SQUAD THIRTEEN

PROLOGUE WITH A VAMPIRE

CHAPTER ONE

The general sits on the park bench in full dress uniform, feeding pigeons. The park is empty. The fountain continues to flow. The artificial pond in the center of the park, surrounded by unused jogging trails and bike paths, is still and without motion. There’s not even a ripple.

Outside, the park, there is no traffic at all. The shops are empty, the buildings unoccupied. The town is utterly silent.

The pigeons swarm, a small flock at his feet. They’re all so very hungry, food’s been sparse. He feeds them from his bag of crumbs, but after a while he runs out. The pigeons stick around for a little while after that, but eventually, one by one, they depart, leaving the General alone. He sighs. He enjoys their company, their motion and sounds, the aliveness they’d brought.

Now departed, he feels like he is in a still life. He waited. That was one thing you learn to do in the military, clear your mind and wait for whatever was coming.

A newspaper blows past. He watches the page flutter on the wind, already yellowing and faded. He doesn’t bother to chase or catch it. It would have dated to two weeks ago, when the town went dark.

The shadows grow long. Night is coming. At one point, a stray dog appears, stepping out of some bushes far off. The animal seems healthy, though gaunt. Its ribs are showing. The General and the Dog look at each other for a long moment, then it disappears without ever coming closer.

The sun is setting, The General simply waits.

Then, suddenly, with no sense of abruptness, there is a young woman sitting on the park bench with him. Her skin is pale. She wears a summer dress, floral patterned, with spaghetti straps and visible cleavage, just loose enough to be comfortable but still revealing her shape. The General notes that she isn’t wearing a bra, he is vaguely happy that he still notices things like that. She is barefoot, her toes flexing automatically. The paint is chipping from her toenails.

Her smile, when she smiles at him, is brilliant. She’s beautiful, she’s radiant, she’s everything he ever dreamed of. He wants, suddenly, to offer himself up to her, to pledge his undying love.

She knows this, and it pleases her.

WOMAN: Nice night.

GENERAL: I suppose.

WOMAN: I haven’t seen you around?

She smiles. Her teeth flash, whiter than ever. She leans forward, extending her hand. He takes it. Her flesh is cold, like all her kind, stiff with rigor and unearthly strength.

ANDY: Hi. I’m Andy, short for Andrea. I’m not going to kill you.

The General nods.

GENERAL: Pleased to meet you, Andy. It’s quiet out here.

ANDY: I like it quiet. We don’t see many people out, these days. You’re not from around here are you?

GENERAL: Just visiting.

ANDY: Really. Do you have family here? Who are they? I can help you find them. What’s your name?

Andy digs her toes luxuriously into the grass beneath the bench. The general is in mind of a cat stretching, extending its claws. She yawns and stretches, arching her back to show off her bosom.

GENERAL: No family. I don’t remember my name. Protective measure.

Andy barks a laugh. Her lips are red, her teeth a blinding white.

ANDY: So you’re just here, sitting in the park, are you? Feeding pigeons?

GENERAL: They seemed pretty hungry. I wish I’d thought to bring more for them.

Andy shrugs, she leans up against, him, feeling his chest as she fingers the decorations of his dress uniform.

ANDY: You’re a military man. Ooh, look at all those medals. You must have seen all sorts of action?

The General touches his fingers to one of the medals.

GENERAL: This one’s for typing. That one’s for attendance.

Andy stares, confused.

ANDY: Is that a joke?

The General watches her.

GENERAL: Do you still have a sense of humour after you turn?

ANDY: I never really thought about it. Maybe. I’m still the same person I was. Turning, you keep what you need, and lose what you don’t. I’d turn you, if you wanted, you could be useful. Is that why you’re here?

GENERAL: No.

ANDY: I don’t think I could, even if you wanted it. There’s something wrong with you. I can smell it in your blood.

GENERAL: Cancer.

ANDY: I’m sorry.

The General looks at her with mild surprise.

ANDY: I guess I’m sorry. I don’t really care. It’s just a thing people say to each other when they don’t really care.

She looks up at that moment, mildly surprised. The figure of a man is walking down one of the bicycle paths. He is huge, hulking, dressed in nondescript dark overalls. He is wearing some sort of mask or helmet, obscuring his face. The figure in the distance pays no attention to them, simply continuing on the path, eating up distance with every stride, until it vanishes out of sight.

She saw him, she realizes. But she couldn’t sense him. It was as if he wasn’t there at all. She frowns. She tries to keep her voice casual, light and friendly, as if it’s all just banter.

ANDY: What the hell was that? One of yours?

The General shrugs. The General notes that her eyes had gone red, her nails have lengthened into claws, and her canines are extended, all involuntary reflexes. He waits politely as they recede and she regains control of herself.

Disturbed, she stares at the General, appraising him.

ANDY: You’re not dressed for combat.

GENERAL: Nope. Dress uniform, salad and all.

ANDY: Why are you here? To negotiate?

They’d discussed it in their councils, the times and places when the humans would try to negotiate, who they would send, what they would ask for and what offers or threats they might make. They had worked it all out, planning for a big beautiful new world.

They hadn’t discussed some random, late middle-aged officer sitting casually on a park bench, feeding pigeons, waiting for them.

GENERAL: A week ago, the town went dark. We got reports from survivors and refugees. Standard practice, we sealed the perimeter.

Andy laughs, it sounds like music to the General.

ANDY: We know about that. It won’t hold us. We can go wherever we want, whenever we want.

GENERAL: At night, at least. So anyway, what’s the plan here?

ANDY: We’re going to take what’s ours. We’ve been hiding in the shadows for too long. We’ve found a leader, a visionary. Brother Vulk.

GENERAL: The rat-faced bald git? We know that type. Long timers, their minds usually deteriorate to crushed gravel, hiding in basements, eating vermin. So what’s the deal? He ate someone with basic cable? Started watching television?

Andy’s face stiffens.

ANDY: Don’t be disrespectful! You don’t know how anything works. You’re already slaves, living in a world run by the one per cent. The thing you don’t understand, is how utterly mediocre your one per cent is, how incompetent and narrow-minded and self-centered they are. They’re wrecking your lives, and they’re wrecking the world.

Andy blazes with genuine emotion, the true passion of the enlightened. The General narrows his eyes watching her. She lays a hand on his shoulder, not to attack, but to emphasize her point.

ANDY: You’ll see. When we take over, your lives won’t change. They’ll actually get better. We’ll look after you, because you matter to us. We’ll heal this world of the scars your leaders have inflicted.

For a moment, the General can almost see it. What would they be, if they didn’t have to be monsters? Walking free in the world, casting their glamour, worshiped by those they fed upon? Would they really be worse than what we have now? Maybe they would be better? Maybe they deserve it. The General knows it’s mostly her glamour washing over him. But ... maybe?

He shakes his head. He’s seen too much...

GENERAL: Farming humans, blood fountains, humane slaughter, all of that. Replacing corporate bloodsuckers with real ones. A future as factory farmed animals, like chickens or cattle.

ANDY: Yes, there’ll be some changes. But you won’t be cattle, you’re being dramatic.

Andy tosses her head, dismissively, and the General is struck by how ridiculous he must sound to her.

ANDY: Can’t you see? We’ll make a better world... for everyone, not just a predatory, incompetent ruling class, stealing all the wealth for themselves. Do you really think the world is better off ruled by billionaires sucking the planet dry? At least we care.

The General shrugs.

GENERAL: That’s out of my pay grade, honestly. What about the people in the town? Are they on board?

Andy looks away, refusing to meet his eyes. The glamour ebbs a little. She uncrosses and then crosses her legs. Her voice is slightly less confident.

ANDY: There are growing pains in making a better world. Sacrifices. Hardships.

GENERAL: Where are they?

Andy shrugs.

ANDY: Holed up in churches. Sanctuaries. Schools and hospitals. Every night they fight us off, every day, they try and break out. But it turns out it’s easy to turn refuges into prisons. We could take them if we wanted them, but they’re where we want them to be.

GENERAL: The survivors.

He grunts, and looks away from her. Her kind has an unnatural hypnotic quality, he can feel it pulling at his mind. But he is inured, he’d seen and experienced too much. Instead, he glances off into the distance. He noticed a plume of smoke, pale against the night sky, and points.

GENERAL: What’s that?

Andy looks, following the direction of his finger. She leans forward, staring hard at the plume, extending her unnatural sentences.

ANDY: Saint Michael’s Basilica.... it’s on fire! There are hundreds of people packed in there!

The General stares at her.

GENERAL: The next phase?

She glances at him, horrified.

ANDY: What? No! That’s not us... Why would we... There must have been an accident. I have family in there.

He can sense her body tensing. He looks away, surveying the skyline.

GENERAL: It’s not the only one.

He points out other faint plumes, just beginning, still low and wispy, illuminated pale against the darkness.

Her eyes widen as she focuses.

ANDY: Wait, that’s the Synagogue. And the Baptist Church! All those people!

Abruptly, her eyes go red, her fangs extend, fingers turned to claws. She snarls accusingly at him.

ANDY: Are you doing this? Because if you are...

GENERAL: No. It’s not me. I’m just here.

He can feel her mind reaching for him. He lets her. He has nothing to hide. What is happening was nothing he can control. He accepts that. Andy’s claws retract, the fangs recede.

She swallows, composing herself. He can tell she’s worried.

ANDY: All right. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. But don’t worry, I’ll be back. I’ll find you...

Then she stops, confused, as if she’s forgotten what she meant to say. She looks down, puzzled. There is something sticking out of her chest, just below her breasts, protruding through her sun dress. She finally identifies it as a large piece of metal, rebar or something. How did it get there?

It is impossible for anything to sneak up on her. She knows this with utter certainty.

The General is watching her. She turns to speak to him, to ask something.

And then, at the last instant, she senses it. Or doesn’t sense it. An emptiness behind her, a void, something formless and vacant, but somehow... hungry. Her last thought, is the realization that there is something evil in the world, far worse than anything she’s ever imagined.

At that moment, her body explodes into pieces, and disintegrates. In an instant, she’s no more than dust.

Johnson steps around from behind the park bench. He’s tall, though it’s impossible to quantify exactly how tall. Six feet? Six Four? Seven? He’s dressed in nondescript working man’s clothes, dark gray, heavy, almost like canvas, with protective coat, wearing a welder’s hood. The black visor is impenetrable. He moves with supernatural grace.

The General watches him. Once at the beginning, when he started to understand, he used to be afraid. Then wary. Now, he just watches. He knows he might be next, but he’s just stopped caring. Being around them does that to you.

Johnson, however, doesn’t acknowledge him at all. The hood with its impenetrable black visor swivels back and forth. He seems to select a direction, and then he simply walks that way, moving with graceful, measured strides that impossibly eat up distance.

The General watches until he’s out of sight again, and then sighs.

Time to go to work. He stands up, dusts himself off, and heads to the center of town.

By the time the sun rises, everyone and everything in town will be dead. There’s nothing he can do about that. There’s nothing anyone can do.

They’re here now.

T

THE DESERT

CHAPTER TWO

An armoured limousine drives through the desert across an empty dirt road. A cloud of billowing dust rises up behind it. In the distance a series of guard towers loom. As they get closer we see that they’re connected by three layers of cyclone fences and barbed wire. Ominous signs appear:

“Trespassers will be executed.”

“Minefields Active.”

Powerful stadium lights illuminate the landscape beyond.

Cut to the inside of the armoured car. There are two people. The driver is ranked as a General. He’s smoking a cigar. He’s in his late fifties, prematurely gray and wrinkled. His passenger is a Lieutenant, clean cut, crisp, by the book, female, and stern.

GENERAL: This is all just for show. They throw money at us; we have to spend it on something. Worst goddamned duty in the service as far as I’m concerned, sitting in those towers waiting to be killed. Pushing paper at Checkpoint Charley. The real protection is distance. We’ve got another sixty miles to go. Sixty miles of the most godforsaken, desolate territory on the face of the earth. No water, no plants, not even a lizard can live here. We made sure of that. We got a geosynchronous satellite up there permanently stationed right over us, watching. I can’t tell you what that cost us. A bird flies over this place, we know it. We got traps and deadfalls, minefields everywhere. Set a man down in here, and he’s dead within a day.

The Lieutenant looks doubtful.

GENERAL: Distance is what it is. This car is wired to explode if anything happens. Those sons of bitches will have to walk out. They’re a lot faster than they look, don’t be fooled. But even they, take ‘em most of a day to get out this far, takes them even longer to get anywhere. By that time, we can organize a response.

LIEUTENANT: Sounds like a tough set up.

