
Beth gestured out the windows to where Melanie and her dad were holding hands and staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. “They’re sitting like twenty feet from the pool where her fiancé died, and she’s making googly eyes at him. They haven’t even tried to apologize to me, or explain.”
“Are you sure they saw you?” Don asked.
“She saw me for sure,” Beth replied.
Don shrugged and took another sip of coffee. “Okay so that’s a little strange, but we all just got up. Maybe that’s what they’re out there talking about? How to broach the topic with you.”
“I doubt it,” Beth said.
“Well, the CDC is working the case,” Don said. “If something’s going on besides all the normal human madness, they’ll find it. Meanwhile, I’m worried about more tangible threats. Hookups and synchronized cheek scratching don’t fall into that category.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean no one takes a spaceship across billions or trillions of miles of space just to land a few dozen operatives, scare the crap out of the locals, and then leave.”
“So what do you think they’re up to?”
“No clue, but you can bet there’s a lot more of those Crawlers out there waiting in the wings.”
Beth frowned. “Their spaceship left. All the news reports say there’s no sign of it.”
“Maybe it’s just too hard to spot. They had to surprise us somehow, right? Whatever the case, we need to worry about what’s going to happen when the other boot drops.”
Beth shook her head. “What can we do about it?”
“Hide,” Don replied. “Now that they’ve caught all the missing Crawlers, Nana and I are going to get out of here and head for my place in the mountains. I’ve got enough guns and supplies there to handle whatever comes my way. It’s just a damn pity I wasn’t there when all this shit hit the fan.”
Beth blinked in shock. “How are you going to get there?” she asked. “Your car doesn’t start.”
“I fixed it yesterday while you were out. It’s an old truck, not a lot of electronics. Once I bypassed the ignition, she purred to life.”
A prickle of dread skipped down Beth’s spine at the thought of him leaving. Don was her anchor to sanity in the middle of all this craziness, the only one who seemed to be acting normally, the only one she felt she could trust.
Unless he wasn’t. Why wasn’t he suspicious anymore? Maybe this was his way of acting strange—by dismissing her dad’s odd behavior.
“Looks like your dad’s come to offer the olive branch,” Don said, nodding over her shoulder.
Beth turned to see him and Melanie coming inside, making a beeline for their table.
“I’ll leave you guys to talk,” Don said. “Time for me to bug out.”
Beth heard his chair pushing out, followed by Sarah’s, and turned to see both of them standing.
“How do I find you?” Beth asked, searching Don’s eyes desperately.
Don smiled sadly back. “You don’t, kid. That’s the point of a bug out shelter. Can’t have people knowing where it is.”
“But—”
“Beth?” Her dad’s voice interrupted them, and she reluctantly tore her eyes away from Don and his grandmother to see her dad and Melanie standing a few paces behind her. Melanie’s cheeks were flushed, and she didn’t seem to know where to put her eyes. “Can we sit down?” her dad asked. His tone and expression were apologetic, hesitant. “We need to talk to you about last night.”
Beth nodded but didn’t say anything. Her dad and Melanie were holding hands. He pulled a chair out for her beside Beth, and then sat facing her. Beth glimpsed Don and his nana disappearing through the French-style glass doors of the restaurant, strolling off through the lobby.
“I wanted to explain what you saw last night,” Bill began.
Beth snorted. “What’s to explain? Seems pretty obvious. You two hooked up.” She shrugged. “No biggie.”
Bill’s eyes flicked to Melanie, then back. “Well, it’s more than that, Beth. And it wasn’t as sudden as it looked. Mellie and I—”
<
br /> “Mellie?” Beth echoed.
“Melanie and I,” Bill amended. “We spent several hours together yesterday while you were out. We got to talking, and it turns out we have a lot in common. But besides that, I guess we were both feeling lonely and vulnerable, and—”
Beth stood up, almost knocking her chair over in the process. “What you guys do is your business,” she said.
“Beth...” Bill said.
“Bill...” She replied in a sarcastic imitation of his tone. His eyes flashed, but he didn’t say anything. “It’s okay,” Beth said, fighting back tears with a smile. Don had left her. Toby was dead, and her dad was... someone else. “You’re both consenting adults, right? It’s not like she forced you.”
Bill nodded slowly.
“Then you didn’t do anything wrong. Just good fun. But try to keep it down. The walls are thin.” Beth stormed off before either of them could say anything else.
Chapter 39
Commander Morris stood on the bridge of the Port Royal, listening to Captain Reed bark orders to the crew. Admiral Harris had sent them to investigate some anomalous weather patterns at two degrees and five minutes North of the island. The air temperature there was apparently five degrees colder than everything around it and had been so for at least four days. Those readings had been recorded by weather satellites, but Harris wanted them to take supplemental ones from sea level. It seemed like a strange errand for a warship, but Kauai’s harbor was on lock-down. Even the coastguard had been grounded. Only USN ships were allowed to navigate the quarantine zone, and the Port Royal was closest to the anomalous weather region.
“ETA?” Reed asked, glancing at Morris.
He checked his watch. “We are five minutes out from the specified coordinates, sir.”
“Then we should already be able to measure the phenomenon,” Commander Morris said. “The coordinates put us one hundred miles into the low-temperature area.”
“Yes,” Captain Reed replied, nodding. “Let’s go down to CIC and check in with Petty Officer McCown, shall we?”
“Aye, sir,”
Under Darkness (A Sci-Fi Thriller) (Scott Standalones Book 1) Page 14