Dark Victory - eARC (16 page)

Serena whispers, “So many dead.”

“True,” Eddie says, turning to her. “So very many dead. After the 10/10 attacks, I lost family, friends and neighbors, too. We’re mourning. Of course. But take the long view. Who mourns the millions dead from World War II. Or World War I? Or the ravages of Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great? True, we’re struggling now, but if we’ve truly won the war against the Creepers, like the President says, then ten or twenty or thirty years down the road, it’ll work out. People will adjust, will love their new lives. Heck, boy, you’re young and strong. If you weren’t in the Army, you could start working here tomorrow for me. If you ask me, having the Creepers invade was the best thing that could have happened to this unhappy world.”

I rub the top of Thor’s head. I’m tempted to tell my boy to tear out Eddie’s throat. Serena looks pale. Even Buddy seems out of sorts from what our host has said.

“Then excuse me if I don’t ask you,” I say.

By the time we’re outside on the wide wrap-around porch, I’ve changed back into my freshly-washed fatigues, but Serena is still wearing the civilian clothes given to her by Beth Carlson. She’s carrying her uniform in her hands and says, “Room in your pack for this?”

“Out of uniform, aren’t you . . . Serena?”

She says, “I haven’t worn anything this nice for such a long time, Randy. Beth insisted that I take her clothes with me. Said she’d never be able to fit in them, and it was a sin to let them go to waste. Look, I’ll be in uniform when we get to the Capitol. Promise.”

I can’t help but smile and I zip open my assault pack, gently fold and put her uniform away. It’s an Army uniform, but it’s also tailored and cut for a woman, and I like the feel of the fabric. I zip the pack shut, look around. Buddy is standing by us, and Thor is at his feet. I wonder what Thor thinks of our silent companion. Eddie is out by the barn with a young man that I expect to be his son, Edgar. They’re hitching up a pair of black Morgan horses to the Ford carriage.

A door slams and Beth Carlson walks out, wiping her hands on a light yellow dish towel. Her face is like stone. She comes up next to me. “You seem like a bright boy.”

“Some in my squad would disagree.”

She says, “You might not believe this, but you’re a hell of a lot brighter than my idiot husband.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” In the space of a few words, her voice becomes sharp, bitter. “All that bold talk of a new life, of being a rich farmer instead of an assistant store manager, going back to the life of Jefferson. A simpler and better America. Crap. All crap. He’s not in the kitchen every day, struggling to make meals without an electric stove, refrigerator, or microwave.”

Her voice suddenly catches. “Look over there, by that oak tree. See it?”

I see it. I had noticed it when we had ridden up to the house. There’s a tiny white picket fence surrounding a stone. She takes a choked breath. “That’s where my Amber is buried. She was born two years after 10/10. Sweetest little girl . . . I gave birth in our bedroom back there, with the help of a midwife. No drugs. No anesthesia. No spinal block. She was a tough birth but worth it . . . God, she was so sweet, so beautiful. Blonde hair like corn silk. And then . . . two years later . . . there was a measles outbreak in the county.”

The horses are now hitched up to the wagon. Beth says, “Measles. Goddamn measles. With no vaccines, no drugs . . . she died in a week. My girl. If it weren’t for those goddamn aliens, she’d be alive today. I’d be using my degree and computer skills. And Eddie would still be an assistant manager at a hardware store, dreaming of his precious Jefferson.”

She spits on the porch. “Damn fool.”

For the second time that day we clamber into a carriage, and Edgar is a younger and clean-shaven double of his father, wearing jeans stained with dirt and a simple light blue farmer’s jacket. While getting ready to get into the Ford-made carriage, Edgar is staring at Serena. I make sure she sits right behind Edgar, so he couldn’t see her legs by glancing back as he drove the horses. Of course, by doing so, I get to see Serena and her legs, a fair exchange. Buddy sits next to his sister, and Thor climbs up on the leather seat next to me, breathing happy.

He swivels in the bench, a single-shot 12-gauge shotgun at his side, and says, “You folks all set back there?”

“We are.”

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Thor,” I say.

“Does he hunt aliens?”

“Best in the world,” I say.

He laughs. “Glad to hear it.”