GENERAL: Not tough enough. We almost had a break out in 1999. They decided to go for a walk, the whole bunch of them. Cut right through the fences as if it wasn’t there, the minefields, the towers, didn’t matter more than swatting flies.

LIEUTENANT: Briefing report says that they’re all just psychopathic criminals. But my dossier doesn’t tell me anything, just names and bullshit. Like this: “Likes teddy bears.” What does that even mean? There’s no psychological profiles, no personality assessments, just random notations. I expected the dirty dozen, but this? There are no specialties identified, there’s no history for any of them. I can’t believe they’re regular army.

GENERAL: They’re not.

LIEUTENANT: Permission to speak freely, Sir?

GENERAL: There’s just us here.

LIEUTENANT: This is fucked, Sir. What the hell am I supposed to be doing?

GENERAL: You lead them, Lieutenant. You take them out into the field, and you maybe try to point them, and then after, you try to get them to stop.

LIEUTENANT: Why me?

GENERAL: You’re a woman. You fit a profile.

LIEUTENANT: So... what? They don’t kill women?

GENERAL: They kill everyone and everything. Men, women, children, dogs, cattle. There ain’t anything they don’t kill. But sometimes, it looks like maybe they don’t like to kill certain women. Or at least, they don’t try as hard. Or maybe they can’t. We’re not sure.

LIEUTENANT: Who are these men?

GENERAL: They’re not men.

LIEUTENANT: Then what? Martians? Aliens? Werewolves? Vampires? Genetic experiments?

GENERAL: No one really knows. They started showing up in the Eighties. Or at least, that’s when we started noticing them. Then, the historians poked around, and whatever they are, that goes way back. But we’re not sure. We don’t know much about them. We know names, but that doesn’t tell us anything. We know where each of them came from, sort of. We know what they’ve done. But what are they? You tell me after you meet them.

LIEUTENANT: What’s the point of this?

GENERAL: You know the Iraq War, how Baghdad just fell apart? You heard of the Chinese Border incident? Although we hushed that one up pretty good, come to think of it. That mess in Africa? Scottsboro? That’s them. It’s what they do. When things are really bad, alien invasion, vampire infestation, zombie outbreak, we send them in. And then...

LIEUTENANT: And then...

GENERAL: And then, Lieutenant? We pray.

LIEUTENANT: That they succeed?

GENERAL: No, Lieutenant. We pray that sooner or later, they stop.

The Lieutenant looks out the window. There’s no answer. The car proceeds in silence through the sterile and endless desert. They pass by a human skeleton half buried by the side of the road. The Lieutenant watches it as they go past.

* * *

The building looks like it was a gas station in the 1950’s. The old fashioned gas pumps are still there, covered with dust. There is a drive through around the back. The General pulls up to the window. No one appears.

GENERAL: Checkpoint Charlie. The last stop before them.

There’s an emphasis on the word ‘them.’ The Lieutenant doesn’t respond. The General fishes out a clipboard and pen from the dash and makes a few notes. They wait. After a few minutes, the General honks the horn. Nothing. The General peers at the clipboard.

GENERAL: They’re on a nine day rotation. In, then out. After that, counselling, suicide watch, medication, whatever it takes. They’re only six days in, should be fine.

Nothing. Abruptly the General guns the engine, pulls out to the front of the station and parks. For a moment the motor idles, then he shuts it off.

LIEUTENANT: We’re not supposed to exit the vehicle, Sir.

GENERAL: Whatever.

He puffs his cigar.

GENERAL: What are they going to do? Court martial us?

The General steps out of the vehicle, and the Lieutenant, impelled by some random feeling of solidarity, gets out with them. They walk over to the bay doors of the old garage. The windows are caked with decades of dust. The General wipes as best he can and stares in. Then he proceeds to the front door. The Lieutenant follows, but as he turns, she glimpses, over his shoulder, four hanging bodies. The General strides through the front door, there’s a counter, and beyond it, desks, telephones, piles of paper, all the detritus of a normal office. The General pounds on the counter and bellows.

Eventually an MP comes out from the back. He’s got dried blood on his uniform, across his left shoulder, and spattering down the front of his shirt. He’s got a crude bandage wrapped inexpertly around his temple. He is dishevelled, shirt untucked, buttons missing, fly unzipped. His eyes are a little wild.

GENERAL: Paperwork.

MP: Ah, yes.

The MP takes the clipboard, and starts leafing through it.

GENERAL: There should be five men on station. Where are the others?

MP: They’re around.

GENERAL: I saw them. What happened to you?

MP: Light fixture, Sir.

GENERAL (nodding): They can’t take the weight. Maybe you were counting on getting electrocuted?

MP: Belts and suspenders, Sir. Make sure. Important to make sure. They wouldn’t let us have guns. Not allowed anything sharp.

The General grunts. The MP stamps a page.

MP: Papers are in order, Sir.

GENERAL: Where were you when we came?

MP: Bathroom, Sir.

The General shook his head.

GENERAL: You’re going to wreck the plumbing.

MP: The plumbing doesn’t work, Sir. We use a bucket. Nothing works. It’s all just here. You can feel it every day. You can feel them from here. Like a stain. Like you’re drowning in a stain on the world.

GENERAL: You have three days left, Soldier, before relief.

MP: Yes, Sir.

GENERAL: Until you are relieved, you are not to kill yourself. Do you understand? That is an order.

MP: But General!

GENERAL: THAT’S AN ORDER! Not until you are relieved.

The MP looks like he’s about to break down and cry, a tear trickles down his cheek. He trembles, but in the end he salutes.

* * *

The armoured vehicle pulls up on a ramshackle sprawling building. Shingles are peeled off the roof. The windows are broken. A door barely clings to its hinges.

GENERAL: Used to be a residential compound for the Prometheus Project. This is all that’s left.

LIEUTENANT: Prometheus?

GENERAL: Classified. Biological warfare. The next generation of superbugs, back when the world was simple and we knew who the bad guys were. Communists, blacks, hippies, that sort. Something got out, everyone died. I hear it was pretty messy. We dropped a neutron bomb to try and sterilize the place. We think we got most of it. At least, it hasn’t spread much since then.

LIEUTENANT: So this is a bio-warfare and a radiation hazard zone? And you station men here?

GENERAL: I told you before, they’re not men.... We’re here.

The vehicle stops in front of the building. A wind stirs through, but there’s no motion. The windows are black. There’s no sign of life. The General and the Lieutenant step out of the car. The Lieutenant looks around.

LIEUTENANT: No sign of life. Maybe they’re all dead, considering the place.

GENERAL: That’s one theory to explain them.

He hesitates.

GENERAL: No sense wasting time, let’s go in.

The Lieutenant grabs her briefcase. The two proceed into the building. There is a large central hall, possibly a cafeteria. Tables and chairs are shattered or pushed to the side, light fixtures dangle from the ceiling. There are strange red splatters on the floor and walls. The place is empty. The two stand in the centre.

LIEUTENANT: Where are they? They must have heard us coming? Were they informed?

GENERAL: Patience.

From a darkened corridor, there’s a series of heavy footsteps approaching closer and closer.

GENERAL: It’s them.

The footsteps slow and heavy come louder and louder, but they can’t see into the darkness. The Lieutenant draws closer to the General. Movement catches her eye; she looks behind them and screams. A hulking shape looms over them, a pale mannequin’s face atop military fatigues. Suddenly they’re surrounded by hulking, masked figures all around, bearing primitive weapons. Axes, machetes, knives and clubs. All of them unnaturally still and silent.

GENERAL: Lieutenant, let me introduce you to your command: Michaels, Jackson, Sawyer, Vernon, Hatcher, Beane, Monk, Otis, Ed, and Hatfield. There are more, these are just the ones feeling social today. Can’t kill them; so we enlisted them.

The Lieutenant turns around and around, staring at the hulking passive figures, their attention focused on her. As she moves their heads track her.

LIEUTENANT: They’re all wearing masks.

GENERAL: Because they’re all so damned ugly. Actually, some of them, Michaels, Vernon, they look human. They could pass. But they all like masks, it’s some sort of pathology. They cover their faces, even when there’s no one to look. It’s one of the little mysteries.

The figures begin to gather, closing in on her.

LIEUTENANT: Do they speak?

GENERAL: Sometimes one of them will say a word, so they can speak. But they don’t. The best you can hope for mostly is that they’ll listen sometimes.

One of them, Vernon, reaches out a hand to touch the Lieutenant’s hair. Trying not to show fear she moves away and bumps into Hatcher. She retreats.

LIEUTENANT: Get back! General, tell them to step back!

The figures continue to close in on her.

GENERAL: I said “sometimes” they listen. Sometimes. You’re on your own, Lieutenant. Consider this your test.

The Lieutenant continues to back away, turning from one to the other as they close in on her. Then she stops and visibly gathers herself.

LIEUTENANT (Announcing, clear commanding voice): I have something in my briefcase.

They stop, expectant. Not so much dissuaded as curious. A couple of them tilt their heads. Finally, one shrugs and they advance. The Lieutenant holds up her briefcase and snaps the lock, opening it towards her. Again, they hesitate for a second. She spins the briefcase around, so it faces them.

It contains a teddy bear.

LIEUTENANT: I brought this all this way. Who wants it?

She lowers the briefcase, which is otherwise empty, and holds the bear out. A broad heavy shape wearing a leather mask made of human skin, Sawyer, shambles forward. It reaches out.

LIEUTENANT: You want this?

She pulls the bear away from Sawyer. She stares directly at him. Sawyer is still. The others watch. The two stare at each other. Finally, Sawyer nods. The Lieutenant holds the teddy bear out to him. Sawyer takes it, and clutching it to him protectively, shambles off.

Jackson, the largest of them, a hulking brute in some kind of battered sports mask, advances towards her. But suddenly, Michaels the tallest, wearing a corpse mask, is in his path. Jackson pauses and tilts his head. Michaels tilts his head as if in answer. For a second, the moment hangs. And then, as if there was nothing, Jackson and Michaels walk off smoothly in different directions. In an instant, the rest of them have vanished. Not disappeared, but just... it’s as if they’d all just casually walked away while she wasn’t paying attention. But she had been watching.

GENERAL: Congratulations.

LIEUTENANT: I passed a test?

GENERAL: They let you live. Come on, let’s get out of here. The place gives me the creeps.

They walk out to the car. The Lieutenant gets in, slams the door shut, she’s shaking visibly.

LIEUTENANT: My god, what are they!

GENERAL: I’ve got the papers for your first mission here. Read it, we’ve got the Evac Chopper coming. I’ll be driving back.

LIEUTENANT: What are they?

GENERAL: There’s some sort of outbreak over on the pacific coast. We’ve got a perimeter, but nothing we’ve sent in comes out. You’re going to have to take them in.

LIEUTENANT: I SAID WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY???

GENERAL: I DON’T KNOW! NO ONE DOES!

LIEUTENANT: I thought they were going to kill me.

GENERAL: It was possible.

LIEUTENANT: And if they had?

GENERAL: Then I’d have brought someone else and hoped for the best.

LIEUTENANT: I’m not the first am I?

GENERAL: You’ve got a mission coming up fast. You need to get your head around that.

LIEUTENANT: How many? How many before me?

There was a long pause.

GENERAL: Six.

LIEUTENANT: Six?

The General doesn’t reply. The Lieutenant shoves him.

LIEUTENANT: You brought six others? I’m the seventh?

GENERAL: Yes. One at a time.

LIEUTENANT: And?

GENERAL (shrugs): They killed them. Each of them. It wasn’t pretty. They like to take their time.

LIEUTENANT: And me...

GENERAL: You were the one. The one we were looking for.

LIEUTENANT: Why?

GENERAL: Because they let you live. You were the one. We don’t know why. We don’t know how they think. We don’t know if they do think. We don’t know why they do what they do. We don’t know why they kill. We don’t know why they let some live. We don’t know how to kill them. We don’t know how to stop them. If we did, we’d stop them. If we could, we’d kill them. But we can’t. We can’t even contain them for long. The best we can do is find someone they won’t kill on sight and sort of direct them... point them at something that needs killing and then try and get out of the way.

LIEUTENANT: My God.

GENERAL: God has nothing to do with it. Here’s how it is, they let you live, so they are yours now, and you are theirs. That’s all. Now you’ve got your mission, get prepared.

LIEUTENANT: What about you? They let you live.

GENERAL: I was the last person they let live, until you came along.

LIEUTENANT: So why me?

The General stares at her. Finally, he looks out the window.

GENERAL: T-Cell Lymphoma. Inoperable. No treatment. I have maybe another month or two.

