Snafu: Unnatural Selection
Author: Christopher Golden; Tim Lebbon; Richard Lee Byers; Michael McBride; James A. Moore; Charles R. Rutledge; Lee Murray; Dave Benyon; Justin Bell; Justin A. Coates; B. Michael Radburn; David W. Amendola
Date: 2016-08-15 00:48:30+00:00
Description: Man versus Nature. In the 70s and 80s, animals ruled. Anacondas, piranha, giant crocodiles/alligators/lizards, mutated bears near nuclear power stations, prehistoric sharks all featured heavily in books and films, when bio-horror was at its modern peak. This anthology of military-bio-horror stories is inspired by those classic days. Think Greg McLean’s Rogue, Lake Placid, Eight-legged Freaks, Anaconda, Meg, Prophecy, Deep Blue Sea, and other films/books where people (in this case soldiers) are fighting against mutated, weird, or ultra-dangerous animals. Join some of the best writers working to
Publisher: Cohesion Press

Table of Contents

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

Dave Beynon

Unborn

Justin Bell

The Weavers in Darkness

James A Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

Kill Team Kill

Justin A Coates

RESTLESS

Lee Murray

A Hole in the World

Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden

Cargo

B. Michael Radburn

Vermin

Richard Lee Byers

The Valley of Death

David Amendola

Venom

Michael McBride

SNAFU: UNNATURAL SELECTION

Publisher’s Note:

This book is a collection of stories from writers all over the world.

For authenticity and voice, we have kept the style of English native to each author’s location, so some stories will be in UK English, and others in US English.

We have, however, changed dashes and dialogue marks to our standard format for ease of understanding.

*   *   *

This book is a work of fiction.

All people, places, events, mutations, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

SNAFU:

Unnatural Selection

Edited by Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown

Cohesion Press

Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum

Beechworth , Australia

2015/2018

SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown(eds)

2018 REISSUE

ebook - 978-0-9944286-8-4

Print - 978-0-9946304-2-1

Anthology © Cohesion Press 2016

Stories © Individual Authors 2016

Cover Art © Dean Samed 2016

Interior Art © Monty borror 2016

Internal Layout by Cohesion Editing and Proofreading

Set in Palatino Linotype

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cohesion Press

Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum

Beechworth, Australia
www.cohesionpress.com

Also From Cohesion Press

Horror:

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

– eds Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding

SNAFU: Heroes

– eds Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding

SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

– eds Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding

SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

– eds Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding

SNAFU: Hunters

– eds Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown

SNAFU: Future Warfare

– eds Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown

SNAFU: Black Ops

– eds Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown

Coming Soon

SNAFU: Resurrection

– eds Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

Dave Beynon

“Are you done yet?”

Falstaff wore his usual roll-eyed expression of impatience. He tapped his foot, checked his watch and looked theatrically at the column of soldiers moving out.

“Almost,” I said, scribbling co-ordinates and notations in my notebook. “If the army allowed me a crew, this would all be going so much faster, Sergeant.”

“No crew. Just lucky old me, but you know the drill: we move in, we secure, you map – quickly – then we move out. That’s the way it is.”

I muttered under my breath.

“Did you just say ‘Invasion on a budget’ again?”

I nodded. I was indeed a broken record when it came to my need for a crew. Sgt Falstaff was as fine a person as you would meet in the soldiering profession but he lacked the temperament for surveying and mapmaking. You’d think a soldier would be good at standing still and holding a rangefinder or an elevation target but sadly, no. I’d had soldiers assisting me for the last twenty years and there wasn’t a one of them who didn’t sway.

“You know, in the old days…”

“Yes, I do know. In the old days, there would be a corps of engineers dispatched with each unit blah, blah, blah. I know. I almost sympathize. I really do. We soldiers, however, have a job to do. Do you think these indigenous people are going to quell themselves?”

I glanced back along the narrow roadway I was mapping toward the village. The old man who spoke for the village had told Murray, our IPLO – Indigenous Persons Liaison Officer – that the name of the place was Ithalaco. That was Murray’s best guess at how it was phonetically spelled, given the dialect was hard for a human tongue to negotiate. Murray did her best, but even a linguist of her skill had difficulty reproducing the sounds the locals’ beaks created. Well, Ithalaco was what was on the map now.

At the edge of the village, I’d placed a pair of markers. A traditional iron surveyor’s spike was hammered deep into the ground. The other marker was an elevated solar-powered beacon. I’d set it in the hope that one day there’d be a GPS satellite placed in orbit around this godforsaken world. A half-dozen local children moved cautiously around the two metre tall post, daring each other to touch it.

“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of quelling needed. They seem a pretty cowed population. Maybe just this once I could have enough time to double-check my measurements before we move on?”

“We don’t camp in the villages. The captain wants us five klicks into the jungle before we camp for the night. Can we go?”

“Fine,” I said, not yet packing up my transit, the main measuring device I use for calculating distance, elevation and location. “First I need you to take your marker and stand over by that tree. And try to hold it steady for once. God, what I wouldn’t give for just one set of measurements that made sense at the end of the day.”

I made the last of my notes then wrapped the notebook in good old fashioned oilskin. In the humidity of the jungle – any world’s jungle – portable computers were notoriously unreliable. Almost all of my equipment, from my optical sextant and transit right down to my pens, pencils and paper, was analog. My camera was digital, a bulky thing of neoprene, glass and plastic that seldom came out of its waterproof carrying case. It was so bulky I made sure Sgt Falstaff always ended up with it in his pack along with stakes, beacons, tapes and markers. I might not get a crew, but I was determined to make the good sergeant my own personal packhorse.

I gave the village one last glance as I collapsed my tripod. The village elder who had spoken with Murray came to the edge of the village and chased away the children. He looked at me, raised his two left hands and pointed toward the jungle the troop was entering. With an oddly human gesture, he shook his head and then dropped his gaze to the ground. I would have asked him what he was trying to tell me but I’d only picked up a handful of words and most of those had to do with food. Murray had moved on at the head of the march. I smiled, careful not to show teeth, and waved to the old man. He shook his head in response and returned to the village.

“While we’re young, Wilson,” said Falstaff. “You know how you want time to double-check your measurements? Just once, I don’t want to be bringing up the rear.”

I packed away the transit and secured my tripod to my pack. “What are you complaining about? In twenty years of following the army around making maps, I’ve never once had to set up a tent or prepare the evening meal.” I shouldered my pack and nodded toward the swath our trailblazers’ machetes had cut into the jungle. “And neither has my sergeant.”

Falstaff smiled at that. “You might just have a point, Engineer Wilson.”

*   *   *

True to form, five kilometres from the village, measured by my boot-mounted pedometer, Falstaff and I found the camp. Dinner was well underway. A rehydrated salad and a soybean brick augmented with vitamins and minerals made for a nutritionally-balanced meal. How could it be that humanity managed to master faster-than-light travel but was hopelessly stymied when it came to infusing anything approaching flavor into a soybean brick?

I took my foil plate and sat next to Murray.

“Ted,” she said. “Nice to see you found us.”

“Always nice to see you, too, Lisa. It doesn’t take a mapmaker to follow the trail this bunch leaves. Chicken tonight?”

Murray lifted the edge of her nutrition block and shrugged. “I’ve no idea what kind of meat they tried to simulate with this one. They failed. Again.”

“I’ve been eating this stuff for twenty years. A few years back there were a half dozen bricks that tasted just like smoked salmon. I think they were labelled as chicken. Never tasted anything so good before or since out of a ration pack.” I swallowed a chalky mouthful. “So, has the captain figured where we’re going tomorrow?”

“I think we are exploring from here on. The village elder told me his village stood on the frontier. No other people heading… which way are we heading anyway?”

I didn’t need to check my compass. “West. Well, west-ish. The magnetic north on this world is offset from the rotational axis by twenty-six degrees so your angle of—“I stopped myself. I’d long ago discovered the details of my profession made for snooze-worthy dinner conversation. “We’re kind of heading west.”

“Chokohn – that’s the elder’s name – he told me there’s a string of villages that run the equivalent of north and south in a straight line along the edge of this denser jungle. He said they never come in here.”

“Never? I know this jungle’s dense but Falstaff and I passed a ton of what looks like edible fruit on our way here.”

She shrugged. “He said ‘never’.”

“Maybe that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

I described the elder’s actions and gestures as I was packing up to leave.

“You’ve always got to be careful, Ted. You can’t assign human meaning to alien gestures. Jesus, there’s not universal consistency across human cultures, let alone alien ones.”

“Well, it sure looked like he was trying to tell me not to come out here.”

Murray shrugged. “They’re a primitive culture. Limited agriculture. Just starting to smelt metals. Maybe jungle represents the unknown and they’re naturally afraid of it.”

“I guess. But for a fledgling culture, this jungle also represents new resources, right? Hey, that’s why we’re out here. But the old man said they don’t come out here at all? Not even to hunt? Not even those kids I saw poking around my beacon?”

Murray shook her head. “This whole area is taboo. Because it’s taboo, there’s naturally superstition surrounding it.”

“Boogeymen?”

She laughed. I always liked it when I was able to coax a laugh from Murray.

“Pretty much. But his word, if I’m right, translates to ‘The Others’.”

“How ominous. Wait a minute. I thought that’s what the indigenous people called us.”

“That’s what I thought they were calling us. They call us Jahahlla.” The word ended in a delightful trill that brought out Murray’s laugh lines. “I thought that meant ‘others’ until today. The elder explained the difference. I now know it means ‘visitors’ or ‘travellers’.”

“So how do you say ‘others’?”

There was nothing at all delightful about the guttural clack that came out of Murray’s mouth.

“Oh… that doesn’t sound very friendly, does it?”

“No. Chokohn told me we shouldn’t come out here. I explained to him as best I could that we’re mapping the area so that when more visitors arrive they’ll know where everything is. He told me we didn’t want to know what was in the jungle. He said we could just end our map at the edge of his village and go back the way we came.”

“I wish. I can’t believe I’m about to say this but I could really go for the relative luxury of a spaceship right about now. We’ve been here for over a month now. This traipsing through the wilderness following soldiers is a young person’s game.”

“You whine and complain but you love it. Besides, on a civilized world there’s no need for mapmakers.”

“Or linguists. Not on the civilized ones.”

“Too true,” she said. “It’s weird. Usually the locals are only too ready to have us push on.”

“Not this time?”

“No. Chokohn invited us to stay, rather than have us press on into the jungle. He said they’d hold a feast for us, if only we promised to go back the way we came.”

“They really don’t want us out here, do they? Do you think they’re really concerned with us running into these Others you mentioned?”

Murray picked at the last of her lettuce but made no motion to move that sad leaf to her mouth. “We hear things like this on other worlds. You know that. Oh, don’t go out there. Bad things are out there.” She inclined her head toward where the captain sat, eating and talking with her officers. “More often than not the locals are simply trying to keep our soldiers from finding some place of religious or cultural significance. Or from uncovering some nearby resources – resources they’d like to keep for themselves.”

“You can hardly blame them. After all, it is their planet.”

Murray placed her hand on my arm. “What a naïve notion, Cartographer First Class Wilson.” Her tone was good-natured, but there was a bitter undercurrent I wasn’t sure she’d intended to share. She lowered her voice a shade. “It’s their world until we find something useful. Then it becomes annexed. For their own protection, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. “We’re all just one big happy galactic family.”

Sgt Falstaff approached with his tray, eying his food brick dubiously.

“Chicken?” he asked as he took a seat.

“Chickenish,” said Murray. “So, what is the captain saying about tomorrow’s adventure. We’ll continue to the west?”

“That’s her plan,” said Falstaff. “We’ll break camp at dawn then press on until we find a big enough gap in the tree canopy to launch a drone to scout ahead. We’ll reassess the situation then.”

As it turned out, we never had a chance to launch that drone and only some of us ever got the chance to reassess the situation.

*   *   *

I’ve marched on more than three dozen worlds, through terrain far more varied than anything found in earth’s solar system. Each ecosystem brings its own challenges, and the only thing worse to march through than jungle is swamp. After hacking our way for three hours without a break, the jungle abruptly opened into a vast misty wetland shrouded with a fetid layer of yellowish fog.

“Private Ho, let’s have an atmospheric test before we press on,” the captain called out from the front of the line. I heard one of the soldiers moving through the ranks, though I couldn’t see her. I was reaching for the respirator in the pouch on my hip when the captain called the all clear. “No toxins.”