Edgar makes a
cluck-cluck
sound and we’re off. Behind us in the wide dirty driveway, Eddie waves at our departure, and he puts his right arm around his wife. She stands as still as a statue. I look one more time at the little white picket fence and simple stone, and then we’re down the dirt driveway, on our way.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Out on the town road, the asphalt is still smooth, though weeds and brush are growing through some wide cracks. Telephone poles are one side of the road, the old phone and power lines sagging and broken, dangling down like thin vines. We pass an occasional driveway, some still paved, others made with dirt. There are only a few abandoned cars dumped on the road, and Edgar expertly moves the team and carriage around them.

I say to Serena, “What’s up with the toenails?”

She giggles, crosses her arms. “It was Beth’s idea. After she got me dressed in her clothes, she said we should go all out. So while Buddy was taking his bath, we went into their bedroom and she did my nails. The local gals have a recipe for making nail polish.”

Serena sticks her feet out. “What do you think?”

Her legs are smooth and fine and unblemished, and one would think that painted toenails were definitely a wartime extravagance, but I find her feet adorable. I have this quiet little urge to give them a rub, but with a sense of shame, I suddenly recall Abby’s legs: strong, muscular, scarred from tumbles off her combat dispatch bike and once from a flying piece of shrapnel when she rode too close to a skirmish line during a Creeper hunt. I think if someone offered to paint her toenails, she’d counter-offer with a kick to the shins.

“I think . . . I think they’re pretty,” I say, feeling the words are kind of lame.

She wiggles her toes. She seems to like my words, no matter how lame they are. “So what do we do when we get to Adams?”

“Eddie said Greyhound leaves on the hour, every hour. We just get transport to . . . our destination, and if all goes well, we should be there before nightfall.

”Serena says, “Wow . . . to see Dad, after all this time. Can’t believe it.” She taps the dispatch case on the carriage floor with her foot. “And you . . . you’ll be able to finally complete your mission. What do you think is in there, anyway?”

My turn. “Sorry, Serena. OPSEC.”

She takes that in good spirits. “You know, that handcuff on the end of the chain. Bet you could still put it on your wrist. Must be a key waiting for you at the other end.”

I shake my head. “Not going to give somebody else a chance to hack off my hand, even if I’m dead.”

She smiles. “I can see why.”

We ride along and the road narrows, and we no longer see driveways or farmhouses up on the overgrown pasturelands. Even with the narrow road, we still have a view of the sky, and Edgar shouts out, “Cripes, look at that!”

The sky is partially overcast but a fairly large chunk of space debris is re-entering, as big as I’ve ever seen over the years, bright as a large star, sparkling streamers of light following as it speeds overhead. It disappears behind the clouds but there’s still a glow of light as it descends into the atmosphere, and then the near trees block the view.

Edgar says, “Pretty big piece. Whaddya think? Part of their orbital station?”

“Could be,” I say. “Lord knows the Air Force blew it into enough pieces.”

“It’d be nice if that piece lands on one of their bases, don’t you think?”

“That’d be something to see,” I say, and Edgar returns to his horsemanship, and Serena says, “My dad says it was a mistake to destroy the orbital station.”

Surprised I say, “What’s that?”

“You heard me,” she says with confidence. “My dad says it was a mistake to destroy the orbital station.”

“What, we should have sent flowers?” I ask. “The orbital station was a big as a small moon, built from their star craft. Probably contained thousands of Creepers. It controlled the killer stealth satellites, and it built and sent out the bases that landed on Earth. We knew it communicated with the Creepers on the ground. It was the damn head of their invasion and occupation. Cut off the head, it’s easier to destroy the rest.”

She says, “That’s the popular opinion, but my dad’s always taught me not to trust popular opinion.”

“So what’s the unpopular opinion?”

The road narrows even more, and the trees branches are crowding overhead. Shadows have fallen across the cracked asphalt and it’s gotten cooler. Serena looks to her brother, rearranges a strand of hair on his head. Buddy’s bandage from yesterday is still in place. Serena says, “My dad thinks we should have captured it. Said it obviously it took years to come up with a plan to destroy it. Why not take a couple of more years and capture it? Think of what we could have learned! The Creepers . . . they’re evil, they’ve killed billions of us, drowned and destroyed scores of cities, but star travel. They know how to travel between the stars. My dad thinks it would have been worth capturing the orbital station, to get that knowledge.”