LIEUTENANT: So... I’m your replacement?

The General nods.

GENERAL: We had to find someone they wouldn’t kill. I’m sorry, it’s a nightmare. But they’re our nightmares, and there’s others out there, bad things. We need--

The bulletproof glass on the driver’s side shatters, and Michaels and Vernon pull the General, screaming, out through the broken window. He kicks wildly, screaming in terror. The Lieutenant shouts, grabbing his feet. Her face is already flecked with his blood. They drag the General off.

The Lieutenant jumps out of the armoured car, shouting. She pulls her sidearm and empties it into Michaels and Vernon, but they don’t seem to notice. She follows a half-dozen steps. As the General vanishes into the darkness of the building, her nerve breaks and she runs back to the car, slamming the door, futilely locking it. Praying to herself.

Inside the building, the General’s screams go on and on and on....

On the seat beside her, the mission papers are scattered around.

CENTIPEDES

CHAPTER THREE

LIEUTENANT (voice over): For no other reason than that they did not kill me on sight; I have been given command of a squad of unstoppable killing machines, deathless masked murderers.

My security clearance tripled overnight. You want to know about the President’s prostate exam? What they really had down in Area 51? I could get you that. But for these bastards, I barely rank. The files on the squad have so many black marks all over the pages, it was like reading confetti.

The parts that I could read, the edited mission profiles, were like the nightmares of a psychotic witch doctor. Speculations about zombies, demon gods, avatars of death, alien. Sometimes wild ravings. I checked the General’s medical history. He was on so many anti-psychotic medications his piss glowed in the dark. He would ask for electroshock. He fought to get a lobotomy, and got one.

Afterwards, he wrote ‘It didn’t help.’

Mortality rate is 70% among the support crew, two thirds of that is suicide.

Only one thing is clear: whatever these things are, we have no idea. We don’t know what they are, or why they are, or how they do it. We just know what they do. We are like monkeys with atom bombs. All we know is that we have them, and we can point them at things that might or might not be worse.

I have a mission. The parameters are fucked. Just a code name and a set of GPS coordinates. No objectives, no rules of engagement, no support. But I know deep down, that none of that is necessary. Their only rule, their only objective is to kill. No survivors. That was the one constant from every mission.

* * *

The helicopter is insanely loud. Its metallic skeleton, a dragonfly carrying a cargo container. The Lieutenant sits beside the pilot.

LIEUTENANT: Is this the target zone?

PILOT: We’ve just passed the quarantine perimeter.

LIEUTENANT: Any idea what we are facing? What’s the perimeter encountered?

PILOT: No idea. Quarantine perimeter is the zone outside contact. You’d want to talk to field Perimeter.

LIEUTENANT: What do they say?

PILOT: Nothing, they’re presumed dead.

LIEUTENANT: Where do we land?

PILOT: We don’t land. We just drop the container and they do the rest.

LIEUTENANT: We’re not high enough for the container parachute.

PILOT: There’s no parachute. They don’t like it when we go high.

LIEUTENANT: What?

PILOT: Bombs away.

LIEUTENANT: Wait!

The Pilot pulls a switch, the helicopter jerks as the cargo container lets go, begins tumbling through the air.

LIEUTENANT: Jesus Christ! That’s a thousand feet.

PILOT: Yeah, I feel better already. Hey, are you into woodworking?

LIEUTENANT: Fuck! What? Woodworking?

PILOT: Yeah, I do it to relax. Unwind from those things. I just bought this amazing table saw; thirty-two inch blade; got it from a sawmill. Knocked half the teeth out, so it does really rough cuts. Just mangles the wood.

LIEUTENANT: What are you talking about?

PILOT: More and more, I’ve been thinking how restful it would be to just turn it on and lay my forehead against it. You don’t think that’s screwy, do you?

LIEUTENANT: What?

Loud noise, metal grinding, a flash of light, a chemical stench like burning hair.

PILOT: We’re hit. We’re going to--

* * *

The Pilot’s head impaled on a metal rod. That’s the first thing the Lieutenant sees when she opens her eyes. Apart from the blood and the steel jutting through torn flesh, he looks very peaceful. The second thing she notices is that most of his body is missing. The third is the acid smell of burning rubber and plastic.

She thrashes, afraid to look down and see whether her own body is intact. Restraints bite into her shoulders. She is still wearing her safety belts, still strapped into the crash seat. She releases the buckles, feeling the harness loosen.

She crawls away, staggers to her feet. Everything is intact. Miraculously, she has survived. Helicopter debris surrounds her.

In shock, she looks around, seeing a typical, Norman Rockwell, middle-American town. The streets are empty, except for a man and woman who appear to be impaled on a double headed parking meter.

She stumbles toward them, staring. They are back to back, leaning against each other. Their faces are contorted in rictus of agony and terror. The man’s lower body is distended oddly; she thinks she can see the shape of the edge of the parking meter in his body. Their feet do not touch the ground, they dangle in the wind.

LIEUTENANT: What the fuck?

Her gaze drifts to their feet. Lower. There are pools of blood and guts beneath them, the remnants of their ruptured bodies. The blood still drips down.

Still drips.

Dripping.

This happened recently, the Lieutenant thinks. Perhaps minutes before the crash. Beginning nausea is swept away by a surge of terror. The Lieutenant, heart pounding, draws her sidearm and whirls around, circling twice, searching the landscape.

That’s when she sees the thing. At first she’d taken it as part of the helicopter debris. But now that she looks.... this thing was part of no machine. The alien quality of it baffles her at first. Shining chitin, segments, claws. Some kind of.... insect. Was this thing the problem? The Mission?

It’s dead now.

Mission accomplished?

A skitter behind her.

LIEUTENANT (whispers): Ahh… mission not accomplished.

More of them. Not insects. Their wobbling segmented bodies move towards her.

The Lieutenant is proud of how calm she is in that moment, how analytical she is, as she mentally catalogues a description. Can they see her she wonders? Or perhaps, like certain predators, they only see movement? In which case, being still would be best. Or maybe they see in other terms, see other spectrums? Maybe they see with sonar, or track with scent?

Whatever it is, the two things seem to register her presence. She watches as they stiffen and orient on her. Hundred yard range? Does their perception work beyond that?

They move decisively towards her. The Lieutenant wonders how fast they are at the same time that she turns to run.

* * *

The Lieutenant sprints like the wind, it’s the fastest she’s ever moved in her life, graceful as a gazelle, sure footed as a mountain goat. The ground is a blur beneath her feet. Some part of her feels elevated, flying on an instantaneous runner’s high, every bit of adrenalin surging through her body. She would feel great, if she wasn’t shitting her pants in terror.

In that instant as she turns to run, as she breaks into her sprint, she sees them move in her peripheral vision. She knows instantly that on a straight away, they will run her down. So she heads around a corner, leaps a wrecked car, uses that to springboard onto a hanging sign and up on the roof. As she hears them skittering up the side of the building, she’s already on to the next building, leaps to a thankfully full dumpster, through an open door, and out the other side.

All it had done was attract more of them. Twistings and turnings, the best run of her life, and every glance from peripheral vision showed another scuttling segmented monstrosity joining the chase. She runs along a brick wall, turns a corner, and leaps into a store window, hoping for a back door, a basement, a heavy door that she could slam, a safe she could lock herself into.

Smack into something solid and unyielding. She almost bounces backward, but something catches her shoulder, steadying her.

LIEUTENANT: Holy shit!

It’s one of them. One of the Squad. Her mind seizes up in paralysis. Then the training kicks in.

Sawyer, she remembers from the briefing. This is Sawyer. The heavy set one, sometimes childlike, sometimes aggressively sexual, traces of a potbelly, uniform rotting. His mask is made of human skin, someone’s face, carefully tanned and lovingly inverted, and his weapon is a chain saw.

Sawyer stares at her, fascinated. He cocks his head, as if not quite recognizing her.

LIEUTENANT: It’s me. Remember the teddy bear? I gave you the teddy bear.

Sawyer cocks his head again the other way.

She feels warmth trickling down her legs, and knows she’s peed herself. It doesn’t matter. Behind her, she hears the skittering, the things are out there. Sawyer looks up. Then he looks at her. He shakes his head as if to clear it, as if the mystery of her can wait until later.

Almost gently, he moves her out of the way, stepping past her. The things waver uncertainly. She does not turn, merely listens to Sawyer’s footsteps as he steps over the store window, glass crunching under his boots. She hears the rev of a chain saw.

She does not look. She doesn’t want to see.

There’s a lot of noise, she thinks that some of it is the sound of things screaming in high pitched chitin voices.

Then the chain saw shuts off. Patient footsteps walking away.

The Lieutenant is staring. In the mirror of what she now recognizes as a jewelry store, the walls smeared with blood, she sees herself, dressed in flight suit. The shattered remains of her crash helmet clings to her head. Her face is obscured by a mirrored visor.

* * *

CONTROL: Please describe the phenomena.

LIEUTENANT: I saw two people, I think it was a married couple, impaled on a parking meter.

CONTROL: That sounds like Hatfield. Not relevant.

LIEUTENANT: Wait? What? Hatfield?

CONTROL: Have you had direct contact with the phenomena?

LIEUTENANT: The enemy? You mean the things that are trying to kill us?

CONTROL (calm and insistent): Designated term is phenomena.

LIEUTENANT: Okay, the phenomena seem to be giant centipedes. Approximately three to five meters in length, each segment is about a foot to foot and a half, with the upper segments larger. Each segment has one set of claws. It seems to anchor itself and walk about with the first four or five segments, the pincers anchor into the ground. After that it rears up, and the pincers on the upper segments get huge. No apparent head, except that each segment might have two eyes.

CONTROL: We haven’t seen that before. Would you say the phenomena is extraterrestrial, extra-dimensional or supernatural?

LIEUTENANT: What the fuck?

CONTROL: Please answer the question.

LIEUTENANT: How should I know?

CONTROL: Any sign of clothing, badges, symbols, tool use, weapons, transport vehicles, any apparent technology at all?

LIEUTENANT: No. No they just run around on their own. Naked. Like M. Night Shyamalan aliens in Signs. Not even pants.

Something bubbles up within the Lieutenant. It could be hysterical laughter. She locks down on it physically.

CONTROL: Probably not extraterrestrial then. Are there any unusual properties? Do they float? Glow? Are they decaying unusually fast?

LIEUTENANT: No, I don’t think so. I saw a dismembered specimen. The body parts just seem to sit there.

CONTROL: Sounds like a trans-dimensional incursion. Seems manageable. Any sign of a wormhole?

LIEUTENANT: What?

CONTROL: Don’t worry, if you come across it, you’ll know what it is. Sit tight, we’ll do a sweep when they finish.

LIEUTENANT: In the meantime, what should I do? Should I look for survivors?

CONTROL: There won’t be any survivors.

* * *

LIEUTENANT (voice over): This is hell come to earth. I have no idea why I’m here. I have no idea why any of this was happening.

Twenty-three hours ago there was a distress call from the local police, calling for the Army, the National Guard, the Air Force, the Boy Scouts, anyone. That wasn’t everything.

Psychics started vomiting blood. People were randomly going catatonic. Animals were tearing themselves apart. In San Francisco, seismometers went wild. NASA’s satellites went off their orbits, as if gravity had changed. The message was clear. Something had come into the world. We just didn’t know what. By the time we figured out where, the whole town had gone dark.

They cordoned off the town and waited for the refugees. There were none. Local chain of command sent regular troops in. Then they spent a couple of hours listening to them screaming on the radio. Some of them are still screaming.

Then they sent us. They could have dropped a nuke. But they said they wanted to make sure.

* * *

The Lieutenant is hunkered down behind the remains of a wall. With her are two children. She’s decided that her mission is to keep them alive. She needs a mission, because if she doesn’t have one, and if it’s not keeping these kids alive, then she’s just here. Seeing the things she’s seen, hearing what she’s heard, and it’s just mindless chaos.

So keep the kids alive, and maybe there’s a point to existing.

She lights a match. She’s been doing it regularly. The little stick of wood flares brightly like magnesium.

When she reported it, Control told her that the proportion of oxygen in the air was high. The flame is greenish, which she was told is aerosolized copper, which makes no sense. Sometimes its brighter, sometimes its greener. Wherever the things are from, the rules are slightly different there, and they’re spilling over into here.

Control keeps telling her to lose the children. She stops listening to orders after a while, though she still reports in.