Those were the last words spoken before everything went to hell.

The fog drifted to the edge of the jungle, enveloping us and reducing our visibility. Falstaff stood two metres away. I could barely see him. From the wetlands, I heard what sounded like a breaking wave accompanied by a locust swarm’s worth of fluttering.

Two quick shots were fired from the front of the line, followed by a wet slap and a loud crack. A rapid burst of gunfire, a scream and then the sound of branches snapping as something flew through the jungle to my left, landing with a meaty thump. As part of the Cartography Corp, I carry no weapon, yet I found myself instinctively reaching for one at my hip. Falstaff, long a soldier before he became my assistant, reached for a weapon he did not have. He unclasped the marker staff, brandishing it like a spear.

I raised my hand and was about to speak when something leathery, grey and moist reached out of the fog and dragged Falstaff away. The marker staff fell to the ground. As I reached for his foot, a length of ropy, slime-coated tentacle slapped against my cheek. The tentacle’s tip was just below my eye. It terminated in a glistening thorny claw that dripped a pus-like yellow venom.

A quick jab just below my left eye, then oblivion.

*   *   *

An alien insect crawling across my eyelid startled me awake. My mouth seemed full of ash. As I opened my eyes, I realized the left one was swollen shut, save for a crusty sliver. When I tried to lift a hand to determine the extent of the swelling I realized I’d been bound.

I was naked. Sitting. My outstretched legs were tightly secured with braided jungle vines lined with tiny nettles that irritated my skin. Behind me, my hands were tied with the same type of vine. Like guy-wires securing an upright post, three lengths of vine kept me from slumping onto my side. Whatever had taken us had dragged us to a boggy clearing. On the ground before me, my clothing and gear was laid out, neat and orderly. Everything had been examined and lined up. My notebooks lay open and my hand-drawn maps were unfurled next to their waterproof cylinders.

“Ted.”

Murray’s voice came from my left. I turned my head and immediately regretted it. My head swam with vertigo and I tasted bile. I tried to focus through my left eye.

“Lisa,” I said, “what happened?”

“Don’t know. Something took us. Your eye? Can you see out of it?”

“Not especially. Does it look as bad as it feels?”

I got a vague sense of movement and interpreted it as a nod. “It’s swollen and there’s a crusty scab on your cheek. Is this the first time you’ve gained consciousness?”

“As far as I can remember. You?”

“I woke… a while ago… to someone screaming in the distance. I panicked and tried to pull free of these vines. I guess I exerted myself too much. Tunnel vision then I passed out. I woke up a few minutes ago and have been calling to you.”

I had a touch of tunnel vision myself and the pasty taste in my mouth had me on the edge of throwing up. I flexed my arms. There was a little give, yet not enough to work my hands free. Besides, with each flex the nettles bit into my flesh, telling me that struggling was not in the cards.

“How many of us are here?” I seemed to be the end of the line, if there was a line, with Murray and any others to my left, invisible to my swollen eye. “More than just you and me?”

“Falstaff is a little ways off. Kind of by himself. The rest of our soldiers are farther away – those that are still with us, anyway. There’s only six or seven. The captain’s at the very end.”

“That’s all?” Thirty-six people had broken camp that morning. “Jesus. Did you get a look at what attacked us?”

The vision in my left eye was starting to clear. I could actually see her nod this time. “I mostly saw their handiwork. Jesus, Ted, they tore our people apart. Private Ho was just ahead of me before that fog rolled in. She screamed. Jesus. Then… pieces of her started hitting me and landing all around. Half of Private Martinez hit the ground next to me. His mouth was still moving. Something like a lobster claw pulled me to the ground… then I woke up here.”

“A claw? Like a crustacean?”

“Yeah. Like a crab or a lobster or the Kiloko people on Chara. Only bigger than any claw you’ve ever seen.”

“I was taken down by a tentacle.”

“A… tentacle? More than one species? Working together?”

I could only shrug.

“Lisa? All of my stuff has been arranged near my feet. I can’t see too clearly over your way yet. Is everyone’s gear down by their feet?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s weird. It’s so neatly stacked. The soldiers’ armor and weaponry are separate from their food and kit. My clothes are apart from my notebooks and recording equipment and from what I can tell one of my voice recorders is missing. It looks like Falstaff confused them a bit.”

“Why?”

“Well, it looks like we’ve been grouped by function. The soldiers with their armor and weapons are all in one group. You and I – the record keepers and note-takers – are over here. But Falstaff is all by himself in the middle. He wears armor and a uniform like any soldier and they’re piled like everyone else’s armor and uniform. His food and kit are stacked to one side. In the middle, where the other soldiers have weapons, Falstaff has that marking stick you make him carry, those beacons of yours, some iron spikes, a hammer and a big empty waterproof case.”

“Empty? My camera was in that case.”

“That’s odd. Two different types of recording devices are missing.”

I shifted, trying in vain to become more comfortable. Impossible. I forced my left eye to open wider. I was rewarded with pain and added focus. I nodded.

“I can see a little more clearly now,” I said. “Do you think that whoever took us understands how to use our devices?”

Murray nodded.

“I’d bet money we’re being recorded right now.”

“By who? Whom?”

“Whom. And that’s the question.”

The days on this planet lasted just over thirty-eight earth hours. The sun stood high in the sky when the captain finally regained consciousness.

Captain Najafi, after straining heroically against her bonds with no success, ordered a roll call.

“What do we know, people?”

Each of us relayed our experience prior to capture. Each described an attack by a different creature, though barbed tentacles seemed a common theme. Captain Najafi listened without comment until Murray mentioned our missing equipment.

“We’re obviously dealing with intelligence. Specialist Murray, do the actions of our abductors jive with what we know of the indigenous people of this planet?”

Murray shook her head. “Not at all. These are a peaceful, timid people. They’re not aggressive at all.”

“So we’re looking at another race?”

“Another species. More than one. But it doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean, Specialist?”

“My experience shows that where two sentient species evolve on the same planet, there’s more similarity – in culture, behavior and physically, as well – than we’ve seen here. It’s almost as if we’re dealing with something alien out here.”

As it turned out we were dealing with something alien, but not in the way Murray meant. Between the people trussed up in that clearing we had over two hundred years of experience in a score of disciplines honed on over five dozen planets. None of it prepared us for what happened next.

A patch of bog a dozen metres away began to pulse with a glow usually reserved for the bioluminescence of a creature dwelling in a very deep ocean. The ground heaved, accompanied by a mucky sucking sound. The air seemed charged with ozone and a metallic taste filled my mouth. A leathery grey hand rose from the centre of the pulsing patch of earth, each of its eight long fingers ended in a dirt-crusted claw. A narrow, lanky arm followed the hand. Another hand and arm followed. Then another. In all, six spidery arms and hands reached out and dragged the creature from the ground.

Spindly and creased, it towered over us. Folds of seemingly mummified skin stretched over bones that looked as if they’d snap with any hint of pressure. Four fleshy legs coated in a layer of sickly yellow quills supported a torso that looked more insect than animal. Each leg ended in what looked like a cloven hoof.

Atop the torso was a tapered, scaly head. Filled with needle-like teeth, a vertical maw opened and closed with the same rhythmic pulse as the luminescent earth. Lining each side of the maw were four unblinking eyes, glassy as marbles and as black as space.

Head pivoting on a pencil-thin neck, the gaze of those eight eyes settled first on the captain, then on Murray.

Sounds, harsh and crisp, slid past all those wicked teeth. It sounded like the language of the villagers only with a hard edge, decidedly nastier.

Murray’s eyes grew wide. Clearing her throat, she answered in the natives’ language. Anticipating everyone’s unasked question, she supplied a translation.

“It asked me if I was the one who was good with language,” she said. “I told it I was.”

The creature rattled off more words and gestured toward the captain with half of its arms. Murray spoke considerably less. If a smile is possible on a vertical mouth, the thing grinned and made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all of us.

“It… it encourages me to translate everything. It seems interested in the captain. It wants to know if you are our chieftain, Captain Najafi. What should I tell it?”

Najafi sat taller. “Tell it that I am and I demand to be released. That all of us must be released. Now.”

Murray spoke the words. The top and bottom of the maw curled, showing mottled gums. A rapid string of words was followed by the clacking of the claws on one of the creature’s hands.

As Murray opened her mouth to translate, a ball of dark fur about a metre in diameter fell from one of the trees that surrounded the clearing. It landed silently, then chattered as dozens of hook-footed legs pushed out of the fur. The feet scuttled it closer to the captain. As it turned, the fur parted, revealing a thin-lipped mouth lined with broken, jagged fangs. It stopped just short of Najafi and snapped those teeth twice in her direction.

“It says… it says you will be freed, Captain. I’m assuming this other… lifeform is to free you.”

In a blur, the furred creature sped around the captain, snarling and snapping. Like a flea, it hopped back. The vines securing Najafi lay in tatters around her. Naked, she rose defiantly to her feet.

The spindly creature smacked its top two fists against its torso and spat a handful of words. Then it gestured to the ground in front of Najafi. The head pivoted to Murray.

“It says that it is chieftain of its people as you are of yours. It wants you to put on your… the word it used was the one the villagers use for the thin fibre wrap they wear, but I think it means your armor. It wants you to put on your armor.”

Captain Najafi glared at the creature.

“Specialist Murray, do you know the local vernacular for ‘go fuck yourself’? Tell it I do not take orders from aggressors.”

Murray swallowed, then spoke to the creature. It bobbed its head, curiously like a nod. It clacked its fingertips together.

From the darkened edge of the clearing, one of the shadows detached itself from the others and slid silently across the ground. As it grew closer the shadow coalesced, drawing darkness into itself and taking bipedal form. Featureless at first with tar-like glossy black skin, it took on approximately human proportions. On feet that didn’t seem to quite touch the ground, it strode over to Corporal Tsang. Silently, the shadow creature grabbed Tsang’s hair with one hand and peeled off his right ear with the other. As Tsang screamed, ink black fingers flung his ear to the ground. Before it landed, the furry creature skittered and leapt, catching the ear and devouring it with a snap and a snarl.

The chieftain spat some words at Murray.

“Captain,” she said, “it wants you to put on the armor. It says… it says that Corporal Tsang has lots of parts that might be ripped free if you decline.”

Najafi was already reaching for her breastplate. As she strapped on her armor, Najafi glared at the chieftain. After pulling on her helmet, she glanced at Murray.

“Fine. Now what does this son of a bitch want?”

Murray translated.

The chieftain pointed with half its hands at Captain Najafi’s rifle. It made a motion of grabbing and pulling. It spoke, but Murray hardly needed to translate.

“It is telling you to take your rifle.”

Najafi smiled, showing teeth.

“Big mistake.”

She casually walked toward her gun. At the last second she rolled, scooped up the rifle, knelt and fired. A burst – six or seven rapid shots – blasted the chieftain off all four feet. Najafi turned her sites on the shadow creature. Before she could fire it dissipated, like smoke caught in a sudden gust. In a heartbeat she sought and found the furred creature, firing a pair of shots at it as those dozens of tiny legs launched it into the foliage.

“Chew on that,” she said. “Keep calm, Corporal. I’ll have you all freed in a jif—”

The captain fell silent. A series of rapid huffs came from the prone chieftain. The huffs became louder and more frequent.

“Murray,” I said, “is that thing still alive? Is it having trouble breathing?”

Murray’s face was slack. She bit her lip and hung her head.

“It’s laughing. Jesus Christ, Ted, it’s laughing at us.”

The staccato of exhalations grew louder as the chieftain rose. All six of Najafi’s bullets had found their mark, leaving considerable holes in the creature’s carapace-like torso. Black ichor oozed from the wounds. When a viscous dollop hit the earth, the ground smouldered and the vegetation nearby withered. As we watched, the ichor congealed at the edges of the wounds, sealing them.

The chieftain raised all six arms. Now it sounded like laughter to all of us. The tapered head turned to Murray and barked a few words.

“We are tiny,” she translated. “Tiny and weak.”

Captain Najafi emptied her clip.

A standard issue assault rifle holds thirty-eight shots in its clip. Najafi was so close that the remaining thirty must all have struck true. Throughout the barrage, the chieftain stood its ground, all four legs bracing and straining against impact. When the echo of the last gunshot faded, amid the shifting smoke of gunpowder, impossibly the chieftain still stood.

