So It Begins Page 7

  I could buy that in a monster movie.

  Not so much in the combat pics. In those, the hero died in the end way too often, and anyway, I’d seen fifty guys wash out of bootcamp for everything from cowardice to dementia to battlefield incontinence, and I knew soldiers weren’t always noble. That’s why it struck me as funny about Peter Lorre being cloned for Special Forces. He never played the hero in the horror shows. The thing about him was he was unnerving even if you didn’t recognize him. He had a tic, and his eyes looked rheumy enough to slide out of their sockets. Considering the Special Forces guys fought in the dark and had little contact with anyone but the enemy, the creepier they were, the better, I guess. Not that the Frek cared, but I guess it mattered to someone.

  With Lorre they even got the voice right.

  “Sergeant,” he said. “We have your valuable cargo, ready for transport to Camp Scott. Are you prepared to take possession?”

  “Ready, willing, and able,” I told him.

  “Excellent. Your papers?”

  I handed him our orders. He skimmed them as he led me to the back of the huge transport truck, and then he opened one of the rear doors. Inside was a canister about twelve feet in diameter and roughly twenty feet long. It was spattered with mud and other dried gunk, and it looked like a rusty, oversized oil drum. Sealed up tight and strapped down solid enough to stay put even if the truck rolled, it filled almost the entire cargo space. I’d never seen anything like it.

  I asked him what they had in there.

  “We have captured one of the enemy’s brood-mothers before labor and have trapped it in stasis in this tank. Frek bodies are quite pliable once they’re subdued.”

  I guess I made a face or didn’t speak for too long, because Captain Lorre’s expression got even more worried, and he pulled out a white handkerchief and wiped sweat from his brow.

  “Are you deaf, Sergeant?” he said. “I tell you we have captured one of the enemy birthers and have trapped it in this tank, yet you have nothing to say.”

  I’d heard him fine. No one had ever taken one of the Frek birthers alive. I thought we’d have heard the news.

  “It is secret, of course, which is why we must get the prisoner as quickly as possible inside Camp Scott. You and your men only have to drive this truck home, like good chauffeurs. Do not interfere with the canister. For God’s sake don’t try to open it, or there will be horrible consequences. Absolutely horrible.”

  I asked him if he’d be coming with us.

  He shook his head and wiped his brow again, and I saw why his unit had to pass the baton. Captain Lorre’s sleeve pulled back from the hem of his glove, uncovering about eight blood blisters on his wrist, a sign of Frek infection. The rest of his unit must have been contaminated, too. They’d probably caught the germ while subduing the birther. Word was when Special Forces picked up a Frek bug, they didn’t bother coming in for triage, they simply ran suicide missions to kill as many Frek as possible before they expired. I felt a little sad for the captain, but in the end he was only a clone. No doubt there were other Special Forces “monster units” running around out there. Centcom hated to waste a good clone matrix once they’d developed it.

  Captain Lorre handed me the keys to the truck and turned to rejoin his unit. I called him back before he disappeared into the shadows.

  “Hey,” I said. “They forget Lugosi?”

  The captain smiled. “Oh, no, they could never forget Lugosi, but I’m sad to have to tell you he didn’t make it. He’s in the canister, with the prisoner.”

  Morris drove. I rode shotgun.

  In back with the trophy were Abernathy, Champ, Marvin, and Testa. Barnes, Foster, and Smith rode the gun positions mounted behind the cab. Itgen sat between me and Morris and worked up a sweat navigating.

  We had maps and GPS and high-level training in dead reckoning. Only problem was all that was keyed to geography that no longer existed. A few days of skybusters had chewed up the landscape and spit it back out in a bold, new arrangement. Even when we followed the compass, we kept coming to roads turned into craters, bridges reduced to splinters, and buildings blasted across every inch of ground creating a litter of obstacles where the map showed clear paths. Camp Scott should’ve been a six-hour drive from our rendezvous with Special Forces, but we’d driven that long and covered only a quarter of the distance.

  Every so often we spied the dark specks of surveillance drones coasting past the horizon.

  At one point we passed a rabbit hole and thought we might stop there for help, but an off-target skybuster had cracked its lid and let the Frek in. We knew what we’d find down there. We moved on, fast.

  Another hour and we covered maybe fifteen more miles. We’d started in daylight. Now dusk was creeping into the horizon. I debated whether we should push on or stake a defensible position in the rubble. Neither option appealed to me. Being indoors at a secure location overnight was survival 101.

  While I was mulling that over, Foster popped off a dozen rounds into the shadows of a broken building, and everyone snapped alert with weapons ready.

  Something moved behind a pile of debris.

  Several other somethings followed it.

  About thirty Frek bastards skittered out from beneath the rocks and charged us. How the hell they survived the skybusters, I’ll never know, but I didn’t worry too much about having an opportunity to rectify that. I climbed onto the hood of the truck and opened fire.