The boy is thirteen, he’s almost catatonic, unresponsive. His eyes are wider than anyone else’s she’s ever seen in her life. Circles of white, with irises narrowed to pinpricks. In the scant hour she’s been with him, she hasn’t seen him blink once. But he answers when he’s asked a question, and he does what he’s told, so she thinks he’s not too far gone.

Or maybe he is.

She thinks there’s a scream in him. Waiting. She thinks that if it gets out, then he’ll just scream for the rest of his life. That’s all he’ll ever do. That’s going to be all that’s left of him, just a scream, going on and on.

The girl is better. She’s fourteen. She’s carrying the Lieutenants sidearm. It seems to make her feel better. Safer. Whatever.

The Lieutenant has an assault rifle. It’s not hers. She found it near the ruins of a Marine. She wiped the Marine’s bits off it, and it seemed serviceable. There was a finger jammed up in the trigger guard, but she’d managed to work it out. It’s useless, she knows, the things eat bullets like they were candy kisses. But like the girl, it makes her feel better.

She wishes she had something sharp, something to pry between the chitinous plates of a centipede. She imagines the sound it would make as she worked the blade in and twisted it. She smiles. She can hear it screaming in her head.

Abruptly, she realizes it’s not her imagination. Carefully, motioning the children to silence, she creeps to the edge of the ruined wall.

A centipede is screaming. Alien as it is, she can feel its panic. Raw terror exudes from it, it feels like its fear seeps into her pores, it’s so pervasive. It’s running, out in the open, its multiple limbs churning.

Michaels is behind it, walking calmly, approaching steadily, his mannequin mask devoid of all expression. His dark overalls are drenched with green gore. It’s almost luminous.

It turns to look back, at Michaels, and its mouth parts clatter wildly, she can tell it’s a squeal. It turns putting on a new burst of speed as it tries to get away. But its limbs tangle over each other and it stumbles. Michaels keeps coming closer. It scrabbles around a corner, Michaels following.

After a moment, there’s a wild chitinous screeching. The sound of air being forced through a hundred spiracles, a chain of hearts bursting like a row of firecrackers, segmented limbs torn loose, plates clattering, alien ganglion lighting up with distilled fear.

She turns to the children.

LIEUTENANT: Time to go.

But she has no idea where. Just away. Away from the monsters, she supposes.

GIRL: Your face.

For a second, the Lieutenant has no idea what she’s talking about. But then she flips the reflective visor of her helmet up. It keeps slipping down. She smiles at the children. But they’re not reassured.

* * *

As they crawl through the remains of the town, there are bodies everywhere. She’s never seen so many bodies in her life. There is nothing natural or peaceful to any of them, they are torn, mutilated, the corpses are posed. A row of heads adorn a picket fence.

Once crossing the street, they pass the body of a little old lady that had been carefully dissected, first clothes cut away, then skin, muscles and bones exquisitely sectioned, intestines and organs laid out. They try not to look, but they can’t help it. As they pass, the body turns its head, the jaw works, but there are no lips or tongue. Whatever it wants to say, the Lieutenant can’t understand. It doesn’t matter anyway.

They startle a small flock of birds which take wing, struggling into the air, then falling to the ground, flopping about. The air is wrong, they can’t breathe properly.

An automobile catches fire and burns spontaneously, the flame an intense green. They are coming closer, she thinks. She should turn around, lead them in the opposite direction.

Or maybe it is just getting stronger.

* * *

GENERAL: We had a mission in Bakersfield. No big deal. Nest of Vampires. They went in and cleaned it out, like they always do. They killed everyone, of course. There was a group of survivors holed up in the church, it had gotten that bad. Sawyer took the door down with his chain saw. I remember, he stood there a moment. Then he walked in. The saw started up again... And there was just screaming and screaming.

The General leans up against a wall casually. He’s looking at her, but once in a while, he glances around warily. He seems relaxed, his voice is calm, conversational.

GENERAL: Nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. That’s just how they are.

The Lieutenant knows the General is dead. She’s proud of her sanity, in the middle of this insane slaughterhouse, as the sky above the centre of town seems to turn a different colour, amidst the bodies and the monsters and the screaming, she’s sane. The General is dead. He’s not quite a hallucination; he’s more than a memory. The children pay no attention, so she tries not to.

GENERAL: They killed the vampires of course. They killed everyone. That was what they did. After a while, as it was going on, it was as if some of the vampires were trying to save people. It was strange. It didn’t matter, they all died.

The Lieutenant creeps up to a car. There is a large building in front of a park. City Hall. She is surprised, she had expected a church, or perhaps some exotic physics lab or power station. It’s hard to imagine an assault from another universe beginning next to a stand filled with tourist brochures.

There is no cover. Green light shines from the windows. Centipedes are scuttling in and out of the building. They seem uncertain and full of nervousness.

GENERAL: I was there of course. I made a mistake. This Nosferatu-looking bastard caught me. Corpse skin, rodent incisors, you know that look that they get when they’ve been around too long, they forget what being human is, it slips away from them. Nosferatu, and he grabbed me with those spidery claw fingers. I thought I was dead. But all he did was say “What have you done? Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what you’ve done?” Over and over, until Vernon killed him. They kill everyone. No one gets away. Nothing stops them. Nothing matters.

Frustrated, the Lieutenant turns, looking back at the memory.

LIEUTENANT: What’s the point? What’s the point of this? Why are you here? Why am I here?

The General looks surprised for a moment. Their eyes meet. The children, startled, follow her gaze, but they see nothing.

GENERAL: You’re here to witness. That’s your job. You want to save someone, but that’s not your job. You won’t save anyone.

The Lieutenant wants to swear at the General, but then she catches the girl looking at her, watching the one-sided conversation. She freezes.

She realizes the boy is missing.

* * *

The boy steps around the corner. He stops, just at the edge. The Lieutenant watches carefully. The boy went up on his tip toes, and then down flat, his knees bend and straighten. His face has no expression, his eyes wide and staring. He waggles his hips, his arms swinging back and forth. For a moment, he seems to be dancing.

Then his head tilts, his mouth falls open, and blood trickles out. He isn’t breathing. He isn’t seeing. Vernon, with his doll’s mask, steps out, and lets the boy’s body slide off the crowbar he’d used to puppet the corpse.

The Lieutenant swears. The girl cowers behind her, but when the Lieutenant reached back to hold her wrist, the girl slips back a little. Vernon, bored, is already moving on. With effort, she lifts the visor of her helmet so the girl can see she’s all right.

But she’s not. This is hell, and they are in it.

* * *

They are in the City Hall, it’s a modest municipal building. The girl clings to her wrist. The interior is a wreck, gutted. The remains of walls and floors poking from the building’s shell. There isn’t anything there though.

The Lieutenant had expected something, a wormhole, a glowing portal, a gateway into an other universe, but there was... nothing. There isn’t even a void or some gaping black hole. It is just a kind of non-descript nothingness, an absence that seemed unremarkable. She can’t see into it, but it isn’t opaque, or diffuse, it isn’t light or dark. It just isn’t, or it just is, but in an unintrusive way. A casual observer might glance at it; let their eyes linger for a second, and then turn to focus on anything that might be more interesting to look at, because anything was more interesting.

More interesting, like the centipede parts everywhere she looks. They mingle with rotting human corpses. There was an archeological layering in places, ruined and torn human flesh, bodies so thoroughly dismembered they’d lost all significance. And atop them, segmented limbs, chitinous plates, lumps and strips of green gunk, maggot-like worms, a few still squirming, many curled up and dead, or bleeding green.

Whatever was on the other side, it finds this world sour and hateful, unpalatable and repulsive. It loathes this awful place so cold and dour. But yet it is still unbearably hungry. She can feel the hunger, fathomless, unbearable, tortuous, radiating out from the other side. As awful as her world is, it will have to do. The hunger demands.

They are all there, gathering, Vernon and Michaels, Jackson, Sawyer, Bub, the Smiler, the rest of the men with the masks. Some simply standing, others arriving at their casual unhurried pace.

The girl is gone. What happened to her? The Lieutenant knew she’d been holding onto her wrist, the grip so tight the Lieutenant’s flesh had whitened. Had she? Or had she fled? She had been there. But now she wasn’t. Had there been a scream?

The Lieutenant is confused. Time isn’t right. She slides the visor down on her helmet, presenting a red speckled, cracked, reflecting mirror to the world. Somehow it makes her feel right.

A segmented limb advances from the centre of the room, she can’t quite see from where. It is narrow and barbed, twisting back on itself in a mantis like claw. It continues to extend, segment after segment after segment, elbows bending this way and that, dozens of twisting segments long, reaching for the men in the masks.

A hooked claw strikes Jackson shaking his massive form. More claws snake and twitch out to the others. Another twisting segmented limb seems to emerge out of the indistinct, empty center, jerking unevenly towards Michaels, who catches it.

Jackson looks down at the claw embedded in his chest, curious. Cilia sprouting like tendrils from each joint of the segmented arm beat against his body, wrapped against their forms, sensing, tasting, perhaps seeing in some primitive way.

Jackson snaps the claw off and flings it aside, dismissively. The segmented limbs shiver and writhe in confusion, some of them withdrawing.

Michaels hold his limb, his fist wrapping around a chitinous segment. It jerks in his hand, as if trying to free itself, at first tentatively, and then frantically.

The other segmented limbs boil suddenly in flexing convulsive motion. The Lieutenant has the sudden sense that it is trying to get away, as if it is suddenly afraid. As if it has touched something awful.

But it is too late. Michaels holds it in his grip, is walking forward, following it as it shrinks. So is Sawyer, Vernon, all of them walking towards the absence?

Then it is gone. The building is just a gutted ruin, bland in its wreckage. The light is different, normal; even the air is different, the otherworldliness dissipating like mist. The Men in the Masks, or whatever it was that they were, were gone too. Gone to wherever the other side was.

On her earpiece, Control is saying something. It doesn’t matter. She walks away.

It’s over.

* * *

A couple of days later, the pre-positioned satellite registered activity at the Compound. Seismic sensors register footsteps. The passive devices tick over.

The Men in the Masks are back from wherever they had been. No one knew where that was or how they had returned. They were just there.

* * *

The Lieutenant sits patiently through debriefing several times. Each round, she finds she has less and less to say. Her responses become monosyllabic. Eventually, she decides she is bored and stops speaking. Sometime after that, she just walks away. She goes home. No one stops her.

Late that night, she can’t sleep. She wakes up, wandering aimlessly around her apartment until the battered flight helmet catches her attention. She picks it up, staring at it, noticing the bloodstains, the flecks of green ichor, the dust and scrapes, the crack along the mirrored visor.

She realizes she is standing naked in front of a mirror, holding the helmet. How had she gotten there? She stares at her face, as if she doesn’t recognize it. She looks down at the helmet, and stares at her reflection in the mirrored visor. It looks better there, it looks like it belongs.

She lifts the helmet, and lowers it onto her head, the visor falling into place, reflecting into the mirror, reflecting back, emptiness falling.

It is good.

WINDY VALLEY GO-GO

CHAPTER FOUR

EIGHT HOURS BEFORE ZERO

The Lieutenant uses all her strength to smash the sharp flat end of the pry bar into the side of Gordon’s head. There’s a flickering sensation of resistance, and then it punches through the skull, driving through, the bones making a crumbling crunching sound, followed almost instantly by contact, resistance, and then the bar protrudes out through the other side. It’s almost comical.

Gordon’s eyes unfocus momentarily, his grip on her throat loosens, and he rears back so that she loses her grip on the metal. Expressions flicker across Gordon’s bestial features. Confusion. Astonishment. Curiosity. He’s almost distracted from her. His head tilts as if from the unaccustomed weight.

Gordon removes a hand from her throat, his grip eases, and she can draw a ragged breath. He reaches back, fingers tracing the end of the pry bar through his skull, fingertips following the cold metal all the way to his scalp.

GORDON: Nice try free-range, but it don’t change nothing. I was trying to be nice, make it easy. Going to eat your face now.

Gordon grins, jaws distending, lips peeling back to expose a mouth of sharp teeth. He leans in, wrapping both hands around her throat, his weight pressing down. His tongue flickers in the jagged cavity of his mouth, lashing against his teeth.

Desperately the Lieutenant flails out with one hand, the other pulling at the grip on her throat. She wraps fingers on the sharp end of the bar, feeling blood and viscous lumps under her fingers. She wraps her fingers around it anyway and pulls hard on it.

Gordon shudders, his grip loses strength again for a moment, allowing a harsh breath. The bar slides forward, and she pulls it towards her, twisting Gordon’s head to the side just before his teeth can close on her face. His tongue lashes her teeth.

GORDON: Stop.

His voice is plaintive, as if she’s cheating somehow.