Its torso, head and arms were a slaughterhouse of trauma. Like a hypnotised person, I watched slack-jawed as all of that trauma folded in on itself and healed. The chieftain laughed and barked a single word, then it launched itself at our captain.

Nanocarbonfibre armor – a miracle material that requires extreme temperature and special tools to cut – lay shredded on the ground. All of the claws on the ends of all of those fingers on each of those six arms surrounded Captain Najafi in a whirlwind of motion. Before Najafi began to scream, the chieftain stepped back to regard its handiwork with those eight hard eyes.

In less time than it took to shred her armor, the chieftain had flayed our captain. As I reflect, I like to think that shock took her, then and there, shielding her from the agony. I like to think that. I just wish I could believe it. I can’t. As she fell, I saw her eyes.

Before she hit the ground, a carpet of things rattled from the tall grass at the edge of the clearing. No two seemed exactly alike. Some slithered faster than any snake. Some scuttled, sideways and crablike. Others lurched, or crawled or scampered. However they moved, all were lightning fast and all shared a common goal.

The creatures converged on Captain Najafi, blanketing her in an undulating, writhing, nightmare mass. Her muffled screams ended, replaced by crunching and the unwholesome chewing sounds of a thousand tiny mouths. We sat in horrified silence until the mass of creatures swept back to the tall grass, moving across the ground like a blanket of cockroaches confronted by a sudden light.

Not content with simply eating Captain Najafi, the creatures left an oval depression where she had fallen, devouring every hint of her, down to the tiniest drop of blood that might have soaked into the soil.

When I looked at Murray, she was shaking. All of us were. From the IPLO and the mapmaker, to the battle-hardened soldiers, each of us wept. Corporal Tsang, his lost ear forgotten, stared at the shallow void where our captain had been. Next to him sat Private Verne and Private Jimenez. Too far apart for physical consolation, they stared at each other, trying to give emotional support. They tried to be brave, but their features betrayed them. Fear was winning.

I didn’t really know the next three privates. They’d rotated in a month ago, just before we’d been dropped on this world. I wish I could tell you their names and what sort of people they were in life. I can’t. I can only tell you they died as well as circumstances allowed, which wasn’t well at all. Terrified and crying and often on their knees, they begged for mercy from the merciless with exactly the results you’d expect.

Falstaff, segregated for no reason other than his equipment, suffered alone, waiting for what came next.

In a daze, I asked Murray a question.

She turned to me. “Wh-what?”

“Before… before what happened… the chieftain… it said something. It sounded like just one word.”

“I don’t want to say, Ted. Really. You don’t want to know.”

“Please. Share it, Lisa. Tell me and share it. What did that thing say just before it skinned our captain?”

“Jesus, Ted. I’ve only heard that word a couple of times among the indigenous people and only ever among the children.”

“The children…”

“Once in a while, one of the privates will share some chocolate ration or a cookie pack with one of the indigenous kids. That thing over there said the same word the children say when they’re anticipating a treat.”

“Share it, Lisa. What did that thing say just before it tore into Captain Najafi?”

“It said ‘yummy’.”

*   *   *

The chieftain refrained from dirtying its hands murdering any more of our number. Instead, it whooped and laughed and clapped as every few hours a fresh nightmare would detach itself from the shadows, slither from the grass, drop down from the trees, rise from the fetid swamp or crash from the jungle into the clearing. Starting with Corporal Tsang, these new creatures, each just as horrible and twisted as the next, worked their way down the line of soldiers. Twice, the kill was as swift as Captain Najafi. The rest were not so fortunate. One of the privates I didn’t know must have taken an hour to die, all the time tormented by a tentacled thing whose touch burned like acid.

Each time a new horror entered the clearing, the chieftain spoke to Murray. It told her the rest of us must watch. If we looked away, the shadowy thing reappeared and began slicing off pieces of the next person in line. When the last private finally died and was devoured, the chieftain strode across the clearing to Falstaff.

It took his face into one of its eight-fingered hands. It seemed to size him up, then looked down at his gear. It turned to Murray and spoke.

“It says you’re different from the other soldiers, Falstaff,” Murray said. “It is asking me why you wear armor but carry no weapon.”

The chieftain nudged the hammer and stakes with one of its hooves. Murray barked a long string of words.

“I just told it those aren’t weapons. That they’re used to mark location – territory is the word the indigenous people use. I told it you assist Ted, Falstaff. I don’t know what it wants.”

The chieftain approached me. The maw opened and closed as it drew near. The fingertip claws clacked with each step. It regarded me with those cold, glassy eyes. I felt like some scientific specimen wriggling on a pin. It levelled a claw in my direction and spoke at length with Murray.

She nodded at the end and took a deep breath.

“These creatures did take your camera and my voice recorder. When I asked it why it said, ‘So that we can relive the moments again and again after you are used up.’”

“Used up? Jesus…”

“I think ‘used up’ actually means ‘gone’ but I’m not entirely sure. Given what we’ve been through… It was very interested in why we are here. I explained as best I could. Then it wanted to know about you.”

I swallowed hard. “Me?”

“It says it wants to talk to you about your maps.”

The furry creature with all the legs and the snapping teeth dropped from the trees and sped toward me. I felt hot breath as it snarled and circled me, freeing me from the vines amid a tornado of flashing, broken ivory. As it scuttled a few metres away, it clacked its teeth at me.

The chieftain crouched and placed a fingertip beneath my chin. It lifted my head so I would have to look into its maw as it spoke. After a dozen or so words, it seemed to smile and released my chin.

“It wants you to be cooperative. If… if you aren’t… the Shadowman will hurt me.”

I nodded. “Tell it that I’ll do as I’m told.”

“Fuck that,” yelled Falstaff. “It’s just going to kill us all as soon as it gets what it wants. Don’t you dare help it, Ted.”

The Shadowman appeared behind Falstaff and silently reached toward his ear.

“Stop!” I raised a hand and pointed at the chieftain. To my surprise, the Shadowman actually hesitated. “Don’t you dare let that thing hurt him. Lisa, tell it if that… that Shadowman lays a finger on Falstaff there’s no way in hell I’ll do what it wants.”

Alien words tumbled frantically from Lisa’s mouth. The chieftain laughed and dismissively waved three of its hands. The Shadowman drifted back a few metres, but like a bad dream didn’t dissipate entirely.

I dipped my head to the chieftain. “Thank you,” I said. “Falstaff, please stay quiet. I think the Shadowman behind you is just itching to rip you apart the next time you open your mouth. Lisa, what does it want from me?”

The chieftain gathered my maps and rolled them out on the ground. It placed different bits of our gear on the corners to keep the papers from curling up. Murray translated back and forth as we spoke.

“These are pictures of this world?” the chieftain said.

“Yes. I’ve shown where there’s water and land. This shade of green is the jungle. Villages are marked. These lines are elevation – how high or low the land goes. See?”

A crusted talon tapped a dot on the map.

“This place here. That is the village of Chokohn, yes?”

I nodded. “It is. You know of Chokohn? Of his village?”

“I visit him in his dreams.” The smile appeared on the maw. “In his nightmares.” The chieftain’s other hands moved to all the other village dots on all three maps. “I visit them all in their nightmares. They know better than to come out here looking for us. I am surprised old Chokohn did not warn you to stay away.”

We all lowered our heads. Understanding the gesture, the chieftain laughed.

“He is a wise man. You should always listen to wise men. Wise men know this territory–” one of its hands spread out over the blank area of the map that represented where we were “–all of this territory belongs to me and mine. We have now taught you – as we once taught their ancestors – this place is not for you. Like their ancestors, we shall allow some of you to go so that you may pass down the notion that this is an unpleasant place to visit.” It tapped the map, then pointed at me. “We let you go specifically to mark that on your picture. A warning that your people may be wise enough to heed. A warning so your people will always know what awaits them when foolish enough to come this way.”

The chieftain rose, clacking its fingertips twice. The furry creature whirled around Murray, then Falstaff, freeing them both. We all stood naked in the clearing. The chieftain turned to leave, then hesitated. It clacked its fingers one last time. The Shadowman appeared at Falstaff’s side, seized his left hand and twisted off his little finger. As Falstaff slumped to his knees, holding his hand to staunch the bleeding, the chieftain spoke its last words.

“Do as I ask,” it said, “or I shall send the Shadowman for the rest of them.”

Dropping to my knees, I scrambled to open the case that held my pens. I outlined the area the chieftain had indicated in black and crosshatched the edges of the lines for emphasis. With a trembling hand, I made the notation.

“What have you written?” Murray asked.

“The only thing that makes sense,” I told her. “Here There Be Monsters.”

Unborn

Justin Bell

Against the indigo sky, the black shape drifted southwest, hovering close to the treetops, the only identification a soft, whooshing thumpthumpthumpthump of nearly-silent helicopter blades. The converted Bell 412 utility copter bore no markings and was swathed in flat black, no indication of any military affiliation. The model 412 was chosen because it was not in active use by the United States military, and this offered one more step of deniability, a steep staircase of them down into the basement where the Shadows did their dirty work. The Shadows themselves were not connected in any official way to any world government or military institution, they were all independent contractors who worked together in an unofficial capacity. Their success rate was almost as impressive as their secrecy.

Chuck McLeod leaned out of the front cockpit of the 412, glaring down into a swallowing blackness revealing no shapes, lights, or hint of what lay below.

He flipped a switch on his headset and opened his broadcast to all channels. “At 2215 hours tonight, a military cargo train was lost from radar.” McLeod was reviewing the opened folder in front of him, held on his lap and flipped like a book. “The contents of this train are Classified Top Secret, and apparently we do not have a ‘need to know’.” Leaning back in his co-pilot seat, he thought of his kids, and the visitation he was supposed to have tomorrow morning. He truly hoped this was a quick op, but if they’d called in the Shadows, those chances were minimal.

“Mates, we are almost on site. We are the first responders. We take this clean, we take this quick, and most importantly, we take this quiet! Understood?” The sharp stab of McLeod’s British accent had been dulled by his ten years in America, but still poked through here and there.

The echo of shouted approvals came back at him through low static in his headset.

“Wilcox, proceed to two o’clock, then set us down,” he pointed through the windscreen to a small clearing, just becoming visible up ahead. On the fringe of the cast spotlight, a train car could be seen upright, but angular and twisted, the signature posture of being pulled off the tracks.

The dark aircraft lowered to the ground, long grass blowing apart in a reverse whirlpool, flattening into circles as the whipping blades set their cargo down gently. The wheels touched earth, and black shadows leaped from the cargo area striking the ground in near silence, moving out from the helicopters in well-choreographed fashion.

“Shadows, fan out!” barked McLeod. They spread out from the aircraft then stopped, forming a rough circular perimeter, weapons trained, night vision engaged, still and waiting.

“Landry, you and Wilcox fall back on me, we’re checking out that train. Tree, Inman, you have the perimeter. Keep an eye open, we’re still not quite sure what we’re dealing with here.”

Landry and Wilcox walked low and quick, joining McLeod on each hip, keeping crouched, the long grass snaking up above their knees. The two men and one woman held modified M4 Carbines tucked tight into their shoulders, tactical grip near the front barrel and advanced night sight mounted to the top of the weapon. A cylindrical sound suppressor was firmly attached to each barrel, creating a long, unbalanced weapon for which each well-trained operative was able to compensate. They wore black combat togs with a Molle tactical vest, hooked with several straps around the torso, pouches stuffed with extra ammunition. “Watchtower, this is Ground Team Alpha. The site is secure.” Motioning with his left hand, McLeod directed his two teammates to circle the train, weapons at the ready. The engine was upright, but pulled diagonal on the tracks, its rear wheels barely touching the metal rails as the front side leaned at a 45-degree angle as if a petulant child had kicked it out of frustration. The second car was leaning more steeply, nearly on its side, only held slightly upright by its connection to the engine itself. The third car stood upright, but slightly cockeyed, tipped as if it weighed ounces and not tons. Twisting, the rear car was almost the opposite of the lead car, pulled at a sharp angle in the opposite direction, its back wheels actually pulled up off the rails. McLeod focused his attention on the third car because nearly three-quarters of the entire side of that car was missing.

Layers of metal were pulled apart, peeled and folded back against the train car revealing a jagged, torn cave at the side. Cast in a wide arc from the ragged hole were several broken shards of various materials, most of which appeared to have come from some kind of containment cage inside the train car itself.

“Jesus,” McLeod muttered as he approached.

“Repeat that Ground Team Alpha?” a voice responded in his headset.