  Barnes and Smith kicked in with the fireguns. The rest of the men started lobbing grenades from the rear of the vehicle. One of them went wild and ripped a grapefruit-sized hole in the truck’s armor. Everything turned fiery and frantic and sounded like it was happening far away once the explosions numbed my eardrums. Most of the Frek were dying, but the ones that made it through, instead of coming for us, they tried to claw their way through the side of the truck. They must have sensed the birther was in there. The truck’s armor slowed them down enough to make them easy pickings, and it wasn’t long before the battle ended. Not a casualty among us, but the Frek were all dead.

  We regrouped and drove off.

  I screamed at Morris to go faster and kept screaming until we were far from where we’d been attacked. His ears had to be as dead as mine by then, but he got the message. When the ride smoothed out, Itgen and I took up the map and tried to calculate our safest route.

  It was pointless.

  The best we could do was hope we’d find the shortest.

  It got dark and I told Morris to keep driving.

  Barnes, Foster, and Smith popped on their night eyes.

  The truck’s headlights were bright, but the darkness was so dense and pervasive, it seemed to swallow up the light. Around midnight we passed an unexploded skybuster sitting in a crater and drove around it. That was rare, but it happened. A dud igniter or maybe someone didn’t arm it properly. Eventually it would blow. They always did.

  Half an hour later we stopped.

  Bad news.

  Abernathy and Testa had found holes in the stasis tank. Something was leaking out. They refused to ride with it.

  I got out and climbed into the cargo space.

  Shrapnel from where the stray grenade had blown a hole in our armor during the skirmish had perforated the skin of the tank. The sludge dripping out was the color of cornhusks, probably a combination of Frek blood and whatever had been pumped in there to keep the birther alive. There wasn’t much, but if it was contaminated it was plenty.

  My men looked to me for answers.

  I didn’t have any good ones.

  I told them to look for a tire repair kit. When they found it, I dug out its largest self-adhesive patch and slapped it onto the canister. It held, but it barely covered the three holes, and I saw it would peel off as soon as it got too damp from the leakage.

  There weren’t enough footholds outside the cargo trailer for everyone to ride on the exterior. It would’ve been too dangerous in the dark. Hit a bad bump, and you could lose some
one and never notice. As ugly as it sounded, some of us would have to ride with the tank.

  No one liked it, but they accepted it, especially when I told them I’d be riding there with them. I ordered Abernathy and Testa to squeeze in up front, and then I climbed into the trailer with Champ and Marvin.

  Before we got the doors closed, before Morris even started the engine, I heard something buzz by overhead. Its high-pitched whine told me it was only a surveillance drone. Maybe they were searching for us because we were so late. I looked for it and saw two small orange lights circling in the black sky. Between them was a single, blinking red light. The drone passed over us low before it rose and began circling.

  I was watching it when the entire truck lurched, and I almost fell out.

  It felt like we’d hit a huge bump, but we weren’t moving. The truck shook again. This time I saw why. It was bouncing with the tank. The metal container was vibrating and shaking, and every few seconds it jolted in one direction or another like the birther inside was trying to pound its way out.

  The makeshift patch popped off and goop spurted the inside of the truck. Champ and Marvin almost knocked me over on their way out. I jumped down and we all drew our weapons. The others came around from the front, armed and frightened. We watched the tank rock and rattle and wondered if it would hold.

  They never should’ve made me a sergeant. I don’t think like most soldiers. I never bought all the way into the official story of how things are. When someone tries too hard to sell me something, it makes me suspicious, and that’s what all the movies were down our rabbit hole. A nonstop sales pitch to keep us on board with how the honchos wanted us to see things. The clones worked like a charm in that regard, tricking soldiers and civilians into believing reality was exactly like the movies and vice versa, leading us deeper into the story, distracting us from asking questions, so we would always fight the Frek with steady fervor.

  Not that I doubted we were fighting for our lives; I knew we were.

  Only I wasn’t sure we’d been given all the information. When a movie’s based on true events, there’s always tons of stuff they leave out to make the story more exciting. For example, behind every war there are people who pull the strings, and sometimes they do it for their own benefit and damn the world and everyone in it. The movies never showed those people.

  When the tank settled down, everyone let out the breath they’d been holding.

  I hopped into the trailer, ignoring my men’s shouts for me to stay clear.

  I walked up to the tank and banged on it.

  Whatever was inside banged back.

  That gave me a shudder.

  The guys got quiet.

  I tapped the metal again and again got a response.

  Another two raps got me two right back.

  I looked at my men, and said, “No fucking way that’s a Frek birther in there.”

  No one said a thing.

  I saw in their faces that all they wanted was to close the thing up, get back in the truck, and dump it at Camp Scott. Already done wouldn’t be fast enough for them.

  I wanted that too, but even more I wanted to know what the hell was in the can.

  Unclipping the flashlight from my belt, I walked around to the damaged side. Standing on a field box, I stepped up eye level with the holes and flashed the light in. Nothing more had dribbled out and what was there was drying to a crust, but the unmistakable stench of Frek came pouring out. Through the punctured metal I saw only darkness and a yellowish shine from my light reflecting off the goop.

  A shadow moved inside.

  My light flashed off a patch of iridescent Frek skin.

  An eye filled up one of the holes and peeped out at me.