With sheer force he pulls back, the bar sliding wetly through his head, lifting and preparing for another lunge. Again, his jaws stretch and he descends, and again, with more confidence, she pulls the bar twisting his head to the side. Gordon grunts in frustration.

GORDON: Stop this now!

He sounds irritated, but a little vague, as if she’s distracting him. His hands on her throat loosen slightly. The movement of the bar back and forth through his skull is damaging the creature. His body shudders, the grip flickers. She’s able to push one hand away from her throat. His eyes are having trouble focusing, slowly zeroing in on her and then drifting in different directions.

She tries to twist the bar moving it up and down, side to side. There’s very little give, perhaps a quarter of an inch. But Gordon’s body continues to spasm and weaken. The teeth retract, his face becomes almost human. He looks at her with brief lucidity. He seems uncertain.

GORDON: Do I know you? There’s something I need to do, but...

The Lieutenant twists the bar pulling it hard towards her. Gordon’s head is yanked to the side, looking up towards the corner of the ceiling.

GORDON: Look a spider web! I’ve got to clean...

His grip is broken completely, she keeps twisting and pushing. Slowly, she works against the creature, bending him backwards until Gordon is down and on his back. The Lieutenant puts both hands on the outer edges of the bar working it back and forth, gasping with the effort, each movement fiercer, until she feels the bony plates of the skull begin to crack, fracturing apart.

Gordon does nothing but twitch and shudder, the smell of excrement fills the air and a pool of urine thick with a pungent ammonia scent puddles beneath him. And still the Lieutenant works the bar until Gordon’s head is a shapeless ruin.

When she finally pulls the bar, it comes out with no resistance. It’s red and lumpy and dripping. She tries not to register that as she wraps her hand tight around it and pulls it through to get rid of most of the gore.

Somewhere, she notes, someone is crying. Great racking sobs of terror and exhaustion. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s her.

As she stands and staggers back, she sees his chest rise and fall with a deep breath. Astonished, she watches him do it again, and again. Impossibly, Gordon is still breathing. The Lieutenant’s heart skips a beat. Then she rams her pry bar through the center of his chest, punching through the sternum, driving it into the spinal column, where it stands upright.

The breathing stops.

The Lieutenant backs up against the bench in front of the wall. Some part of her notes that she’s still sobbing, crying like a baby, the sounds of fear and anguish. Her skin is clammy, she’s trembling like a leaf. Elevated heart rate. She wonders if she’s gone into shock, or some kind of fugue state.

LIEUTENANT: Pull yourself together.

Think. That’s one of them. She needs to get out. Get away. There are others. She needs better weapons. That was lucky, she was lucky. Luck doesn’t last. Steadying herself against the work bench, she starts to rifle through cabinets, finding the assorted tools and gear of animal husbandry. A pack of cigarettes, a cheap plastic lighter.

So monsters smoke? Who knew?

She glances back.

Gordon is staring at her. His head has turned towards her. Was it like that before? She’s not sure. But his eyes are open. Were they open before? There’s no expression in his face. But he’s watching her. She stops what she’s doing, turning to stare at the corpse.

Gordon blinks. Her heart skips a beat. He returns to staring at her.

The Lieutenant watches him for a second. His body is still, but he continues to watch her with a blank uncomprehending stare. His lips move, but he makes no sound. A finger twitches. The pry bar sticking out of his chest wobbles slightly.

The Lieutenant turns back, rifling frantically through the drawers. She finds a metal two liter can with a spout, marked, yellow and red, Axiom Brand Industrial Cleaning Fluid. Along the bottom is marked in bold letters ‘CAUTION: HIGHLY FLAMMABLE’ accompanied by a little cartoon flame.

Moving quickly the Lieutenant strides towards the body. She pulls the pry bar from the chest. It doesn’t come easily. There is a hollow sucking sound. As she looks down, the edges of the wound quiver like lips.

She upends the cleaning fluid into the wound, sticking the spout directly in. The walls of the can flex as if breathing, and there’s a soft glug as it empties into the chest cavity. She looks up.

Gordon has turned his head to watch her. There’s still no expression, no awareness. But there’s something: Curiosity.

GORDON: What are you doing?

A hand flutters, grabbing at her thigh. There’s no strength in it, so she knocks it away. Her heart is racing. The cleaning fluid is still glugging, she pulls it from his chest and pushes his head to the side. The hole where she punched through his skull with the pry-bar is already covered over. She pokes the spout in, tearing new skin. The newly forming bone is too soft to offer resistance.

His body spasms once strongly, then again, then in disoriented twitching. His eyes struggle to focus on her, his legs kick gently, his hands reach for her.

GORDON: It’s my daughter’s birthday. She’s....

His eyes drift apart.

GORDON: Television. Grandma likes television. One two... seven... green.

Gordon begins to sing wordlessly, his eyes drifting in different directions. His body squirms, his shoulders writhe as if his body isn’t sure what it’s supposed to be right this minute – human or monster.

She pulls the cleaning fluid spout out, retreating towards the door. Attracted by movement, his eyes focus on her, his head turns to follow her as she retreats, squirting the remaining cleaning fluid across his body and the floor.

She reaches the door, and pulls out the lighter. He watches her with innocent fascination.

LIEUTENANT: Goodbye, Gordon.

The Lieutenant ignites the lighter and tosses it. She is startled by how quickly the fluid ignites, by how fast the fire races towards the body which is already beginning to regain vestiges of coordination. Then she’s out the door. She doesn’t wait for the fire reach Gordon’s chest cavity, doesn’t see it burst open, or the flames crawl into the skull cavity. She doesn’t wait for Gordon to die. Either he will or he won’t. If he does, there’s no point in sticking around. If he doesn’t, she needs to be somewhere else.

What’s important is to move and move fast. Don’t look back. Never look back. She doesn’t need to. She already knows there’s always something behind her, and it’s always gaining.

There are other hands tending Stock. No one looks up at her. The Lieutenant forces herself to walk calmly. The truck is right in front of her. Do not attract attention, she thinks. Walk to the truck, get in, lock the door, as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.

No keys. She stares dumbly at the gore crusted tire iron in her hand. Had she been carrying it all this time? She lays it on the seat, bends forward and deftly hotwires the old vehicle. She’s surprised by how steady and sure she is.

Until she looks down, and there, on the floor of the passenger side of the cab is a helmet. She picks it up. It’s a helicopter flight helmet with a crack in the visor. It’s hers.

How did it get there?

For a moment, the Lieutenant holds it in her hands, staring in confusion. She’s almost afraid of it. But there’s something else, it’s safety, it’s protection. She almost needs to put it on.

That’s when she looks up sees it. A tall manlike shape in overalls wearing a corpse mask calmly walking to the door she exited. It’s Michaels. The door opens, there’s a plume of smoke, and then the figure walks in, calmly shutting the door behind it.

She blinks while staring at the closed door. It doesn’t open again. Then she looks around and sees them. Figures walking, nondescript, uninteresting men wearing masks, striding calmly towards their destinations. No one notices them, the Men in the Masks walking through the blind spots in everyone’s vision. They’re not seen unless they want to be seen. They’re not seen until they’re ready to kill.

Suddenly, the Lieutenant is terrified, more scared than she has been this whole mission. They’re here, several of them, and she knows that before sunrise tomorrow, everyone will be dead. She needs to run. With an effort of will, she puts the helmet down on the seat next to her.

No one is looking. The Lieutenant shifts into reverse, swings around and drives out. There’s no reaction. She drives down the compound’s dirt road to the gate. For a moment she thinks about gunning the engine and crashing through the gate. But there’s a key fob hanging from the rear-view mirror of the pickup truck. She takes and swipes it, the gate opens.

In the rear-view, she sees a plume of smoke going up behind her. Gordon must be catching. A second later fire alarm klaxons are going off. She drives through. Her knuckles are bone white, she’s gripping the steering wheel so tightly, her heart is racing, pounding so hard it feels like it will shatter her sternum, her mouth dry as a bone. She continues to drive normally until she reaches the paved main road. Then she guns the engine, tires squealing, gravel flinging and goes for it. Only at that point does she allow herself to breathe.

She’s free. Free of the monsters. Free of that nightmarish town. A glance at the dashboard shows a full tank of gas. She intends to drive and leave everything behind, leave the others to the Men in the Masks. They’re welcome to each other, maybe they’ll kill each other off. Or headquarters can call in a fuel air bomb, or a cluster bomb, or whatever it takes. Napalm the whole valley.

For the first time in a long time, the Lieutenant feels free. She could just keep driving. British Colombia is not too far away. Keep driving, never stop, and just escape. Freedom. Freedom from them. For the rest of her life, keep moving, never looking back, just live.

That’s when she sees it up ahead.

The wall of fire.

At first she doesn’t quite understand what she’s seeing. It’s immense, the flames a solid burning wall over a hundred feet tall. The wall seems to extend right across the road.

She slows and stops. A half mile away she gets out of the truck to stare at it, trying to peer a way through. Even from this distance, she can feel the heat of it baking and tightening her skin. There’s no way to run it, the gas tank would explode.

The Lieutenant remembers on the radio, reports of a forest fire in the south. She remembers the monster talking about it. They were watching it, to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

It was moving fast, the wind was towards her, and even in the few seconds she’d left the truck to stare at it, it had crossed half the distance. The air was full of cinders. Dry trees were bursting into flame even before the wall reached them. The trees going up, the fire climbing up dried branches cresting and dancing at the crown.

Except that she was going north. Did she get turned around?

No.

The road signs said north. Fire in the south. Wall of flame in the north.

Them. Of course it’s them. Silent, methodical, no one escapes.

No escape. No freedom. No British Colombia.

The Lieutenant sighs loudly, mostly to hear the sound of her own voice. She retrieves the flight helmet from the seat of the truck. Every little bit of protection helps, she tells herself. Simply wearing it though makes her feel safer, like it belongs.

She almost puts it on. Not just yet, she decides.

The fire almost reaches her before she swings the truck around, and heads back to town. She turns on the radio. “Highway to Hell” blared through the speakers. She doesn’t laugh.

* * *

TWENTY-THREE HOURS BEFORE ZERO

KEITH: I bet you’ve seen some shit.

The Lieutenant presses her sunglasses back up her nose, trying to make sense of the map. She wishes there was some place to pull over, but the edge of the road is a sheer drop, on the other side, steep forest. They’re not in the mountains, but close enough, and the roads wind in and out along the sides of the foothills.

She peers down the windshield, seeing nothing but the road and endless trees. They haven’t seen a road sign in hours. At least the narrow road is paved.

GPS fried half an hour ago. Coincidence?

LIEUTENANT: Why the hell build these roads into the sides of mountains.

KEITH: We’re not in the mountains, these are just the foothills.

She stares at him blankly.

LIEUTENANT: I know. I’m just saying it’s fucked up.

Keith shrugs at her irritation.

KEITH: You can’t build your roads down the valleys, they tried that. Floods, landslides, wash outs. Impassible in the winter, then you come to a hill, no way past. The engineers have to kind of snake their way along the geography.

They’re driving in a late model Toyota. Color yellow. Dressing like civilians. She grunts, uninterested in the conversation.

Keith is talkative. The Lieutenant is almost not sure how to deal with it, or what to make of it. It takes her a while to put her finger on it. He’s normal. He’s human. She’s not used to that any more, the thought shocks her a little. She clears her throat to try a normal conversation.

LIEUTENANT: Some. How about you?

KEITH: Two tours in Afghanistan. Did some missions in Chad, See Eye Aye. Central African Republic. Wire work at Guantanamo. Wet work, Myanmar.

She laughs. He’s a toy soldier.

LIEUTENANT: That sounds pretty badass... and classified. Are you sure you should be telling me this?

KEITH: I saw your security clearance, you could look up my colonoscopy pictures if you wanted to.

LIEUTENANT: I did. I have it framed. It’s in my living room.

Keith’s eyes never leave the road, but his lips pull back in a grin.

She hasn’t even looked at his file. She should have. She should have gone through the whole mission briefing, the reports. There’s a whole due diligence thing when you’re in the forces. You do your homework if you want the mission to succeed. But she’d found more and more, it didn’t matter. Shit happened.

The road dips. Beside them the tops of transmission towers come into view, slowly rising as they keep pace until finally they rise high above their car. They pass under power lines crossing high in the air and now the transmission towers are above them as they drive, marching steadily upwards. The Lieutenant watches them indifferently. The electrical transmission towers parallel our road, sometimes below them on the slopes, occasionally crossing to roam above their road.