I ponder that, and look at Serena’s pretty face. I think of Abby and her brown skin and thick eyebrows, and the scratches and blemishes on her face, and look again at Serena.

“Well?” she asks.

“You know, I hadn’t really thought about it that much, but your dad does make sense.”

She seems proud. “Really?”

“Really,” I say. “Maybe we should have captured the orbital base. Finding the secret of star travel would have been worth it, if only for one thing.”

“Which is?”

I scratch Thor’s back. “To build our own star craft, to travel to their home world and turn it into glass that glows in the dark.”

Some time later the carriage hits a bump as we go around a tight curve, and the dispatch case slides across the floor. I bend down to retrieve it and my pistol tumbles out of my holster. My face warms right up from embarrassment; nothing like losing your weapon to get you into serious hack. I pick up the pistol, sit back up, and the road is blocked by two wooden sawhorses across the road with three soldiers standing next to it. A few meters ahead of the sawhorses is an old-style Humvee, parked to the right. Weapons are slung over their shoulders. A painted sign hangs below one of the sawhorses. stop for army inspection. Edgar pulls the horses to a halt and Serena turns to see what’s going on. Her brother stares ahead. Thor sits up, ears at attention.

One of the soldiers ambles over to Edgar. He looks to be about twenty, slim, wearing muddy boots, fatigues and he unslings his weapon, an M-4 automatic rifle. On his head is a soft cap, a size too large. His name tag says mullen and his rank is lieutenant. His nose is small and his face is pudgy and worn. His two companions fan out and come at us, from either side of the road. I can’t make out their name tags. They both appear to be sergeants, and one has a shoulder flash for the 45
^th
Infantry Division, and the other is from the 26
^th
Division. A sergeant with a wide smile and good teeth goes to the pair of horses up forward and holds their bridles. The other one, who has a shadow of a beard and carries a pump-action shotgun, comes to the opposite side of the carriage. He stares at Serena’s legs and he starts smiling as well.

Mullen says, “Afternoon, folks. Just a routine traffic stop.”

Edgar says, “Just going into Adams. That’s all.”

Mullen looks to me. “And you?”

“Going to Adams, sir, looking for transportation,” I say.

“And your friends?”

Serena looks to me, face pale. Buddy is still, hands in his lap. The sergeant up forward by the horses comes around and quickly takes Edgar’s shotgun. Edgar says, “Hey,” and I quickly say, “Sir, if I may, what’s the word for the week?”

The sergeant looking at Serena’s legs, laughs. Mullen says, “What did you say, kid?”

“The word for the week. Code and counterword. Procedure for encountering troops from other units out in the countryside.”

Mullen rubs at his nose. “Code word I got this week was Zulu.”

“Oh,” I say, and I slap Thor on his back and yell, “Thor, strike!” and I pull out my Beretta and shoot Mullen in the chest.

After the loud
boom!
Serena screams and I yell, “Down, get down!” and I roll out and follow Thor to the asphalt, landing on my shoulder and side, as my partner leaps out and nails the nearest man in his throat with his jaw. He falls back, screaming and gurgling, as Thor growls and works his strong jaw into the soft throat tissues. The sergeant up forward should move to the left, to get the carriage between us, but he’s either too eager or too stupid, and comes at me from the right. From my vantage point on the asphalt, I shoot him twice in the legs, dropping him to the ground. The horses back and whinny, as Edgar swears and tries to control the frightened horses. I scramble up, go to the guy on the ground with the wounded legs, who’s trying to grab his rifle—a .22 Remington—and I nail him in the chest with another shot. He stops moving.

The guy with Thor on his throat is screaming, and I yell, “Thor, off!” and my bud instantly backs away. The guy moans some more but I roll and duck as a burst of automatic rifle fire zips overhead. Damn it, I knew I shot Mullen in the chest!

Behind me now, Serena is on top of her brother in the carriage, and Mullen is peeking from around its end, and he takes off, M-4 in hands. I run off after him, and in a few seconds he’s deep in the woods, out of sight. Serena yells out, “Leave him be!”

“Not on your life!” I yell back.

I splash through a drainage ditch, stop, catch my breath. Trees are spread out before me, a mix of pines and hardwoods. I take stock, slowly watch and evaluate, recall my basic training. If danger is afoot, there’s no need to rush in, because more likely than not, you’ll be dragged out by your ankles, ambushed and dead.