McLeod flipped on a tactical light below the gun barrel and raised the weapon in a firing stance, casting an eerie glow across the ground outside the car.

“What happened here, Watchtower?” McLeod asked, nervously casting his gaze across the wrecked train. “What are we after?”

“Need to know,” came the abrupt reply.

McLeod squinted, the only part of his face not covered by the knit balaclava pulled tight and tucked into the layered turtleneck of his commando sweater.

“Uhh... you want us to secure the area, Watchtower. We need to know what we’re securing it against.”

On a stretch of railway between New London and New Haven, Connecticut something had forced this train off the tracks, and it was only by sheer luck it had happened in a rural area. Here the tracks were surrounded by trees and rolling green meadows instead of brick and concrete buildings. Things were playing at least somewhat in their favor. That could change quickly.

“Affirmative, Ground Team Alpha. Advise we have representatives en route. They’ll be arriving in approximately fifteen.”

“Understood, Watchtower. What do you advise we do until then?” Fucking spooks. While he had been with the SAS, McLeod had dealt with his share of spy weenies, mostly from MI6, but these Americans had a special arrogance about them that rubbed him all sorts of the wrong way.

“Keep your eyes open, Ground.”

Click. The channel went silent.

“McLeod!” came a hushed voice from the closed channel. It sounded like Landry.

“Coming.” McLeod walked forward, “Team, report.”

“Tree, standing by.”

“Inman, ready.”

“Berger, five by five.”

“Williamson, here.”

“Schmidt, I’m here.”

“Landry, check.”

“Wilcox, ready.”

Everyone present and accounted for. McLeod didn’t know what was going on here, but something had vacated that train car post haste, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to meet what did it down a dark alley. Or the dark woods of rural Connecticut.

“What do we have inside?” he asked as he approached Landry and Wilcox.

“Take a look,” Wilcox replied, gesturing inside.

McLeod pulled his weapon from his shoulder and tucked it back into firing position, shining his white light into the car. He blinked several times into the darkness, trying to make sense of the scene inside. The interior of the car looked like the aftermath of a particularly focused and fierce tornado. Firmly attached to the floor of the train car was an empty metallic square, resembling a base or junction point attaching what would have been a containment unit of some sort. There was no unit visible, just the barrage of shattered glass and other material inside and outside the battered car. It had obviously been built to keep something inside.

It had failed.

Mixed within the sprayed explosion of broken polymer were scatterings of off-white shards, a different material than the containment unit itself, far thinner and broken into much larger chunks, fewer in number.

“What the fuck is it?” asked Landry, his own goggles pulled down over his eyes as if they might add some insight.

“According to Watchtower, we gotta wait thirteen more minutes to find out.” McLeod lowered his weapon and turned back toward the wooded area near where the helicopters had landed. Beyond the mound of curved metal of the modified Bell, McLeod could barely make out the lights of civilization. It was a lot closer than he liked.

“I gotta be honest,” McLeod said, “I’m not loving this situation.”

As if karma was just waiting for this admission, the moment the words came out of his mouth, all hell broke loose.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy SHIT!”

McLeod stopped cold. He had heard the voice simultaneously in his headset and over the cool night air.

“What the fuck was that?” came the next voice. The shouts were abrupt and high pitched, and McLeod couldn’t nail down who was saying what. Silenced thumps of automatic fire echoed in his ears, and he threw himself into a dead run, pounding over the long grass between the fallen train car and the treeline ahead.

“Landry and Wilcox, on my six!” he shouted, and the other two broke off, charging after him.

“Williamson! Report!” As he ran, he flipped the night vision goggles down over his eyes, casting the area in front of him in a transparent green haze. Off in the distance, he could see the vague thermal forms of his team as they dashed maniacally through the trees, swinging their weapons around at what appeared to be nothing at all.

*   *   *

Williamson backpedaled, his weapon pulled tight as a vague shape charged sideways in front of him. His night vision hadn’t picked it up, and he had barely heard it before it charged from the trees at him and Berger.

Stopping his backward motion, he lifted his weapon and trailed the shape as it crashed through the trees and flattened the grass. Pulling on the trigger in four swift strokes, the M4 bucked in his grip and sent gunfire searing through the trees and grass, but it slammed harmlessly into the soft ground, with one last round careening noisily off of a rock.

“Dammit!”

The woods were silent.

“McLeod, this is Williamson. We’re here. But something else is here, too.”

“I’m on approach!”

*   *   *

About fifteen yards away, Tree and Inman walked between the thick trees, their own weapons raised and drifting back and forth, covering their immediate vicinity.

“What do you see, Inman?” Tree asked, his eyes narrowed behind the night vision goggles.

“Two things: jack and shit,” he snarled, taking each step slow and calculating.

“What the fuck were they screaming about?” Tree asked in a hushed voice. His heart was pounding underneath his thick vest. Tree was once a squad leader in Delta Force and had dealt with all manner of shit during his time there, but he was used to threats on two legs, not four. And whatever Williamson had seen hadn’t sounded human.

The night had drawn suddenly still, quiet, and very, very cold. Tree raised a swift left hand, palm facing out, and Inman halted, regulating his breathing. A pale white moon hung high in the sky, only three-quarters full, so the vague glow it shone upon the dark trees was low and dull. There was the slightest rustle of branches ten feet forward and to their right.

“Fuck me,” Inman groused. His finger tensed on the trigger. Unlike many of his teammates, Inman had never been in the military. He had been a contractor since day one, drifting through law enforcement for a few years before taking hold with an overseas security company. In the end, he’d served a decade through various locations in the Middle East and gotten his pedigree. To some, his lack of a military background made him tougher to control, but to others, that same lack of protocol set him a little more free.

The entire forest seemed to be dipped in black paint and as quiet as a tomb. The brief rustling started, then stopped. Through the green fuzz of his night vision, he saw three of his squad mates pushing forward amid the trees in a neat, organized formation, covering the distance of these dark woods. Farther away, the other three approached slowly, weapons at a slight downward angle as they drew near.

Tree halted his forward motion and extended his arm. “Hold up.”

Inman froze. He heard no noise. He felt no breeze. Everything just stopped cold.

“You smell that?” Tree asked, a trace of disgust dripping from his words.

Inman sniffed, then screwed up his nose in a repulsed snarl. “What the hell?”

Tree stepped forward carefully. “How close to the ocean are we?”

Inman followed, their weapons moving in calculated motions, covering the empty space where the other couldn’t. “Not very. Not close enough to be smelling that.”

It was a dank, saltwater smell. The stink of low tide where the ocean had pulled away, leaving slime-covered seaweed behind like the trail of a mammoth slug. It was a unique and distinctive smell and felt entirely out of place here in the woods, even if the ocean was only about 20 miles south.

Just ahead, the trees shuffled again, a pushing sound, low to the ground.

The two men stopped walking, and both of their rifles swung instantaneously to the source of the sound. Through the night vision, there was a rippling fog of something... but not something they could easily make out.

“You see that?” Inman asked.

“Yup,” Tree replied. “Can’t tell you what that is, though.”

*   *   *

Twenty feet away, McLeod came up to Williamson and Berger, who were still crouch-walking through the wooded area, weapons trained.

“What did you see, Duck?” McLeod asked, using Williamson’s nickname. His long gray beard and penchant for wearing camouflage, even when not on duty, had earned him the nickname after reality show Duck Dynasty.

“It moved quick,” he replied. “Too quick to get a trace on. Real low to the ground, and fucking fast as shit.”

“Which way did it go?”

Williamson jerked his rifle barrel forwards, directing it vaguely towards where Tree and Inman were walking. McLeod opened the channel in his headset.

“Careful boys, something might be coming your way.”

*   *   *

Inman took a cautious step forward, glaring down toward the formless green blob near the ground. Without warning, a flare of orange lit up the night vision, like a cooled oven flaring to life. A brown blur leapt from its place on the grass, scorching through the air and screaming. Oh god, the screaming.

“Jesus!” Tree stumbled backward, swiveling his weapon even as the brown blur struck Inman full on in the chest, knocking him backwards and sending his rifle spiraling from suddenly relaxed fingers.

Inman screamed, scrambling with the strange creature on top of him. “Shoot it! Shoot it! Fucking shoot it!”

“Dammit, Inman get free!” Tree shouted, tracing the rolling, intertwined bodies with his automatic, his fingers tightly clutching the front grip. “Shadows, converge! This thing’s got Inman!”

*   *   *

Eric Inman thrashed and shouted as the large form brought its full weight down on top of him, knocking him to the ground. With fifteen years of hand-to-hand combat experience, Inman was a certified self-defense instructor, but the creature was suddenly striking from everywhere. Claws slashed across his ribcage, shredding his tactical vest, snarling through the cloth of his commando sweater, and tearing ragged grooves in his skin. A massive object struck at his head and shoulders, slamming repeatedly, and at first the Shadow thought the creature was head butting him, but then he realized it was some sort of tail reaching up from behind it like a scorpion, coiling, and punching at him. Both the claws and the tail were secondary, though... the real threat was the teeth. Scores of needle like fangs which chomped relentlessly on his left shoulder and face, then struggled for his neck. A sudden and unrelenting barrage of pin picks over and over and over...

*   *   *

“Jesus Christ it’s fucking killing him!” shouted Tree, keeping his weapon trained on the carnage, but not knowing how to proceed. “Permission to engage!”

“Is Inman clear?” came the frantic reply as McLeod dashed through the trees, coming up on Tree’s right.

“Negative! But if we don’t do something, it won’t matter!”

McLeod drew up to a shuddering halt, his eyes peeling wide. Grasping his goggles he yanked them from his face and tossed them aside, staring down at the horrific site on the ground. Eric Inman wasn’t as much a man as he was a ravaged clump of skin and muscle, a strange brown form straddling him, thrashing back and forth. Shreds of skin flew as the creature snapped its head to the left, tearing and ripping at what was certainly Inman’s fresh corpse.

“Open fire!” McLeod shouted. “Weapons free!”

All seven gun barrels erupted at once, sparks and smoke spitting in whispered barks. Outside the forest, the sound was non-existent, but within these close confines the rapid thumpthumpthump of silenced automatic fire was almost deafening.

The entire process lasted for only a minute. All seven rifles clicked to a halt, magazines expended, the small area of trees quiet again. Down at their feet, the brown creature laid on its side, smoke spiraling from its still form, a dark wet grime starting to soak the flesh of the critter, staining the fur overcoat with a red shadow.

Fur was an overstatement. The main body of the creature was a slick sinewy smoothness, glistening in the low moonlight. It was less fur than what looked like a thin growth of mold over the body of the strange looking animal, small thatches of fuzz sprouting from uneven clumps. Its body was long and slender, pulled tight across a cascading, rippling ribcage, the thin, slick flesh no longer rising with breath. Over its haunches, the skin became a thick tail, splayed over the flat grass, and curled into a ‘C’ shape behind the fallen thing. It had four legs, short, but muscular, rounded off with broad, fur covered paws, jagged talons poking through at each rounded toe shape. Across the front haunches, leading up towards the head, the small thatches of mold-like fuzz twisted together into spaghetti strands of hair, linking up and joining, curling up onto the rounded shape of the monster’s skull. Its snout was slender but somewhat elongated, longer than a wild dog, but shorter than a crocodile, and even with its spacious mouth closed, dozens of needle-prick teeth were jutting out in various angled directions. Thin strands of flesh and red gristle still clung tightly in between them, nestled in the crevices of the sharp protrusions of bone.

“Jesus jumped up motherfucking Christ,” hissed Williamson. They were the only words spoken. Perhaps the only ones that could be spoken.

The night had fallen silent with the revelation of this strange five-foot long creature; something out of nightmares and horror movies, something that didn’t – couldn’t – exist in a world they also lived in. McLeod’s mind couldn’t rationalize what he was seeing, and even as a layman, he could think of several different laws of biology being broken here. These puzzle pieces did not fit together, yet some tenacious kid had crammed them together anyway, and bonded them with genetic super glue.

A low whipping sound rolled over the cool night air. McLeod cast one last look at the red and mangled wreckage that used to be Eric Inman, now almost entirely concealed by the fallen beast, a mercy to the rest of the team who wanted to remember their teammate the way he was, not the way this thing had left him. Turning, Chuck squinted out toward the cloudy night sky and could just make out the faded, undulating shape of a third Bell 412 helicopter, flat black and unmarked.

“Fucking great timing,” snarled Tree, his usual good cheer considerably soured.