KEITH: I figure you already read my file. But we’re on a mission, we should get to know each other. So, as I was saying, you’ve seen some shit?

She laughs. He’s unwilling to let it go. How long has it been since she had a normal conversation? Since anything but the Division, the handlers and them?

LIEUTENANT: I’ve seen your security clearance too. You’re not eligible.

Suddenly she regrets the words. He’s not a bad guy. And he’s right, they need to rely on each other. She pulls off the sunglasses, chewing on one of the arms.

LIEUTENANT: You’re new to the Division aren’t you? I bet you’ve never heard of us? Of Squad 13?

KEITH: Just assigned here a couple of months ago.

That explains it.

LIEUTENANT: Oh really? How’d you end up there?

KEITH: Pissed someone off, I guess.

LIEUTENANT: How are you getting along?

KEITH: Weird. This program is hard core.

LIEUTENANT: Oh?

The Lieutenant’s not sure she wants to know, but she encourages him to speak.

KEITH: There’s a game some of the lifers play. They take off their shirts and sit facing each other, they light up a couple of cigars.

LIEUTENANT: Ooh, scary!

The attempt at humor falls flat. Keith’s eyes are carefully on the road, what he’s talking about disturbs him.

KEITH: Then they take turns stubbing them out on each other. They light them again and again, and they stub them out, and light them again. The other guys, they take bets. After a while, the room starts to smell like pork.

She risks a glance at him. He doesn’t look at her. His eyes are fixed on the road, staring straight ahead. She notices for the first time his knuckles are white on the steering wheel, gripping far tighter than even the precarious roads justify. The cheer in his voice is fake. Once she looks for it, she can see the tension.

LIEUTENANT: You played?

He shudders. No.

So he isn’t that far gone.

LIEUTENANT: But you watched?

KEITH: I threw up. I wanted to stop it, but I just kept watching it. I couldn’t...

LIEUTENANT: Couldn’t look away? Some little voice, some urge to try it yourself?

He doesn’t answer.

LIEUTENANT: Mutilation, including auto-mutilation is against regulations. Disabling injuries will get you automatic discipline no matter how they happen. No court martial, no appeals. Straight down. Do you smoke?

KEITH: No Ma’am.

LIEUTENANT: Don’t start. That’s an order.

She pauses, thinking, and decides to broach it.

LIEUTENANT: Have you been having nightmares? Bad dreams? Hallucinations? People in shadows? Feelings you’re being watched? Impulses to self-harm? Self-mutilation? Depression? Strange feelings? Suicidal impulses?

He is carefully blank.

KEITH: No more than normal.

There is a careful evasion there. She nods. Two months? She’s surprised he is holding up. Mortality rate in division is through the roof. Suicide mostly, the lucky ones. Just being connected to them is toxic, it’s like their presence erodes the soul. No one gets out alive, not even her.

She chooses her words carefully.

LIEUTENANT: Have you had a conversation with one of the Doctors? There are mood alterers, inhibitors, blockers. There’s all kinds of things. All you have to do...

KEITH: Is ask. No questions. I just ask, anything I want, keys to the candy store. I had that conversation. Not yet.

She nods. Things have gotten dark.

The countryside opens up, broadens. They’re no longer driving along winding roads on the side of a steep hill. They’re slowly descending into a flat broad valley. The Lieutenant relaxes a little, at least here, going off the road won’t involve tumbling a hundred yards down and ending up in a ball of flame.

They find they’ve run out of things to talk about. Keith plays with the radio for a few minutes as he drives, tuning in a station. She just stares out the window.

She checks the rear-view, sees flashing lights. Now where did they come from?

LIEUTENANT: Looks like Smokey is on to us. Time to pull over.

KEITH: Who?

LIEUTENANT: Doesn’t anyone watch old movies?

* * *

THIRTY TWO HOURS BEFORE ZERO

The cattle are spooked. Jake is not sure why. There are no predators in Windy Valley, apart from some feral house cats. There hasn’t been a bear sighting in fifty years. The last mountain lion was killed in 1922. The wolves didn’t survive the 19th century. These species learned a long time ago to steer clear of the valley.

But something’s bothering the cattle, they’re restless in their stalls, lowing almost constantly. It’s loud enough to be disturbing. Now that he’s in the barn, he can feel that the animals are at the edge of panic. Their eyes wide and showing whites as he walks past with the shotgun, their movements are twitchy, alert.

Jake hates cows. He hates the look of them, the smell of them, the disgusting way they shit everywhere, the way they chew their cud. The taste of beef revolts him.

But a man has to make a living.

Jake’s family has always raised cattle. So he’s stuck with them. Sometimes he’s fantasized about just locking them in the barn and setting fire to the whole thing. Sit back in a rocking chair, and watch everything burn, listen to the sound of the cows screaming as the flames consume them. But then, the smell of charred beef would be everywhere.

But a man has to make a living.

Not that he didn’t try for a transfer. But the Stock trade is all sewed up.

JAKE: ‘You’re fine where you are,’ they say to me. But they don’t have to smell you fuckers every day.

It’s probably Millie and her friends, spooking the cattle, Jake decides. He’s caught the little bastards out here before, tearing up a steer, playing at kid’s games. Millie’s the Sheriff’s daughter and also a spoiled tomboy. Jake hates the disrespectful little shit. The rest of the family is okay, he grew up with the Sheriff. In Windy Valley, you know everyone, the families grow up together.

But Millie’s just a little shit, a spoiled brat with no respect for other People’s property.

JAKE: That you, Millie? You might as well come out now, girl. You and your friends. Just go on home, and I won’t have to tell your Dad about this.

Jake has his shotgun, fully loaded with steel jacketed shot. If the girl’s dumb enough to show her face, Jake plans to fire both barrels point blank into her spoiled little face. Teach the little bitch and her shithead friends a lesson. He’s got a pocket full of shotgun shells. He may not like the cattle, but they’re his cows, and he’ll be damned if he stands by while some snot nosed, spoiled brats molest them.

There’s a sound behind him, and he whirls, bringing the shotgun around to fire. He hesitates.

A figure steps out of the shadows, but it’s not Millie or one of her little friends. This figure is tall and heavy set, wearing baggy ill-fitting clothes, faded by the elements, and looking like they were stolen off a scarecrow, only a protruding pot belly giving shape to the fabric. There’s no exposed flesh, even its hands are covered by gardening gloves, reinforcing the sense of it being some kind of scarecrow. The head is just a shapeless burlap sack, with a single hole to see out of. Jake can hear it breathing, an unhealthy, wet rasping sound. The left hand holds an ancient rusty sickle.

Jake eyes the weapon warily. Sharp or not, it’s a butt load of tetanus sitting in that piece of antique scrap. He’s not concerned, he’ll trust his shotgun against it.

But there’s something wrong. The dark hole in the burlap sack isn’t where an eye should be, not on any human shaped head, and yet Jake senses that the figure is watching him. The longer Jake stares, the more that seems wrong in the figure before him. The proportions increasingly off, the shape under the burlap is unnatural. And more, it’s not quite how it was, as if it had shifted when he wasn’t looking, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off it.

Jake licks his lips, certain that what is before him is no natural creature.

JAKE: What the hell are you doing here?

There’s no answer. It simply stands patiently. The hole in the burlap sack is in a different place, off to the left, several inches lower. He can tell it’s still watching him through the hole.

JAKE: I got no time for this nonsense. You’re spooking the cattle. You’re spooking my cows.

Nothing. Jake swallows, his jaws work as if chewing. He turns his head slightly to spit on the floor.

JAKE: There’s a covenant. We expect you folks to keep to it. Now get!

The figure raises its rusty sickle high and starts forward. Jake doesn’t hesitate, he empties both barrels, the sound shockingly loud. Jake feels the discharge, the shotgun kicking hard in his arms. Stabbing pain in his ears like knitting needles shove into his eardrums, followed by jangling ringing.

Asshole, for making him use the shotgun inside the barn! It’ll take the damned cows forever to settle down again. The figure is falling, but without missing a beat, Jake breaches the shotgun, pops the shells, reloads smoothly. The figure falls flat. Jake fires both barrels again. The stabbing pain in his ears is unbearable, he hopes he hasn’t damaged his hearing. It would be criminal to have to get a hearing aid, he’s not that old.

There’s no reaction to the second volley of shots. The figure simply lays where it’s fallen. No blood, Jake notes, as he reloads automatically.

Ignoring the ringing in his ears, he watches the body, counting time against his heartbeats. It doesn’t move.

Eventually, he steps up to the body, kicks it lightly. Nothing. Inert. Well, that’s that.

Jake figures he should call the Sheriff. Charley gets paid for this kind of shit. Jake’s just a farmer, this isn’t his business. He wonders if he should do it now, or just wait till morning. The Sheriff hates late calls. But the cattle are all stirred up, so there’s no rest to be had tonight.

Movement behind him, Jake swings around with the shotgun, but fast as he is, a hand wraps around the barrel and tries to pull it away. Jake curses, refusing to let go, embarrassed at being snuck up on. Fucking ringing in his ears.

This one is tall and skinny, in ragged black robes, wearing an incongruously massive cow skull. It’s a lot stronger than it should be given its gaunt frame, and Jake has to struggle to keep the shotgun being torn from him. Jake snarls.

JAKE: Fuck you!

No more playing. He drops his jaws, dislocating as the mandibles fall into their new setting, triggering his mouth full of fangs to surge out. His fingers lock into curves, claws protruding. The vertebra of his spine pop one after the other like a row of firecrackers. Still holding the shotgun, Jake rams his free hand into his victim’s chest cavity, feeling a satisfying yielding. The damned Sheriff will have to shovel up the mess, this ain’t his problem.

Agony takes his breath away, so fast so intense, Jake’s mind whites out. His body goes rigid, the shotgun pulled from his grip. He can’t breathe, he forces his alertness, the pain is in his back, ripping across his spine, moving up. He can feel his liver tearing, his intestines cut open, then up into his diaphragm, the ribs cutting apart like breadsticks. Jake knows what’s happening, what’s doing it, and the word ‘tetanus’ flashes through his mind, but he struggles to turn anyway.

He’s already dropping, spine severed, there’s only a glimpse but it’s enough. Looming behind him is a figure wearing a burlap sack on its head, the hole almost at the top of the sack, watching him dispassionately. He tries to curse, but the sickle is shredding his lung.

Afterwards, with nothing else to do, there are the cows.

Jake would have enjoyed their screaming.

* * *

EIGHT HOURS BEFORE ZERO

The phone connection is bad, the line crackles. Gordon and the Lieutenant wait. For a long minute, there is only silence. Then the voice on the phone:

PHONE: Gordon, I’m busy. Just kill her.

The Lieutenant backs up against the wall, holding her bar. Gordon sits at the table, watching her neutrally. Finally he sighs.

GORDON: Might as well get it over with.

He stands and advances on her.

* * *

TWENTY-TWO HOURS BEFORE ZERO

Sheriff Charles Carnahan, goes by Charley to everyone in town. His father, was Sheriff, and went by that name. Same with his grandfather. Big imposing men who craved respect, everyone was always a little afraid around them.

But he likes to just go by Charley. He’s always had respect. ‘Charley’ makes him feel... liked. Appreciated.

Maybe Kenneth, when his turn, will go by Sheriff. But that’s some other day.

Charley watches the yellow Toyota pull over to the side of the road. They’re making a point of being obvious. He squints, man and woman inside, relatively young. Feds? Military? Dealers? Civilians? They could be anyone. He’s got a feeling about them, he trusts his feelings.

For just a moment, he fantasizes about just walking up to the car and emptying his pistol into their bodies. He could call Nick and his tow truck. It could be like it never happened.

He shakes his head, casting away the mad notion. Do other policemen have these impulses, he wonders?

Instead, he calls Marci on the radio, reads out a plate number and tells her to stand by. Then with a tired sigh, he gets out of the car to do his job.

Charley ambles on over to the car, his gait casual. He keeps his hand away from the gun. He’s been to other jurisdictions where policemen approach with their hands on their firearm. He doesn’t approve. You have to show trust, there’s no need to bring unnecessary tension.

The window rolls down as he approaches. He sees them watching him in the side mirror, they look nervous, or maybe just careful. He bends down, squinting at the couple. Good shape, too good. The man is military, he’d swear on it. Maybe they both are.

CHARLEY: Howdy Folks, welcome to Windy Valley, the County not the town. Town’s just up ahead. License and Registration please?

KEITH: Right here, officer.

Charley squints at the woman. Somehow, he can’t get a read on her. He’s usually good at sizing folk up right away.

CHARLEY: How about you, Ma’am?