To the left. A low oak tree branch is bent funny. I slowly move, looking down.

Drops of blood. I kneel down, giving it a good look. The blood is frothy. Lung shot.

Serena is still calling out. I ignore her.

I slowly move ahead, scanning left and right and above.

More drops of blood. Larger and closer together.

I take my time. I don’t think Mullen is going far, but he’s got an automatic rifle and I have a pistol.

I whisper, “Always outmanned, but never outgunned.”

I move a couple of more meters, see a splash of vomit, and more blood.

Getting damn close. I try to ease my breathing.

Up ahead. Mottled green. I circle around, still taking my time.

A choking cough.

There’s an opening in the trees.

I step through. Mullen is sitting up against a white oak, legs splayed out. His M-4 is on his lap. He looks up at me and his hands start working at the automatic rifle, and I kick it free.

“Bastard,” he whispers.

“Doubtful,” I say. “I’ve seen my birth certificate.”

He doesn’t reply. He’s bleeding from his chest. Curious, I reach down, tear open his fatigue shirt. Underneath he’s wearing an old Kevlar bulletproof vest, but it’s
old,
with previous pockmarks from earlier gunshots, and my round must have torn open the vest by going through a weak part. Lucky for me, unlucky for him.

“Where you from?” I ask.

Blood is dribbling down his chin. “Jersey City.”

“Far from home.”

“Yeah. But damned if I was going to stay in a refugee camp, rest of my life, starving every day . . .”

“So being a Coastie, robbing and killing, that was a better choice?

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, his head lolling some. His eyes are glassy and unfocused. More blood down his chin. He coughs again. “Gotta tell me, man, what’s the code word for the week . . .”

I shrug. “Damned if I know.”

I wait to see if he’s going to say anything more, but there’s a loud, rattling noise from his chest, and his head lolls once again and he doesn’t move or say a damn thing.

Out on the road, I walk slowly, Mullen’s M-4 slung over my shoulder, two extra magazines stripped from him now hanging from my utility belt. Serena calls out and once again, I don’t pay her any mind. I’m curious about the Humvee. I go around to the front and spot a tow bar set below the grill. Interesting. I pop open the hood and there’s a large empty spot where the engine used to be. In the nearby woods is a trail. The M-4 is in my hands as I slowly walk up the trail, filled with curiosity.

Which is satisfied rather quickly. The trail opens up to a patch of grassland, and two heavy horses—Belgians, it looks like—are quietly grazing in patch of grass, ropes from their bridles tied to some brush.

A snap of a branch and I whirl around. Edgar is there, holding his shotgun, the weapon trembling in his hands.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“They were a Coastie gang,” I say. “Had a sweet little gig, it looks like. They had an old Humvee, stripped the engine to lighten it up, and used a team of horses to drag it around. Set up a checkpoint and rob and rape and kill at their pleasure.”

“The one that ran away?”

“Dead over there,” I say. “I’ll show you.”

He shudders. “I’d rather not.”

I say, “Don’t be stupid. You and your family, you hit the jackpot.”

He lowers his shotgun. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“In New Hampshire, a homeowner gets a reward for killing Coasties. Imagine Massachusetts has the same law on its books.”

“But you . . . you took care of them!”

I shoulder the M-4. “Yeah, but there’s a crapload of paperwork to fill out, and I don’t have the time. Plus, you get salvage rights on those two horses. Bet you and your folks can use them back at the farm.”

That’s gotten his attention, and his eyes lighten up. “That doesn’t sound bad at all. Hell, let’s get going on.”

“Yeah, let’s,” I say.

Back at the carriage Edgar helps me dismantle the sawhorses and the sign, while Serena is sitting in the carriage, gingerly washing Thor’s mouth and paws. He’s panting in contentment. Buddy is sitting up once more, but the bandage on his forehead has slipped. Something to fix before we leave. Serena ignores me as she works on my dog. I hand the pump-action shotgun and .22 rifle to Edgar, who puts them on his seat. He and I drag the bodies of the other two men to the side of the road. One dead by me, the other by my dog. We’re still a damn fine team. Edgar says, “Pity their boots aren’t in better shape.”

“Yeah, well, you take what you can get.”

He cocks his head at me. “How did you know? I mean, I really didn’t get suspicious until that one in the middle grabbed my shotgun.”