Wind whipped around McLeod as he marched solemnly, his narrow eyes focused on the helicopter as its door opened and a trio of men in slick white hazmat suits slid free, landing smoothly on the ground. A fourth man exited shortly after, wearing a black commando sweater and cargo pants, but no tactical gear, and sporting a thin pair of wire frame glasses under a thick carpet of dark hair.

“McLeod?” he asked, shouting lightly over the whipping of the helicopter blades.

Chuck continued his determined walk forward.

“How did you make out?” the newcomer in glasses began.

Chuck brought his fist around in a tight arc. The punch smashed into the man’s left cheek, caving in the flesh and spinning him clumsily off balance. He caught himself with one hand against the metallic body of the helicopter and turned to face his attacker. His glasses dangled from one ear, a raw gash marred his cheek, and twin trickles of blood snaked from the corner of his snarling mouth.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked as McLeod took two more steps towards him.

“That thing killed one of my men, asshole,” McLeod growled. But he stood his ground. He figured he was owed one clean punch, but if he pushed it, this dude could push back. Only he likely had more weight behind his pushes.

The man in black straightened, plucking his glasses from his ear and repositioning them on his face. “Sorry to hear that.” He extended his hand – an offering of truce – but Chuck didn’t take it. He figured not beating on the guy again was friendly greeting enough. “You can call me Blaine,” the man in black said, lowering his hand.

Blaine continued his forward progress, coming up behind the three men in lab gear, and Chuck picked up his own pace to match.

“We’re not fucking animal control, Blaine,” he spat.

“Good thing. What we’ve got here is barely an animal.”

Just beyond the clearing, the scientists had made it near to the train. Over where the torn metal splayed out from the boxcar two of them stopped and began removing equipment. The third drifted to the right, approaching McLeod’s men, where they were still collected by the monster that lay draped over their fallen friend.

McLeod and Blaine approached the group, and Williamson sneered.

“I can’t wait to hear this one,” he said, his mouth snarling beneath the long, tangled beard.

“Fucking A,” Berger followed up. “I knew we should have brought the goddamned rocket launcher.”

McLeod was surprised to see that Schmidt was holding his pistol, his fist curled tightly around it, and even in the low light of the moon, McLeod thought the safety just might have been switched off. If ole Blaine here didn’t come up with some good answers soon, things might get worse long before they got better.

“Talk to us,” McLeod replied.

“You got it? You killed it?”

From his angle, McLeod was sure Blaine couldn’t quite make out what lay in the grass at everyone’s feet, but seemed reluctant to walk much closer.

“Fuck yeah, we got it,” replied Schmidt.

Blaine nodded, almost looking disappointed. “Walk with me,” he said to McLeod, and they continued on towards the train. At the rectangular boxcar, the two scientists knelt in the dirt, looking at the broken pieces McLeod has seen earlier.

They slowed and halted next to the torn apart boxcar, Blaine’s eyes scoping the area like the hero in an old school spy movie before revealing his top secret plan.

“We called you in because of the sensitivity of this situation. Something I know you can appreciate,” he said in a low whisper.

“I get it,” McLeod replied.

“What you’ve got here... it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time. It was never supposed to get out.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we caught it when we did,” McLeod replied tersely.

“Agent Blaine?” one of the scientists was looking up at the two men, lifting his gloved hand in a half-wave.

“What is it?” Blaine replied, walking over.

McLeod followed him and now, for the first time, he could see the scientist had tweezers, and one of the broken pieces of containment unit was clasped between the tongs.

“At first we thought these pieces were broken pieces of the cage our friend escaped from,” said the scientist, standing as he carefully held out the tweezers at arm’s length.

“Okay?” Blaine asked, obviously not quite following.

“They’re not. They’re broken pieces of…”

There was a moment of silence. Some sort of strange contemplation.

“Of what?” Blaine asked, insistent.

“Uhhh... egg, sir. They appear to be pieces of an egg.”

The night grew quieter. McLeod was pretty sure the only place with less noise right now was the surface of the moon.

“I don’t understand,” Blaine replied.

The third scientist approached, looking stricken and pale. “Agent Blaine?”

McLeod stood watching this entire exchange. He could almost guess the next words that were spoken.

“This isn’t our subject.”

“Tell me that again,” Blaine replied, and McLeod saw a thin layer of sweat start to glisten at the man’s hairline.

“This creature... it appears to be an offspring.”

“How is that even possible?” Blaine demanded.

“We don’t have all the data, sir—”

“You don’t have the fucking data? God dammit!”

The shout’s echo hung, a dozen other voices yelling back across the wooded terrain.

“So what now?” he turned to ask the scientist.

“Uh, boss?”

McLeod looked up to Landry’s voice as the man walked slowly towards him, a phone in hand. “You may want to look at this.” McLeod snatched it, looked at it then closed his eyes.

“What now?” he asked softly. “Here’s what now.”

Turning the phone, so it’s face was pointing at Blaine, he thrust it forward. The mobile version of CNN looked back at the two men, headline thick and bold:

BREAKING:

CORPSES FOUND NEAR CENTRAL PARK. SUSPECTED WILD ANIMAL ON THE LOOSE

McLeod watched as Blaine closed his eyes and drew a deep, rattling breath then turned to his men. “Shadows, let’s load up! This job ain’t done. We’re goin’ to the big smoke!”

*   *   *

This was a new sensation, even for Williamson, who was the eldest member of the Shadows. His legs hung out the opened cargo door of the black Bell 412 as it swung gracefully downward, then banked slightly, adjusted and swooped forward, skimming past the New York City skyline. Combat operation in the Big Apple... who’d a thunk it?

“Blaine,” barked the Shadows team leader from the co-pilot seat of the same chopper Williamson sat in.

“We are moving West toward 116th Street, please advise our path is still cleared by the FAA?”

“Affirmative, McLeod, you are cleared.”

“Roger. ETA is four minutes.” On his lap McLeod held a folder with a number of images inside, quickly gathered-together briefings for this operation. Besides a marked map of Central Park itself, there were a few images of a live version of the creature they had killed in rural Connecticut. Dead snake-like eyes glaring at whoever was taking the picture, the elongated snout curling, thick pasta strands of hair stretching down over its head and front haunches. Muscles bulged just beneath the smooth, reptilian skin, membranes of thick sinew stretching at the crook of its legs and torso. Its ribs almost looked to fold in upon itself, a long tail behind it. Tufts of thin hair were scattered about the smooth body, but barely covered the gray-green slime of its skin’s surface.

This thing hadn’t been born. Oh hell no – it had been made. Mankind tempting fate and playing with Mother Nature. Now Mother Nature was playing back.

Central Park was coming up on the south, and he could feel the helicopter drifting downwards.

McLeod reached into one of the pockets of his tactical vest and peeled out a small, crinkled piece of paper, unfolding it as the city lights converged into yellow-white streams all around him. He looked down into the eyes of his two children, who looked up at him adoringly from one of the few photographs he had of them. Tomorrow began his weekend with them, and it had taken a lot of convincing to get Julia to agree to that. If he missed this chance, he might just blow this whole shared custody thing completely.

He traced his index finger over their innocent faces; faces which would hopefully never know the horror of the thing he just saw. If he had his way, nobody would ever see that thing or anything like it again.

“Bringing us in!” shouted Wilcox back to the cargo bay. Agent Blaine sat there alongside Williamson, Landry, Schmidt, Berger, and Tree – the five of them clutching their M4 Carbine automatic weapons, still fitted with the silencers and infrared scopes. The atmosphere was dead serious. McLeod was convinced that no matter what else happened tonight, everyone on this operation would sleep a little less soundly from here on.

Nightmares were real, and they had lots of fucking nasty teeth.

Tilting at an angle, the black helicopter eased toward the north side of Central Park where several emergency vehicles had set up a rudimentary perimeter. As the helicopter drifted to the ground, Craig ‘Duck’ Williamson, couldn’t help but wonder just how this creature had made it this far... it wasn’t like Central Park was around the corner from New Haven, Connecticut. And nobody had seen this creature slinking along interstate 95 on its way south?

The helicopter set down on the concrete sidewalk just off West 110th Street, the officers clutching their hats to keep them from flying off from the circular whirlwind of the helicopter blades.

“Never seen animal control piloting one of those mother fuckers before!” shouted one of them as he stared out through the blowing dust.

The moment the wheels touched down, black shapes hurled from the copter in well-choreographed motion, hitting the ground and running in formation deeper inside. The North Woods section of Central Park was thick and solid, a wall of trees concealing the deeper side of the park from the metropolitan hustle and bustle, and the Shadows immediately moved towards that tree growth, weapons pulled tight, safeties off and night vision goggles swung over their eyes. As soon as they hit the trees, the cityscape seemed to jolt away. It didn’t fade, it just abruptly halted, as if a mute button was thumbed just as they crossed the perimeter into the wooded area.

“Fan out,” McLeod said softly.

The other Shadows acknowledged and did so. To his left, Tree and Schmidt veered east, while Williamson and Berger peeled away and traveled west. Landry came up on McLeod’s six, continuing their path due south.

*   *   *

To the east, Tree approached the edge of the small forest, his weapon trained into the empty area beyond, his heart a rapid hammer as if pounding down the wall of his ribs.

“Clear so far,” he whispered, then stopped.

“What is it?” Schmidt’s finger tensed by the trigger of his automatic.

“I... I’m not sure.”

Dan Tree was a well-oiled military machine, back from his Delta days, though he did sometimes struggle with orders. It wasn’t his skills that had gotten him escorted from the Special Forces, it was an attitude issue and the fact there was very little he took seriously.

This situation he was taking quite seriously indeed.

“Something’s here,” he said. His eyes adjusted slightly to the green fuzz of night vision, but he pulled them closed, focusing instead on his other senses. He couldn’t hear anything outside the normal nocturnal noises, but there was something tingling... something familiar. “You smell that?” he asked, remaining frozen in place.

Schmidt remained stock still, his weapon pointing further east toward Untermyer Fountain. The woods were abundant throughout this area near The Loch, a thickly wooded swimming and recreational area that had been cleared out by the authorities after the bodies were discovered.

“I can’t smell shit,” Schmidt whispered back. He took a few careful steps. “Night vision’s got nothing either.”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“How do you mean?”

“Central Park. It should be lousy with critters. Past few moments, I haven’t seen a single thing on the ground.”

Schmidt considered this. “What about our big boy? Even if the critters are gone, he’d be there, wouldn’t he?”

“She.”

“Huh?” Schmidt asked.

“It’s a she. Remember? We killed her kid.”

Schmidt shook his head. “Fucking women.”

To their west, the trees jerked suddenly and violently, their leafy tops whipping like a teenage boy shaking his hair dry after a shower. Scores of airborne nocturnal creatures screeched and soared into the starry sky.

“Fuck me!” shouted Schmidt, spinning swiftly to his right, finger curling tight around the trigger. Tree followed the motion, tracking his own weapon on a similar arc.

Forest grew thick around them, forcing them to squeeze between trunks and navigate around roots. They both stood still and waited for a moment, listening for any motion. Once again a strong stench drifted past Tree’s nose, forcing its way up into his nostrils – an acrid smell that he could almost taste.

They both took two cautious steps forward then Tree stopped again, dropping to one knee. Schmidt sensed it and spun, his eyes flying wide.

“What is wrong with you—”

He didn’t finish. As he stared back at the former Delta Force operative, he could make out a shape stretching behind the man. A shifting of shadows, nothing more, but clearly visible. It didn’t show up on night vision, but through the distortion of the night air, he could see it. The rounded head, long snout, the telltale spaghetti snakes of tendril hair coiling around its haunches.

“Oh, God,” Schmidt whispered. Suddenly the man with the hot trigger finger couldn’t even lift his weapon.

“What?” asked Tree, his own eyes widening.

“Don’t... don’t move,” Schmidt whispered, raising his weapon inch by cautious inch.

The acrid smell wasn’t just a blowing breeze, it was a full-force gale, charging into Tree’s nose with a spoiled seaweed punch, salty and rotten. Tears formed at the corners of his squinting eyes. For once, Tree was speechless. For once, his face had no smile. Schmidt lifted his weapon, tucked it into his shoulder, careful and quiet, making no swift motions. The creature behind his teammate tensed as if in preparation for a strike. Standing just behind and to Tree’s left, its massive shoulder actually pushed aside one of the narrow trunks, shifting the leaves on top.