He expects a protest or a complaint, but she hands it over without a word. He thanks them politely, and returns to his vehicle to relay the information to Marcia. It comes back clean, as he expected. Of course, it did. He sighs. They’re probably exactly what they present as.

He makes the trip back up and returns their identification.

CHARLEY: You know why I stopped you?

KEITH: No, Sir.

Definitely military, Charley decides.

CHARLEY: We got a report of speeder from the last county. Reckless driving. You know, cowboys.

KEITH: Wasn’t us, Sir.

CHARLEY: I didn’t think so, but I had to check. You know how it is. Where you heading?

KEITH: We’re just sightseeing. Traveling through the state. It’s our honeymoon.

Charley nods, not believing it for a second. He sighs mentally. Nothing to do but let it all play out. That was something he’d learned in decades of policing, you let things ride, and sooner or later, the truth would out.

CHARLEY: Well, not much up this way. Windy Valley’s basically a farming town, crops and cattle. We don’t get many visitors, but it’s a friendly place and visitors are always welcome.

KEITH: Thank you, Sir.

CHARLEY: You got family around here?

KEITH: No, sir.

CHARLEY: I got to ask, son. Did you serve?

KEITH: Tours in Afghanistan.

Charley smiles, and holds out his hand to shake. Keith’s grip when he takes the hand is pleasingly firm.

CHARLEY: I thought so. I got a feel for these things. Thank you for your service. I have to tell you, Emma runs a nice little restaurant, you want to ask for the blueberry pie, the local berries are in season. Palmer’s motel is clean if you want to stay a couple of days. Windy Valley’s a little slice of paradise buried in these hills.

He hesitates.

CHARLEY: Drive carefully going in, there’s a couple of hairpin turns. Last night a transport truck wiped out. Driver got impaled on the steering wheel. Real mess, still haven’t got it all cleared.

After that there are casual pleasantries. Charley watches them drive off. He ambles back to his cruiser.

CHARLEY: Marci?

Casually, he fiddles with the USB, jacking the cable into his chest camera, downloading the recording for transmission. Marci’s voice crackles over the radio.

MARCI: Yes boss?

CHARLEY: I’m sending you a Vid/Odd file of that couple I stopped. Run it through face recognition, voice prints. Cross reference it all against their ID and do a deep dive this time. Something’s not right.

He pauses.

CHARLEY: Then send it out to Donny over at the Seattle office. Tell him to snoop around, but carefully.

MARCI: Can’t feed it to Donny until tonight, and it will take a couple of days. He has to be careful. You sure it’s worth it?

Donny is Marci’s cousin. Back in the days of their one room school, he always looked after her. Now she tries to return the favor. Charley thinks she is over-protective.

CHARLEY: It’s probably nothing. But do it anyway.

A chill goes down his spine, and he feels like he’s being watched. Charley looks around, but there’s nothing.

CHARLEY: How’s the morning by the way? Anything else going on before I head in?

Charley steps out of the vehicle, leaving the door open so he can hear the radio. He places his hand carefully on his pistol, looking around.

MARCI: Report from Eldon. He was over at Jake’s place. Someone slaughtered all Jake’s cattle. Complete mess, just horrible.

Charley nods, unsurprised.

CHARLEY: That’s not much of a mystery. Jake finally lost it. I don’t know about that man. Crankiest bastard I ever met, hated cows, but wouldn’t give them up. Wouldn’t socialize, always keeping to himself, harboring whatever secret. Always knew he was going to snap one of these days.

MARCI: Jake is missing too.

CHARLEY: He’ll turn up. But put the word out, especially the neighboring places. He can do what he wants with his own cattle, but I don’t want some mad cow-killer running around slaughtering other People’s cattle, or hell, even other People.

MARCI: What about the Stock farms?

CHARLEY: Especially them. Pass a message. Let them know to watch out for Jake if he shows. Particularly if he’s acting squirrely.

MARCI: Another thing, Grandma smashed her television set. She’s going to need a new one.

He’s carefully surveying the surroundings, scoping three hundred and sixty degrees, just like he was taught. He nods, then realizes she can’t see it. Instead he sighs loudly.

CHARLEY: When did this happen?

MARCI: Last night.

Charley swears.

CHARLEY: Marci! What the hell? You know Grandma loves her television. Why’d you wait? We should have had fixed her up right away. Now she’s going to be cranky.

MARCI: I didn’t hear till this morning. And anyway, she’s all right. The boys are keeping her amused. You know how she loves the kids.

CHARLEY: I’ll stop by Palmer’s Hardware and get her a new one. The boys should be able to hook it up for her.

Charley doesn’t mind admitting it, but nowadays, electronics are kind of a mystery to him. A confusing tangle of wires in the back, and an even more arcane set of prompts on screens. When he and Claire bought that stereo system, he’d paid the neighbor’s boy to help him set it up.

MARCI: I talked to Jim Palmer, he’s got a 65 inch in Stock.

CHARLEY: I know. He ordered it in for me. I guess Grandma can have it.

MARCI: I’m sorry.

Charley shrugs, still distracted. As if he’s ever deny Grandma anything.

CHARLEY: It’s for Grandma. I’ll order in another one. Maybe we should keep a couple in Stock, just to be safe.

MARCI: She likes plasma screens. You know?

CHARLEY: I know.

There is nothing. Charley has to force himself not to bend over to look under the cruiser. Instead, he walks a few feet away, glancing back. All clear.

His feeling have played him wrong. Still, he can’t bear to take his hand off his gun. There is a bit of a haze in the southern sky. He can smell just the hint of smoke.

CHARLEY: Those fires in the south, Ikloosipi County, how are they doing?

MARCI: We get regular updates. A bunch of little blazes, so far it’s managed.

CHARLEY: Until the wind shifts and it’s not, remember the big blaze of fifty-four?

Marci doesn’t reply. Charley’s not a fireman, but that doesn’t stop him from worrying about everything and everyone.

MARCI: You have tea with the ladies auxiliary at lunchtime.

CHARLEY: Tell them I’m busy.

MARCI: I told them you were looking forward to it.

Charley winces.

MARCI: Oh and Millie’s birthday is today.

Charley’s heart skips a beat, suddenly he feels it slamming against his chest. His mouth goes dry, he feels a sensation akin to panic. Millie’s birthday? How had it slipped his mind? Millie would be heartbroken. Claire would kill him.

His mind races. Maybe when he is picking up the flat screen for Grandma, Palmer can help him out. What do little girls like? Money was no object. Get her anything, something expensive. But Claire would know. She’d know it slipped his mind, and he half-assed a gift for his little girl. She’d see right through him. She always could.

MARCI: I talked to Old Lady Bennett. You know her, lives out by herself, raises those miniature horses, size of dogs. She’s going to bring some over to the birthday party, and a couple of ponies for rides.

Relief floods Charley, Millie loves horses. She’s practically obsessed with them. Back when they redid her bedroom, they ordered all the way to Vancouver for specialty unicorn-themed wallpaper. This will work, he thinks.

MARCI: Also, I talked to Palmer’s wife, you drop by, she’ll set out an assortment of gifts to choose from, and wrap them for you. Unicorn paper.

Charley’s heart swells.

CHARLEY: Marci... I... I... don’t what to say. You’re a lifesaver.

MARCI: You don’t have to say anything, Charley. We all know how hard you work to make sure everyone feels safe. How you look after Grandma for us. You’re the beating heart of the town. We all love you.

Charley can feel himself blushing and choking up.

CHARLEY: Well, it’s appreciated. Any word on that transport driver that wiped out?

MARCI: Just ID. No sign of drugs or alcohol involved. Abbelair thinks he was taking a curve a little too fast and a line blew. Bad luck. Body was a mess.

CHARLEY: Does he have family? Are they notified?

Charley’s gotten to know a lot of truck drivers over his time. They’re good folk doing hard jobs. He tries to imagine riding the road, being away from his family again and again. He couldn’t do it.

MARCI: Not yet. We’re still tracking it down.

CHARLEY: Well, keep on it, everyone has someone who’ll miss them. That’s about it, signing out.

He listens to the crackle of Marci signing off on the radio. Unconsciously, his hand slips back to his firearm, and he looks around one more time, plagued by the sense of being watched. But there aren’t even bears left in these woods. Not for a long time.

Ridiculous to think that someone is watching him, this was a random stop. He followed the yellow Toyota for miles since they entered the valley. There’s no way anyone could have been waiting.

He shivers, trying to brush it off. He’s going to need to pick up the flat screen for Grandma, then go find Jake before he hurts himself or someone else. And Millie’s birthday party, don’t forget that. Going to be a full day. Charley gets in his patrol cruiser and drives off. He doesn’t look back. There’s no need.

As the cruiser vanishes down the road, the bushes along the shoulder part and a figure climbs out onto the road. It’s a man, massively obese, wearing only rubber wading boots and torn dirty overalls. The man’s flesh is leprous, with an almost graying unhealthy sheen, covered with stiff thick hairs like bristles, and open running sores. It is carrying in its two hands a massive hammer with a long handle and brutal head. The figure wears a decaying pig’s head.

Silently, it watches the departing cruiser vanish into the distance. And then, with patient steps, it follows.

* * *

TWENTY-ONE HOURS BEFORE ZERO

With typical small town conscientiousness, there are flares and reflectors set up to warn them from a mile distance. Keith slows down and they get a good look at the twisted wreckage of the semi. The mangled driver’s cab is covered with police tape.

KEITH: I guess the driver didn’t make it.

The Lieutenant is more interested in the shattered box, bent in half, torn open, one wheel still thrust in the air. The contents have spilled; boxes, it looks like furniture or machine parts? Pink styrofoam packing flakes are everywhere, giving the wreckage an almost festive air, pink Christmas. She tries to match the debris to the estimated volume the hauler was carrying without Keith noticing, but gives it up.

It’s probably unrelated. Just a coincidence. Someone was just unlucky. It happens. Or maybe not. After you’ve been exposed to them, nothing seems accidental. Are they here? This was supposed to be reconnaissance. Check things out, before they come. The Lieutenant checks the rear view.

KEITH: We’re clear. Sheriff Charley’s not following us.

The Lieutenant nods and pretends that is what she’s watching out for.

KEITH: So we play tourists. We go into town, have lunch, and see the sights. There’s a motel on the edge of town. We check in till nightfall. We’ll have a few hours....

Is he hitting on her? She thinks it over, and decides that she wouldn’t mind. The Lieutenant hasn’t had much of a social life since she joined the Division.

LIEUTENANT: That’s the brief.

KEITH: So do you let me know the mission parameters then?

There’s an edge to his voice suddenly. The Lieutenant realizes she has misread him. She tries to mentally flip through his file. Very mission oriented. Very detail minded. Not a lot of trust. She understands that. Going on faith gets you killed.

She thinks about how to handle him. Pull rank? Or play fellow grunt?

LIEUTENANT: You know what I know. Nightfall, we proceed to the entry point, conduct preliminary reconnaissance. Report back. Unless they contact us at the motel, that’s all there is.

Keith processes this for a full minute. When he speaks, his voice is flat.

KEITH: I don’t like it. They either know something and aren’t telling us, or they don’t know shit. Either way, it’s fucked up. Things go bad when they’re fucked up.

LIEUTENANT: Orders.

When he speaks again, the false cheer is back.

KEITH: Is it always like this?

She thinks of them, the silent men in their masks. At least they’re not here, not with the two of them this time. The psychic weight of their oppression is absent. They’re somewhere else. But they will come. They always come.

LIEUTENANT: Usually it’s worse.

Whatever they’re going into, it’s not as bad as what’s going to follow them. But she doesn’t tell him that. He’ll have to learn himself. If he lives long enough.

* * *

EIGHTEEN HOURS BEFORE ZERO

GENERAL: Nice night.

The Lieutenant looks up. There he is, in uniform, all his salad on display, leaning up against the vending machine. Casual as anything. She peers hard as she can without being obvious, but she can’t see through him. There is a light source behind him, so if he’s not there, it should be coming through. She glances at his feet, checking out a normal shaped shadow where it ought to be.

For a moment, she thinks about reaching out to touch him, but she didn’t quite have the nerve. Since he’d died, she’s wound up seeing quite a lot of him.

LIEUTENANT: According to American Werewolf in London, you’re supposed to look like a decomposing corpse, worse each time out.

The General laughs.

GENERAL: I don’t think it works that way.

LIEUTENANT: So how does it work?

He shrugs. She decides to push.

LIEUTENANT: So what are we looking at here?

GENERAL: What do you mean?