  Screaming, I stumbled backward, lost my balance, and fell. Abernathy and Barnes bolted into the trailer, grabbed me, and dragged me out, spilling me onto the ground, while the rest of the men leveled their weapons toward the canister.

  I told them to stand down.

  I told them we’d been lied to.

  I told them what I’d seen through the hole in the metal.

  It was a human eye.

  Aside from me, Barnes, and Testa, no one thought opening the tank was a good idea. After I calmed down I figured the monster unit’s Lugosi was still alive in there. It made sense, but it didn’t sit right with me. Still, I thought we should try to rescue him. The rest of the men wanted to push on to Camp Scott, and since those were our orders, we did so.

  A few miles farther along, we reached impassable ground.

  Must have been a hundred skybusters dropped there during the bombing, because there wasn’t an unbroken spot of earth left as far as we could see in any direction, except back the way we came. We couldn’t raise anyone on the radio, probably due to residual radiation in the air over the blasted zone.

  Itgen and I scrutinized the map, but there was no sure way around. There was a river to the south, rough hills to the north, and east was behind us.

  While we sat on our options, the Frek came again.

  Whatever was left of them after the bombing campaign must have been tracking us for most of the night. They came from behind us, out of the dark. Only Abernathy keeping watch with his night eyes stopped them from overrunning us before we knew they were there.

  We opened fire and scrambled for the truck.

  Morris revved the engine.

  Most of us made it on board. Frek bastards got Champ and Marvin and dragged them out of sight.

  A rain of quills clattered against the armor. Morris floored the gas, turned us around, and drove us head-on toward the line of running Freks. They crunched under the tires and splatted against the armored sides, but a lot of them managed to hang on. We were covered with them, and they were doing their best to tear the truck open. They wanted to kill us, I’m sure, but more than that they wanted whatever was inside that tank. Whether or not we ever reached Camp Scott, I couldn’t let that happen.

  I leaned over to Morris.

  I told him where to go, and then prayed we could hold off the Frek long enough to get there.

  By the time we reached the unexploded skybuster, we’d lost Barnes, Smith, and Testa to the Frek.

  Morris slammed to a stop so close to the bomb, we almost bumped it. The effect was immediate: the Frek fled, scrambled back, and circled around us. They knew enough to fear the skybuster. The break from fighting was a relief, but then it sunk in that all I’d accomplished was a standoff.

  In the fleeting quiet I heard the buzz of drones overhead. There were four of them now, orange lights hovering like eyes, red lights blinking like stars. I no longer thought they’d been sent to find and help us. They were there to watch and record. We were on; it was our big moment.

  I tried the radio again.

  Only static, maybe due to radiation. Maybe not.

  Without help, I only saw one way out.

  If we gave the Frek what they wanted, they’d slaughter us the moment they had it. I looked at Foster, Itgen, and Morris and saw they’d each concluded the same thing. We had enough ammo to hold off the enemy for a couple of hours, no more. The Frek would get us and the tank before dawn.

  We couldn’t allow it.

  Fuck us, but Rook’s Raiders wound up in a war movie instead of a monster movie. We got to die for our mission instead of killing the monster and living to see the next dawn.

  The four of us climbed into the back of the van and began untying the tank. It shook and jolted as we worked, knocking us off-balance. Whatever was inside, it wanted out. Maybe it sensed what we had in mind. Foster dropped out and examined the skybuster, locating the access panel that would allow us to manually detonate it. He gave us the thumbs up. With the cargo doors open the Frek knew what we planned, and they didn’t like it. They came at us in a biting wave. We fought back, but we were outnumbered. Seven Frek bastards got Foster as he pulled a grenade. He dropped it live. It exploded beneath the truck, knocking me, Morris, and Itgen to the ground and driving the Frek ba
ck. But the blast hit the exposed tank, too.

  The seal at the end cracked.

  Fluid squirted out.

  The Frek closed on us again.

  The thing inside the tank pounded against the lid, shoving it upward by inches.

  In the sky the drones circled. There were eight of them now, each one watching from a different place, a different angle, recording us, even as we recorded everything we saw through our implanted cameras. I wondered who was watching and why they didn’t send help.

  Then the lid popped off the tank and slammed against the skybuster.

  From the opening two limbs emerged: one Frek, the other human. The thing inside was massive, and it squeezed itself out of the canister, pushing a wash of viscous goop with it as it came. When it unfolded, stood on its ten legs, and raised the flat disk of its body into the air, the sight sent us reeling. It throbbed and pulsated as if gasping for breath. Dangling from its underbelly were eight bodies at the end of pulpy tubes. Two were miniature Frek birthers. The other six were human. There was Lugosi, hanging there, staring down at us, and so many of the others: McQueen, Smith, Wayne, even Colonel Connery. Each was an unfinished figure waiting for the breath of life to be breathed into it, for its brain to start working at full capacity. They looked frightened and half alert.

  The worst part of it hit me the moment Itgen and Morris turned their guns on me.

  One of those dangling, dripping horrors had my face.

  I ran toward the skybuster even as my men opened fire.

  I felt the punch of the slugs and started to go numb, but my fingers were already clutching the wires. I pressed them together and clicked the switch.