Dan Tree heard the rhythmic sounds of huffed breathing at his back, a dry patterned snort and blast of hot air leaving gooseflesh underneath his tactical gear. He felt the shape behind him tense slightly, recoiling.

Then it lunged.

Schmidt had managed to get his weapon level, his eyes down toward the scope, the barrel directed just above Tree’s left shoulder. This new shape stood above the kneeling operative, and the gunner actually thought he saw the slick, smooth skin coil around muscle just before the creature charged. But instead of taking down Tree who was right there, the monster detected Schmidt as the greater threat and leapt forward, knocking the kneeling man aside like a top heavy bag of apples.

“Shit!” Schmidt yelled as the creature became airborne and hurtled toward him, heavy, wet snorts blowing steam from the nostrils perched atop its snout. He had time to pull off a swift barrage of silenced gunfire, but couldn’t even tell if he’d hit the target before the four-legged thing was on top of him, its mouth pulling wide, stretching slick saliva between needle teeth. Breath flew from his lungs as he was hit full on and knocked backward, just keeping his feet, his rifle swinging toward the sky and unloading the rest of the magazine purely by muscle reflex. The large beast clamped its jaws fiercely shut, pounding fangs through cloth, skin, and muscle, puncturing the flesh at Schmidt’s left clavicle, squeezing like a vice. Jaw-clamping force was so strong, it broke bone and closed inside the rugged muscle of the pectoral, squeezing and shooting blood out from piercing wounds.

Tree stared as the creature whipped its head back, throwing chunks of gristle into the sky, Schmidt’s blank stare looking out from fallen night vision goggles as his head lolled uselessly to the right, most of the neck muscles chewed away. Tactical gear was reduced to tatters, his upper left torso a ruined, red soaked mess as he dropped to the ground, his arm flopping, and his weapon clattering.

“Dammit!” was all Tree could shout as he brought up his own weapon and blasted full auto at the gray shape as it came down on his unfortunate teammate again. The creature bucked as muffled thumps barked, and Tree was sure he saw a few puffs of dark gore spurt from wounds across the beast’s left side, but it didn’t seem to notice. Muscles shifted under the slimy, hair-patched skin, and suddenly the large tree-trunk tail lashed out like a whip and slammed Tree in the chest, knocking him back, his rifle flying. Then the large, four-legged animal turned, snarled, and charged.

*   *   *

Williamson jerked his head left, his long gray beard shifting under the night vision gear strapped to his face. He’d heard Schmidt’s tell-tale shout, and in the mostly quiet night, even the silenced punches of machine gun fire were audible to his well-trained ears.

“We got trouble, Bergs!” he shouted.

“I heard it too, Duck. Southeast!”

The two men pulled their weapons in tight and dashed toward the source of the sound.

*   *   *

“Shit!”

THUD THUD THUD THUD

“Dammit!”

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD

Chuck McLeod heard it all, both in his earpiece and in the air itself, and it was the sound of men – his men – dying.

“Landry, on me! We’re heading south, now!”

In his earpiece, he could hear the muffled shouts of Dan Tree, who had stared death in the face a hundred times and always came out smiling. McLeod had run several dozen operations with Tree as his second hand, and he’d never heard any sense of hopelessness or desperation in his voice. But that ‘dammit’ and those muffled shouts he was hearing now... he’d be hearing them in his sleep.

If he survived, of course.

Digging deep, he tried to shut out the noises he had just heard as he and Landry charged forward into the trees.

*   *   *

‘Duck’ Williamson drew up slightly, slowing his pace from a run to a low jog. Up ahead, he saw a few thick trees bowed out slightly, and the huddled shape at the base of one of them looked unfortunately familiar. As the old man of the Shadows team, Williamson had seen plenty of dead bodies, and they had their own unique posture. He could identify a corpse from several yards away, and he knew damn well he was looking at one now. Then as he drew closer, he saw the second.

“Son of a bitch,” Berger said from his right as the man joined him. “I’m going to stuff a grenade up that things ass and pull the fucking pin.”

Kneeling, Williamson investigated the wreckage that was once Dan Tree. The man was slumped at an odd angle, his spine twisted unnaturally, and the tree behind him, a thick oak, was splintered where it looked like his body struck at incredible velocity. Blood had pooled on his lips from internal injuries and smeared down his smoothly-shaven face that had always held some kind of smile. His eyes were open and staring off into the empty darkness, a darkness no doubt blacker and emptier than their Central Park surroundings, which were cast in the pallor of the New York City skyline. It was indeed the city that never sleeps.

“McLeod, this is Berger and Duck. We found our boys. They’re gone.”

Silence from other end.

“Believe subject has continued south. We are moving to engage,” continued Berger.

“Take it slow. Me and Landry are close behind, don’t do anything stupid.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Williamson added.

“I know who I’m talking to, Duck. Easy. Take it fucking easy. My life is too busy to get to five funerals. Three will be bad enough.” It was an attempt at levity, but it didn’t feel very funny.

“I’m coming up on North Meadow, just north of the reservoir,” continued Williamson. “Things are clear, there’s no place to hide—” the words were barely uttered in McLeod’s headset before they were choked off into a gasp and muffled curse.

“Williamson?”

“Fucker’s huge,” Williamson responded. He didn’t sound afraid necessarily, just surprised.

McLeod closed his eyes. “Stand down, Williamson! Stand down! We are close behind you, do not engage!” He broke into a sprint, and Landry followed at pace. They were in the thick trees north of the 102nd Street crossing, and had to dodge and weave while moving forward.

“Williamson!” he shouted into the earpiece.

“Fuck! Shit! Goddamned thing is fast!”

McLeod could hear the panting, a swift burst of silenced gunfire and the pounding of feet on thin grass.

“Berger, fall back!” Williamson shouted from too far away, but an abrupt, choked yell signaled that Berger hadn’t reacted quite fast enough.

“Godammit!” Williamson shouted and this time it was his screams that could be heard all around them.

“C’mon, Landry, let’s fucking move!” As his lungs burned, his British accent was coughed away, evaporated in a blast of good, old-fashioned American profanity.

Silenced gunshots came from the earpiece. “Die you asshole!” More gunshots. A rapid-fire series of footsteps running, some panting, then some deeper, hoarser panting close behind. Suddenly there was a scream, an inhuman yowl, but Williamson didn’t have time to respond, he only made a gagging chortle, then the earpiece was clunking, clattering, and finally silent.

“No, no, no, no!” McLeod shouted, and moments later they burst through the trees out into North Meadow, a closely mowed expanse that encompassed the nearly entire width of Central Park, offering baseball diamonds and recreation to whomever might come. On the pitcher’s mound of one of those diamonds lay the crumpled heap of Craig ‘Duck’ Williamson, the once brown dirt now a darker, deeper crimson.

McLeod dropped his head, his chin tucked to the top of his chest, his eyes closing underneath the night vision apparatus.

What felt like worlds away, the hustle and bustle of New York nightlife drummed along, a single horn blaring abruptly followed by annoyed shouts.

“Sorry, boss,” Landry said quietly, placing a hand on McLeod’s shoulder. The Shadows team lead lifted his head and looked toward the edge of the North Meadow where the trees grew, all along the south side. He could see a path where something had pushed through those trees, spreading them apart and cracking a few trunks.

“That way,” McLeod said, gesturing. “Rack ‘em up. Berger had some grenades on him, I’ll grab those, you strip Duck and let’s go take this thing down.”

“Is that a good idea? We could end up just as dead as the rest. I’m thinking we need a fucking air strike.”

McLeod turned and looked at the man. “We’re all that’s left. All that stands between that thing and the rest of this city. It’s us or nothing.”

Landry drew in a breath and pushed it out through pursed lips.

McLeod took a step closer “Look. You sit this one out. Leave it to me. This thing left a trail anyone could follow.”

Landry cocked his head slightly. “You think you’re leaving me behind on this? With all due respect, fuck you, Chuck.”

McLeod nodded. “All right then.”

Landry headed on ahead, pulling out his magazine, checked it, then slammed it home, almost out of habit. McLeod lingered, pulling the tattered photograph of his kids from his tactical vest once more and looking down at it. He rubbed his thumb over their two young faces, folded the picture then returned it to its spot.

They pushed south, brushing past the North Meadow Recreational Center, then continued on through the thick forest. Up ahead, the trees spread then fell away, revealing a section of grass outside the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir, large and wide, leaving only small sections of pathways either side. Through the trees, McLeod and Landry had seen scrapes, scratches, and busted trunks, but now they were out in a clearing, it was tough to tell where the creature had gone.

“Nothing,” said McLeod softly, looking around their immediate area.

“Thing like that doesn’t just disappear,” replied Landry. “How fast do you think it can run?” Landry continued, walking down towards the reservoir.

“I don’t know,” McLeod replied. “We don’t know shit about it.” McLeod knelt, running a gloved hand over the soft grass. He was looking for some kind of paw prints. The creature they’d killed outside New Haven had huge dog-like paws, but he saw no sign of those unique prints here.

“And how the fuck did it get here so quick? One minute it’s busting from a train in southern Connecticut, the next minute it shows up in New York City. No direct path from there to here,” McLeod said, but his eyes closed slowly. He was remembering something. Something strange about that smaller creature they had killed. A unique smell…

McLeod’s eyes burst open, a sudden spark of realization.

“Landry! Move!” he turned toward his teammate, raising his weapon. Landry jerked at the mention of his name, but stood there, frozen, his eyes whipping back and forth, searching for the threat.

It was too late.

The water of the reservoir exploded upward in a wall, arcing left and right as the massive shape burst through the surface. Sprays of liquid flew in wild blankets, drenching Landry and scattering sideways rain across McLeod’s face and chest. He stumbled backward as the large, awkward shape ejected itself from the manmade body of water, a gray, slimy, twisting thing, its four legs folded up against it’s slick body, still matted by mold-patches of fur. Landry had barely turned when the creature hit the arc of its jump, then barreled down on top of the man, slamming him to the ground in one massive crunch.

McLeod’s weapon was up in firing position, and even as the hunched creature lunged its head forward, sinking massive rows of teeth into Landry’s face and chest, he let out a barrage of silenced gunfire. Bullets stitched up along the back of the creature as it struck, sending spurts of dark ichor up in splashing puddles of mottled blood. Still the creature continued to strike at the fallen Landry, muffling his screams with bites and tears.

“Come get me, you big bitch!” McLeod shouted, as he dashed back from where they’d come, and he could have sworn he heard a growling reply to that insult from the beast, then the thudding footsteps of a lumbering charge.

McLeod burst through the short cropping of trees out into North Meadow again. Crossing the empty area in less than a minute he was approaching the far row of trees when he heard the blistering cracks. Casting a swift backward glance as he ran, he saw the creature burst free from the trees to his south, and in the low moonlight got his first good look at the beast in action. Thrusting muscles were clearly visible underneath thin sinewy skin, connected to strange flaps between its legs and torso, what could have been some sort of natural aquatic appendage. Muscular legs and the thick tail all moved in unison, seeming to work together to throw it forward into an impossibly fast gait, galloping across the empty expanse of grass, growling and narrowing its dark eyes.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” McLeod yelled and pushed himself forward, feeling the massive thuds of the padded feet on his tail. Up ahead the Loch met the North Woods, and there was a mile of trees, where McLeod desperately hoped he could make his stand.

*   *   *

“I don’t like this one bit,” Agent Blaine groused from inside the modified Bell 412 helicopter, its flat black paint melting into the shadows of post-midnight Central Park North. The helicopter still sat on the sidewalk outside the main northern entrance to the park. Wilcox sat in her pilot’s seat, the flight helmet off, but the thick, metal headset still firmly clasped around her short-cropped hair.

“If anyone can take this thing out, the Shadows can,” Wilcox said evenly, trying to keep the hostility out of her voice. Yeah, her team knew the risks, they always did, but it was still this shitheel’s fault her team was out there maybe dying. Meanwhile, she was stuck behind the fucking flightstick as usual.

“Wilcox!” the voice was sharp and loud in her headset. She recognized the British twinge anywhere.

“McLeod! What’s going on?”

“I’m coming through the North Woods, half a mile out! It’s right the fuck behind me!”

“Where you want me, boss?” she asked, leaving her seat and venturing back into the cargo area.

McLeod was huffing and puffing through the headset, his words interrupted by short bursts of breath. “I want you gone! Get the fuck out of there!”