The Lieutenant waves her hand, casually looking around to see if anyone is watching her talk to him, or to empty air. She still doesn’t know what the rules are. Maybe other people can see him. Maybe most can’t, but special people can. Maybe he’s a ghost, or something else. Maybe he’s just a brain tumor. The Lieutenant lives in the blank spot on the map.

LIEUTENANT: The usual mission is something dangerous and weird goes down, and then I go in with the boys and everything goes bad. Why is that? Why am I necessary? Why were you necessary? Why don’t they just go themselves, and I can just stay home or go for Starbucks?

GENERAL: There appear to be rules. We’re necessary, it seems.

LIEUTENANT: Appear to be? Jesus Christ. You’ve got no clue, do you?

He doesn’t answer at first. Just watches. She sighs, letting the flash of anger go. He surprises her then.

GENERAL: You are, we are, some kind of anchor for them, a reference point. Move the reference point, they follow. That’s the best guess.

That was actually... useful. Not new, the Lieutenant has read the various speculations in the analysis. There’s a lot of analysis of them, who and what they are. Reams and reams of it. It’s mostly speculation. It’s mostly worthless.

GENERAL: We’re all just pieces on a board. We only think we’re making the moves.

LIEUTENANT: Wisdom from beyond? Or did you get that out of a fortune cookie?

And back to useless.

LIEUTENANT: What about this mission. This isn’t standard. There’s no vampire infestation, no alien invasion, no zombie apocalypse or Hellmouth here. .... Is there?

No response.

LIEUTENANT: This is just a quiet little backwater. There’s nothing here.

She hesitates.

LIEUTENANT: Is something coming? Something really bad, and we’re being pre-positioned? Something about to erupt? Is that it? Or is it already here?

A thought occurs to her.

LIEUTENANT: What about them? Are they already here? Was that wrecked semi we saw coming in, them?

GENERAL: What do you think?

Useless.

He takes off his hat, runs his fingers through his thinning hair. The gesture is so casual and human. He looks around, and takes a deep breath, savoring the night air.

GENERAL: I miss nights like this. Never appreciated them enough. Beautiful country. Except for the ticks. Sometimes the dog would go out, come back full of them. Hated the things, they’d wedge their heads inside the flesh. You couldn’t pull them off, you’d just end up tearing off the head and leaving it inside to cause an infection. Imagine that, biting so hard that even when your head comes off and you’re still not able to let go. That’s persistence.

The Lieutenant holds her breath, attention focused. Is he telling her something? Was this relevant? Some kind of metaphor? A message? Or random babbling? Do ghosts get Alzheimer’s? Or was it a brain tumor in her head just triggering meaningless associations. She still wasn’t sure.

LIEUTENANT: I lived in the country, I know how. You light a match, put it out, and press it to the tick.

It’s not clear whether he hears. He’s not looking at her.

GENERAL: Light a match just for a second, press it against the tick. It lets go. Then you get rid of it. Pain in the ass, but necessary.

LIEUTENANT: General?

His gaze shifts, and he’s looking directly at her. There’s eye contact, and for a moment, she feels that they’re connecting, that he’s really there.

LIEUTENANT: General, what’s going on?

GENERAL: Nothing good.

LIEUTENANT: Screw you. I’m tired of this conversation. You know what I’m going to do?

The general blinks.

GENERAL: What?

LIEUTENANT: I’m going to stop talking to fucking hallucinations that don’t know shit. I’m going to get our drinks. Then I’m going to go back and fuck my brains out, we’ll do this reconnaissance, and then we get the hell out of this shit town, and leave the Squad to whatever the hell they’re going to do here.

The General smiles.

GENERAL: You do that. Give it your best shot.

LIEUTENANT: He’s not one of Division’s walking dead yet. Maybe we’ll run for it. Head up to British Colombia, keep going. You assholes can find yourself another Final Girl.

The smile fades. The General looks sad and wistful.

GENERAL: Sorry, it’s a one way trip.

Then he’s not there. Not gone, not disappeared, he doesn’t vanish, or snap away or fade out of sight. He’s just not there. As always, she feels a little awkward.

She grabs her iced tea from the vending machine and walks away, casually swiveling. No one is watching. Time to go back to the hotel, where Keith is undoubtedly field stripping and testing all the gear. There are hours before reconnaissance, maybe they can find another sort of field stripping to practice.

* * *

NINE HOURS BEFORE ZERO

A hatch opens into a nondescript room. The Lieutenant climbs out followed by Gordon. She looks around. The place is dusty, not quite a shed, not quite a workshop. Benches line the walls. There’s a dusty ham radio set up in the corner, an old fashioned wall mounted phone.

GORDON: Have a seat at the table.

The Lieutenant complies, she sits and waits. Gordon takes a seat across from her, watching. She meets his eyes. He glances at the iron bar held loosely at her side.

GORDON: I’m letting you keep that little toothpick because you’re scared, I can tell. But you don’t show it. You’re a pretty cool customer. That’s almost admirable.

LIEUTENANT: I’ve seen worse than you.

GORDON: Have you now?

There’s no answer. Gordon sighs heavily.

GORDON: We’re not bad People.

LIEUTENANT: I saw what I saw down there.

Gordon shrugs. He pulls out a smart phone and lays it on the table.

GORDON: We’re going to make a call. It’s impossible to get reception down there.

LIEUTENANT: Pizza?

Gordon laughs despite himself, and gives her a thumb’s up.

GORDON: You’re a pistol all right. If you can lose the attitude, I might get to like you. You’re going to tell us everything. Then we talk to your bosses, things get worked out, and you and your little friend go home. Done it before.

LIEUTENANT: What if I don’t believe you?

Gordon doesn’t reply at first, he just lays his right hand down on the table palm up. The palm broadens, the fingers lengthen into scimitar claws, a massive flat paddle sporting lethal blades several inches long. As they stare, the paddle returns to shape, the claws recede and disappear.

GORDON: I think you’ll talk.

* * *

ELEVEN HOURS BEFORE ZERO

LIEUTENANT: So... you farm people?

GORDON: You could say that.

LIEUTENANT: Why?

GORDON: What do you think? Human flesh is easy to come by? You fuckers watch each other. Some dickless camper goes missing, there’s search parties for a week. Kid vanishes, you never stop hearing about it. Someone disappears? There’s reports, there’s red flags, amber alerts, missing persons, posters on telephone poles and pictures on milk cartons. Too many someones go missing, authorities start to notice, the media starts covering it, there’s a serial killer task force, they start collecting data.

GORDON: Maybe we can stretch it out, take homeless folk, drug addicts, illegals, hookers, there’s lots of garbage folk that no one watches out for. But even there, take too many and it gets noticed. And who wants to eat garbage folk anyway? Do you know what a meth-head tastes like? Jesus, makes you want to go vegan! Just joking.

LIEUTENANT: I should mention, I do a lot of crystal meth. It’s the army. They hand that stuff out like candy. Keeps us on our toes. Also, heroin, mescaline, and junk foods, tons of junk food.

Gordon laughs.

GORDON: Really good free-range, that’s different. There’s nothing like it. Young, healthy, athletic, sharp. Like you. It makes my mouth water, just thinking about it. Out in the open, stalking, hunting you down. It’s amazing, there’s nothing like it.

LIEUTENANT: How much of a head start would I get? You know. To make sure it’s interesting.

GORDON: You don’t rattle at all, do you? I like that. You’re all right.

LIEUTENANT: I’ve seen worse than you. I’ve worked with worse.

Gordon laughs again. He shoves the Lieutenant gently, causing her to miss a step.

GORDON: I sincerely doubt that. But let’s face it, we have to live in the world, and that shit just doesn’t fly any more. Forget healthy free-range, you can’t even eat a meth-head these days.

LIEUTENANT: Why not?

GORDON: You folk get so excited. Someone gets eaten? Someone goes missing? It’s the end of the world. Some hiker gets lost camping, next thing you know, there are search parties. Dogs, helicopters, assholes walking around linking arms, and everyone’s yammering on about a serial killer.

LIEUTENANT: What about these people?

GORDON: Not people. Stock. They’re born here, they die here, all off the grid. They’re completely off the record. No birth certificates, no school records, marriage certificates, no social security numbers, no records at all. They don’t exist at all as far as anyone is concerned.

LIEUTENANT: You raise people?

GORDON: I said Stock. There’s a difference. They’re where they belong. They don’t want to be anywhere else.

LIEUTENANT: I don’t see it. They’re still people. They don’t want to be here.

GORDON: They’re Stock. Anyway, how do you figure? They’re happy here.

LIEUTENANT: You have them in cages.

Gordon laughs.

GORDON: They don’t mind. They’re barely animals. We restrict language formation, cognitive development, breed for docility. They’re just smart enough to be toilet trained and that’s all. Vocabulary maybe fifty or a hundred words. Less than a good dog. Used to be over five hundred words, but we work them down. We try to discourage smartness.

LIEUTENANT: You’re farming them?

GORDON: Yep. Most of them we pump with hormones so they mature fast, start breeding early. We keep a good eye on them. They’re warm, safe, protected, we keep them fed. They’re happy. They don’t know anything else.

LIEUTENANT: How many?

GORDON: It varies. Six or seven hundred head right now, I think. You’re wondering how long we’ve been doing it, where’d we get the Stock. Some of the bloodlines go back five generations. Back to the end of the 19th, when there were more and more humans around. We thought that was great. But we kept noticing, sometimes when we took someone, their folks came looking. At first, didn’t bother us much, one on one, bare handed, we can handle ourselves. But it’s not like the old times, pistol or rifle will put a pretty big hurt on you. Some of those that came looking, they were stone cold killers.

LIEUTENANT: You’ve been doing this since the 19th century?

GORDON: Think centuries, at least. We’ve been around a lot longer than that. Before the white man, for sure. Some say that when the Indians came over the Bering Strait, we were already here, waiting for them. But come the 19th century, some of us started to figure out things couldn’t keep on the way they were. Writing was on the wall, you know what I mean. So we changed with the times. Some couldn’t keep up, much as we tried, we had to end them.

LIEUTENANT: Times change.

GORDON: We’re not evil. We’re just farmers, simple folk. Fundamentally, we want what everyone wants. Food, shelter, a safe place to raise kids. Windy Valley’s a good place. We look after our own, we don’t hurt anyone.

LIEUTENANT: Except you eat people.

Gordon shrugs.

GORDON: What do you think you’re put on this earth for? You’re here to be eaten. By us, by something else. By each other. You live in your big cities, working at shitty jobs, slowly getting your lives drained away until you’re a shriveled husk that no one wants. You end up dead of heart attacks or cancer, or dumped into nursing homes to rot away. That’s no life, and no death either. You’re better off eaten by us, at least you’re appreciated.

Gordon waves.

GORDON: The truth is, we give Stock better lives than you give each other. They’re healthier, happier, valued. That stuff I see on television, how you treat each other? Disgusting.

LIEUTENANT: Where do I come in?

GORDON: There’s powers, we know they’re out there. Some official, some not. We stay quiet, we don’t bother nobody. We just mind our Stock. We got deals with most of them, or ways to deal.

LIEUTENANT: You don’t have deals with mine.

GORDON: I suppose not. Not yet, anyway. We don’t rightly know what you are. But we’re figuring on you telling us. Then we’ll make some calls, send some messages. It’ll get sorted out. You’ll probably come out okay.

LIEUTENANT: Not so much Keith though.

GORDON: That was his name? He shouldn’t have put up a fight.

LIEUTENANT: Too bad.

GORDON: Come right down to it, no one wants trouble. No one ever wants to rock the boat. You figure your President cares about six or seven hundred head of Stock that don’t even legally exist? Better to just pretend, ignore, forget. We make a deal. You walk out. As for your boytoy? He’ll be put to use.

LIEUTENANT: You’ll eat him. If you haven’t already.

GORDON: Be a waste, otherwise. Kind of a sin. And honestly, free-range, that’s a treat.

LIEUTENANT: So you’re Windigo?

Gordon stopped, looking shocked.

GORDON: Jesus Christ! Racist much?

LIEUTENANT: Excuse me?

GORDON: Just because we eat humans, you think we’re Windigo? That’s pretty fucking narrow-minded. Do you go around calling black folk ‘monkeys’ too? Have you ever seen a Windigo? No, you haven’t. But you’re just going to throw the word around.

LIEUTENANT: I should ... apologize?

GORDON: Yes, you should. I mean, I’ll overlook it. But don’t use that word around others. People here, they will take offense.

LIEUTENANT: So what are you then?

GORDON: We’re just the People, the real ones. At least, that’s how it comes down from Grandmother.

* * *