“Tough shit, I’m not going anywhere,” Wilcox said simply. She knelt next to a metallic box by the rear cargo door as Blaine stood from his own seat and seemed suddenly anxious to depart.

“Wilcox, I’m not fucking around! I just saw this thing eat Landry alive!”

Wilcox shook her head and sighed. “All right. Do what you gotta do.”

She clicked the switch on her headset to turn it off and turned around to talk to Blaine. “You may want to be elsewhere, chief.”

*   *   *

McLeod’s lungs burned. His chest felt like an elephant was gently pressing one foot on it. He was a well-trained soldier, but that didn’t include two-mile sprints in the job description, especially with an eight-foot beast hot on his heels.

He still couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it – or smelled it – before. The smooth, slimy skin and that long, thick tail. This fucking thing was amphibious. It hadn’t run to Central Park, it had swam there. Jumped in the ocean and just swam all the way to the fucking New York City coastline.

To this point, McLeod had used the trees to his advantage, darting in between sprouting trunks, while his pursuer had been forced to barrel her way through, probably the only thing that had slowed her down and saved his life. But in a quarter mile, the trees would be gone, and he was going to have to figure out something pretty damn fast.

Then he was there. The trees had vanished, and he was lunging, stumbling forward out into open air. East and West Drive met in a fork before him and reached out to West 110th Street, his advantage suddenly gone. A black shape stood looming on the pavement about 300 yards away, and McLeod focused on the Bell helicopter, pushing himself faster forward. Seconds later a loud, ramshackle crashing signaled the beast’s own exit from the trees, and the slamming of huge paws grew louder on McLeod’s trail. He could feel the force of the creature’s momentum behind him, almost feel the hot breath on the back of his neck and smell that awful dead fish smell.

He wasn’t going to make it. The copter was still far away, and the monster was too close, she was going to tackle him and drag him to the ground well before he made it to his destination. Then he did feel the hot breath. He did smell the sour salt water stench, and he could sense the slick fish skin of the creature wrapping itself around him.

But the world opened up in a series of jerking, spasmodic flashes of light before him, followed by swift repeating echoes of noise. Gunfire!

“Keep moving, boss!” shouted Wilcox as she stood in a half-crouch in the doorway of the Bell 412. She held a large Squad Automatic Weapon in her arms, the M249, bronze cylinders coughing and flying from the side of the weapon as it barked, sending a stream of deadly bullets just over McLeod’s head and toward the creature.

The ex-SAS operative could hear the swift thumps of bullets eating into fish skin flesh, tearing into the musculature and ejecting spewing grime out into the air. The thumping footsteps slowed but did not stop.

McLeod gave it one final burst, pushing himself forward, running as fast as he could, his lungs burning, his legs aching.

“Clear out, Wilcox! Get out of the copter!”

Wilcox looked at him curiously, adjusting the aim of her M249 automatic slightly, then squeezing off another burst. The creature tucked its head as more wounds burst open, next to a protruding spine that almost threatened to burst through the thin layer of skin.

“It’s still on you, boss!” Wilcox shouted.

“God dammit, Wilcox, move!” the Bell was only feet away, and he could feel the creature charging closer. But Wilcox wouldn’t, she held her place, firing on the monster, whose pace had quickened even as a dozen ragged bullet holes tore open the skin on its back. Her mouth pried open, forcing a growling scream from whatever lungs were contained within this freaky bag of flesh. It started off as a lion roar, but broke off into a crazed half growl, half eagle screech, spittle flying from its toothy, opened mouth, and spattering across the nape of McLeod’s neck. It was on him again, right on him.

He jumped, throwing himself toward the Bell as the creature lunged. The side cargo door of the helicopter was just wide enough for a pair of gunners to sit, even when completely empty. Tonight, Wilcox sat crouched to McLeod’s right, and the opening seemed quite narrow indeed. McLeod’s feet struck the metal grid floor of the interior of the helicopter, and he surged forward once again, throwing himself through to the other open cargo door. The beast followed.

Wilcox suddenly understood what was happening, and started to backpedal, but too late. With a snarl, the broad, slick-skinned beast slammed her against the metal frame of the copter, her lips pursing and spitting dark blood. McLeod began to slide through the other end, his pursuer’s momentum slowing. It was too large and unwieldy to slip through the two cargo doors, and with a growl and lunge, it was lodged inside the copter, the stump of its thick tail pinned against one side of the entrance door, while its shoulders slammed forward against the inside of the far wall, catching it in a metallic, boxy hug.

McLeod started to fall out the other side, reaching down and clutching the two grenades had had liberated from Berger’s corpse. He pulled them free and with one skillful hook of his fingers, snagged the pins and wrenched them both. The ground was coming up to greet him, and he tossed his arm back, letting go of the two grenades, and more importantly the two firing pins he had held down until their release.

Pain ripped through his left leg, jagged snarls of hot needles, right above the ankle, sending roaring agony up through the muscles of his calf and thigh.

Five seconds.

McLeod twisted in mid-air, slamming back-first onto the ground, the creature’s massive jaws clamped tightly around his lower left leg. Too close! He was too damn close!

Four seconds.

He popped the clasp on his leg holster and slipped his nine-millimeter pistol free.

Three seconds.

Barely thinking, only aiming, McLeod stared deep into the creature’s black eyes, narrowed and squinting. He fired three times.

Two seconds.

All three shots pounded into the creature’s right eye, and it screamed into the night, drawing back and yanking open its large, tooth-filled jaws, dropping McLeod’s broken and bloodied leg to the ground.

One.

Turning over and desperately scrambling across the concrete sidewalk, Chuck McLeod closed his eyes as he dragged himself, visualizing only his two children, remembering that crinkled and folded photograph, desperately wanting that to be his final memory.

Two dull thumps echoed in the helicopter, one right after the other, then something inside the aircraft caught and detonated, the whole Bell erupting into a bloom of flame and spiraling vomits of smoke. Black metal broke apart and scattered high in the air and in wide arcs across the trees, the sidewalk, and West 110th Street, sending emergency personnel scrambling for cover.

The roar echoed in the busy New York City night, the snaking flames casting an eerie orange glow on the surrounding windows of the buildings, then McLeod lowered his head and all was the darkest of night.

*   *   *

Flashes of crimson stroked across Chuck McLeod’s face as he sat on the metal bumper of the fire truck, head bowed, leg wrapped in tight bandages. He could feel the warm moistness of a fresh wound on the side of his head, and a stream of liquid sneaking down his left jawbone. He blinked his eyes open and saw that he was holding the photograph of his children. He couldn’t even remember pulling it from his pocket, yet here it was.

A shadow cast over him, blocking out the whipping red. A paper cup appeared, and he absent mindedly reached out and grabbed it, wrapping his fingers around the warmth.

“Wilcox?” McLeod asked, bringing the cup toward his lips.

“Sorry. She tried to get free, but was too close when the helicopter exploded.” Agent Blaine was still wearing his black combat togs but now wore an NYPD blue windbreaker over it.

McLeod didn’t respond.

“Good news is, that thing won’t be swimming across the Atlantic again any time soon.”

“Dead?”

“Very.”

That was good. Chuck McLeod looked at the picture of his two children and thought about his team. The Shadows. That foul creature was dead... that evil spawn of whatever genetics lab made it, but he wasn’t sure it was worth the price.

Maybe none of it was.

McLeod pressed the photograph back into the slim pocket in his tactical vest and stood, favoring his left leg, which screamed in pain.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Blaine asked.

“I’m going to see my kids.” McLeod looked at his watch. “If I leave now, I can get there just in time.”

*   *   *

Blaine stood in the wet New York streets watching McLeod hobble away towards the subway station. His phone chirped, and he slipped it from his pants pocket.

“Blaine.” Glancing around, he took a few steps towards the burned wreckage of the helicopter, where the foot traffic was non-existent. “Yeah, they killed it. Couldn’t be helped.” Walking around the other side of the helicopter he looked at the ground where pieces and parts of the vehicle were smoldering. Other parts and pieces were mixed within, considerably more organic in nature. Scientists would be here soon... the retrieval team. “Oh, don’t worry, there’s plenty of genetic material left. Plenty of source material for the next round.”

He took a few more steps towards the trees.

“How do we feel about the results?” Blaine listened for a moment to the voice on the other end, then nodded slightly. “The team did better than expected, I won’t deny that.”

Another check to make sure he was alone, and Blaine took a few more steps deeper into the trees surrounding Central Park.

“I agree.  I think we’re ready to move to the next phase.  I think it’s time to make this thing operational.  Only next time, let’s not send it by train.”

The Weavers in Darkness

James A Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

Officer Mike Calvin settled into his seat and made sure his seatbelt was secure. There were six jump-seats in the back of the van, three on each side, and five were occupied. Calvin was closest to the back doors by choice. He liked to be the first man out the door and on the scene. He’d gotten into the habit during two tours in Iraq.

Captain Lovell, head of the Bergen PD SWAT team, turned around from the seat closest to the driver’s and said, “Some of you know more about what’s going on than others, so let me give all of you the current situation.”

Tessa Malloy, who had the seat across from Calvin, rolled her eyes. Lovell liked to hear himself talk. Calvin figured Lovell was taking advantage of some piddling occurrence to trot out his shiny new SWAT team. What the hell did a small town like Bergen need with a SWAT team anyway? Still, Calvin reflected, the extra pay was good and they got to train with the newest weapons and tech.

“Two hours ago,” Lovell went on as the van got moving, “dispatch got a 911 call from Maro-tek. It’s an electronics manufacturing plant out by the old quarry. Isolated place.”

“I know someone who works there,” Arturo Perez said from Calvin’s right. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Lovell looked annoyed at being interrupted. He said, “Right. The call came in at 2:15 this afternoon. Caller was frantic. Said something was attacking the workers. Then she was cut off. Repeated calls to the plant didn’t get any answers, so dispatch sent a black and white to have a look. Our last contact with them was right when they arrived. According to Officer Pace, the place looked deserted. They went to check it out and we haven’t heard back from them.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Kevin Jenkins said. Jenkins was so big that he looked almost comical jammed into the jump-seat next to Tessa. He was a former college football player and he spent so much time in the police gym the other cops called it his office.

Perez said, “Captain, did you say the caller said some thing was attacking? Not someone?”

“That’s what they said. I’m assuming an animal of some sort. Maybe a bear or a mountain lion.”

Calvin knew big cats were extremely rare in Georgia, but he kept that to himself. Contradicting Lovell wasn’t usually worth the grief.

Jeff West, who was driving the van, called over his shoulder, “Maybe we should have sent animal control instead of us.”

West considered himself a wit. He was the only one.

Lovell said, “Stay focused, West.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

They made the rest of the drive in comparative silence. That suited Calvin. He had never been much for small talk. He craned his head to look out the front window as West announced they had arrived at their destination.

Long, deep shadows were falling as the van passed through the front gates of Maro-tek. It was early September and the days had grown shorter. The plant was a big, white, concrete bunker of a building surrounded by pines. The gray bulk of the Blue Ridge Mountains loomed behind it.

“There’s the patrol car,” West said.

Lovell said, “Stop the van here. We want to go in slow.”

When the van stopped, Calvin popped the latch on the back door and dropped to the ground. He brought up the M-4 and moved to the side of the van, making a visual scan of the area as he went. Nothing moved.

Perez and Tessa, both fellow vets, piled out of the van and took up similar defensive positions. The captain and the other two guys did what they’d been taught in SWAT school.

For his own part, Calvin wasn’t putting a lot of faith in the ‘some thing’ comment on the 911 call. That could have just been a slip of the tongue from a desperate caller. Calvin figured a mass shooting or domestic terrorism attack was more likely than a berserk bear on the loose. The captain had said Maro-tek made electrical components. Maybe they made some for the military.

Captain Lovell said, “Calvin, have a look at the patrol car. Everyone else, keep an eye on the building for any movement.”

Calvin gave a short nod and moved carefully up to the black & white. He didn’t mind taking point. Hell, he preferred it. He made a slow circle of the patrol car. Nothing looked amiss.

“Looks clear, Captain,” he called.

“All right. Guess we’ll have a look at the building. Calvin and Tessa, you’re with me. We’ll take the front door. Perez, lead the second team around the side and look for another entrance. Place like this has to have loading bays.”

Calvin started toward the front door without being told. He knew Lovell would want him to stay on point. He felt a slight trickle of sweat on his back. It wasn’t nervousness. Between his body armor and utility vest and the unseasonably warm weather, he was feeling the heat. That’s what he told himself anyway.

The front door yawned open. It was dark inside and Calvin wondered if the power had been cut. He gave a quick look over his shoulder to check Lovell and Tessa’s positions. Lovell was a pain sometimes but he knew how to use his people’s strengths. He had taken the center position, leaving Tessa as rear guard.

Calvin switched on the flashlight on his M-4 and stepped inside quickly so as not to be silhouetted in the doorway. The flashlight beam pierced the gloom, showing him a front office full of toppled furniture and scattered debris. The light fell on two human legs poking out from behind an overturned desk.

“Got a body over here,” Calvin said, moving to the side of the desk to get a look behind it without getting too close. The beam rested on the corpse's face and Calvin recoiled from the sight. In Iraq he had seen more bodies than he ever wanted to think about, but nothing like this.

He only knew the body was male because of the clothes. The face was blue tinged and shrunken like some wizened mummy. The eyes were just sockets. What he could see of the arms that extended from the corpse's shirt were similarly shrunken.

Calvin said, “Gas masks. We could have some sort of infection here.” He pulled on his own mask as he spoke. Lovell and Tessa did the same.

“Shit!” Tessa said.

“What is it?” Lovell said.

“Thought I saw something move in the corner.”

Lovell turned his M-4 that way. The barrel mounted Mag-Light sent a bright beam into that part of the room. The light bounced back from what Calvin realized were eyes and a moment later, something big and fast came hurtling out of the corner.

For a second Calvin thought it really was a mountain lion. Then he realized it had too many legs. It was about the size of a large German shepherd and it landed on Lovell, bearing him to the ground. Even as he trained his weapon on the hairy form, Calvin's brain was trying to tell him what it was and at the same time trying to reject the reality. It was a spider. A goddamn spider the size of a dog.

Lovell started screaming and Calvin realized the thing was biting him. Lovell jerked and twisted, trying to pull away but the thing was locked on to him with its pincers or whatever they were called. Calvin shook himself, realizing he needed to do something other than just stand there with his mouth hanging open.

A second later he heard two loud reports and glanced to his side. Tessa, realizing the M-4 was too dangerous to use with Lovell so close to the thing, had drawn her Glock 9mm and put two rounds into the spider's head. The thing toppled off Lovell, legs twitching as it rolled.

“Christ,” Tessa said. “Jesus Christ. Captain Lovell, are you injured? Can you hear me?”

Despite the fact the spider had relinquished its hold, Lovell was still flailing like he was having a seizure. Calvin and Tessa hurried over to him. His helmet and gas mask had been knocked loose and they could see that his teeth were clinched and his eyes were open wide.

“Do you think it was poisonous?” Tessa said.

“How the hell would I know?” said Calvin. “What the hell was it? Spiders don't get that big.”

“Well this one did. The captain's convulsing. We have to get him out of here.”

Calvin stepped over to help Tessa with Lovell. Then he heard a scrabbling sound, and turning, he saw two more spiders coming toward him. One of them was almost twice as large as the one that had bitten the captain. Calvin came very close to screaming as he scrambled backwards, swinging the M-4 up and depressing the trigger. The gun sounded incredibly loud in the confined space, but Calvin kept firing, cutting the creatures to pieces, until the magazine clicked on empty. His reflexes kicked in and he snatched one of two remaining magazines off his utility vest and slammed it into the rifle.

He realized then that Tessa had been firing too. She was looking, mouth agape, at the two fallen spiders.

“This is not happening,” Tessa said. “This is not fucking happening. We have to get out of here.”

Calvin looked over at Lovell. He had stopped convulsing and was lying motionless. Probably dead. But Calvin had to be sure. He crouched and felt Lovell's throat for a pulse. Nothing.

“Okay, we'll send someone back for him. Hell, we'll get the national guard in here with flame throwers and—”

A hurtling form slammed into Tessa. She screamed as she fell, trying to ward off the spider's fangs as it sought to bite her. Calvin fumbled for his Glock, but even as he did so, yet another spider came rushing from the shadows. How many of these damn things were there?

Calvin put three rounds into the one that was attacking Tessa, moving forward as he did so. He kicked the dead creature off of her, feeling the soft, yielding weight of the body, which made his stomach lurch. He caught Tessa by the arm and pulled her upright. Half dragging her, he tried to get around the second spider to reach the door, but the thing was too fast and it moved to intercept them. Calvin fired at the spider, then turned and headed toward a door on the far side of the room. Maybe they could get away from the things long enough to wait for backup.

He saw his mistake too late. There was something hanging in the shadows of the high ceiling and it began to drop as they approached the door. A different kind of spider. This one had apparently built a web in the corner and waited. Its body was a gleaming black and Calvin caught sight of the red hourglass on the spider's abdomen as it got closer.

Calvin raised the Glock and fired until the gun was empty. The Black Widow was wounded, but still in motion. It landed on its long, narrow legs and came right at him. Tessa was still out of it, a dead weight on his left arm. He tried to get the M-4 into position but it had swung around behind him during his flight.

The door he had been trying to reach slammed open and Calvin half expected to see another spider emerge. Instead, a tall, slender man stepped out and fired a big handgun at the Black Widow, blowing huge chunks out of the creature.

“This way,” the man said. “There are more coming.”

Supporting Tessa, Calvin hurried to the door. As soon as he was through it, the tall man closed the door and turned a latch.

“Was she bitten?” the man said, nodding toward Tessa.

“I don’t think so,” Calvin said. “That fucking thing was biting her body armor.”

“Let me have a look.”

“It didn’t bite me,” Tessa said, in a quiet voice. “But it was sure as hell trying. What’s happening here? What are those things?”

“Spiders,” the man said.

Tessa said, “I know they’re fucking spiders. How did they get so big?”

“We’d better save explanations until we reach a more defensible position,” the man said.

Calvin noted that the guy spoke very precisely. “We’re not safe in here?”

Here looked to be a conference room, sadly with no windows to the outside. Still, the walls and doors looked solid enough. It was lit by the yellow glow of emergency lighting.

The man shook his head. “The ceiling is the problem. This building is really one big room, partitioned off, and with false ceilings added. There’s a crawl space above the entire office and there are definitely things crawling in it.”

Tessa said, “Do you work here?”

The man shook his head. “No, like you two I’m here in response to the threat.”

“You’re a cop?”

“I’m an English professor. Retired. My name is Decamp.”

Calvin said, “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“I do, but we don’t have time to talk about it. The wolf spiders are hunting us. Listen.”

Calvin listened. He could hear scratching sounds from above. “Shit.”

“Precisely,” said Decamp. “Our best bet is to get out of the building. The wolf spiders don’t like the daylight.”

Tessa said, “That’s what they are? Wolf spiders?

“For the most part. Arachnida Lycosidae. There are some others as well.”

“Like the Black Widow.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Decamp,” Calvin said. “You got any idea how we can get out of here?”

“That other door leads to a hallway that connects to the manufacturing plant. One of the loading dock doors is open. That’s how we got inside.”

“Who’s we?”

“I came with an associate.”

Tessa said, “Speaking of associates, I hope Perez and the others didn’t walk into this hellhole like we did.”

Particles of dust began to fall as the ceiling panels began to shake. Calvin said, “We need to go. Now.”

“We do,” said Decamp, “Though there is one problem.”

“What?” said Tessa.

“The plant is full of spiders too. That’s why I ran in here.”

*   *   *

Perez moved in first, not because he had command of the situation, but because he’d been there before and thought he knew the best entry point. There was a large bay door that was already open, so that point became moot.

West came up on his left and then Jenkins was on the right. Perez was five feet, eight inches tall. He worked out every day and he knew that, pound for pound, he could hold his own against damned near anyone. That didn’t stop him from feeling better knowing Jenkins was on his side. In high school they’d called Douglas Jenkins the Ogre, because he was a full foot taller than Perez, and he had him by easily a hundred pounds of hard muscle.

West was taller too, and he was good enough at his job despite his bad jokes, but the thought that West had his back was somehow less comforting.

The lights were out. Emergency lights illuminated just exactly enough of the vast interior to let him know they were fucked. There were exit signs over every possible way out. There were powerful yellow lights in the corners of the vast room. There were also eighteen foot tall warehouse shelves, carefully labeled and approximately ten feet apart from each other in both directions. There was exactly enough room, according to his cousin Guillermo, to let a slow moving fork lift get through. Not one of the gigantic forklifts like they always showed on TV, but a small one, roughly a third the size of a squad car. Unbelievably the lifts still carried a thousand pounds with ease, and Guillermo had once explained that the weight at the back of the lift was literally a one thousand pound counterbalance. All told the lifts weighed in at close to a ton.

Which is why when Perez looked at the forklift, where it rested, smashed through two full lines of anchored, metal shelving, he was nervous.

“Bad day to forget how to drive,” West was talking mostly to himself, but Perez skewered him with a hard look. Guillermo was supposed to be working today. He normally drove the forklift.

It took everything he had not to run in screaming his cousin’s name.

Jenkins looked hard at West and let out a small noise of disgust.

West ducked his head in a move that was fully unconscious. As a rule no one ever wanted to piss Jenkins off, strictly because they had all seen him in action on a few occasions and never wanted to risk getting hit that way.

They worked methodically, scanning a different section each, Mag-lights cutting through the darkness in spears that revealed less than what Perez wanted to see.

He worked his way through the twilight to the forklift. There was something dark and hairy at the end of one of the massive tines at the front of the machine. Whatever it was had been pasted into so much goo when the forklift hit the shelves. Bits and pieces of the thing were painted across several surfaces. Enough to let him know that whatever it had been, it most certainly wasn’t human.

“Arturo.” His name was hiss-whispered from his right and when he turned that way a wave of relief poured through him at the sight of Guillermo.

Before Perez could open his mouth, his cousin was pointing up and making a gesture to tell him to go softly.

Looking up was maybe the biggest mistake of his life. Once he saw them he couldn’t unsee them. Across the ceiling of the warehouse there were hundreds, possibly thousands of spiders. There were so many that they literally crawled over each other and they varied in size from just a little over the length of a hand to something that looked closer to a prize-winning pumpkin. They came in different colors, different patterns, and enough varieties to make his mind dizzy. He barely noticed that last part because he was trying to suppress a scream.

Perez had always had an issue with spiders. Maybe not a full on phobia, but he didn’t like them. They gave him the creeps. This? Every hair on his body was standing on end. There was a part of him that wanted to run away, wanted to get the fuck out of the building and head for the hills.

That wasn’t going to happen.

He swallowed hard and then nodded. His pistol was aimed for the roof. He intended to keep it that way.

He waved to Guillermo to come to him and his cousin nodded.

Jenkins loomed behind him and spoke softly. “The fuck man? Ain’t no way those are real.” Hearing the tremor in his friend’s voice was oddly reassuring.

West spoke up too, his voice loud and snarky. He had not looked up apparently. “Number of times I’ve said that to a stripper is scary, man.”

Jenkins looked blue murder at the other cop. Another voice spoke softly, coming from the left. “You’re not very smart are you?”

Perez looked at the source of that voice. He was dressed in a nice suit, dark blue. The man was a cop’s nightmare when it came to descriptions. Average. Average height, average haircut, Caucasian male. His hair was brown. His eyes were brown. He was nondescript in the worst possible way. The only thing remarkable about him was the expression of exasperation on his face.

The man was staring hard at West, who looked right back, irritated at being talked to that way by a civilian. West sucked in a hard breath and was maybe thinking about making a nasty retort, but he stopped when the man pointed to the ceiling.

“Oh. Fuck.” The words were whispered. West actively grew paler as he stared at the shapes above him, his mouth dropping open in surprise.

Above them the teeming nightmares continued to crawl and, oh Madre Dios, they were growing. Perez stared hard at one of them – a black, glossy nightmare that almost looked like it was made of polished glass it was so shiny. It was impossible, but the thing was growing bigger.

West drew his pistol and aimed as best he could with shaking hands.

Guillermo moved as quickly and as quietly as he could, muttering prayers under his breath.

The stranger was looking at the roof and scowling, his longish face drawn down in a look of utter disgust. There was no fear. No terror. He was the only person in the immediate area who didn’t look ready to shit himself.

Guillermo was too busy looking at the roof. He tripped over the webbing at his feet and fell hard.

That web was thin, but it sang as Guillermo let out a squeal of shock and caught himself on his hands, narrowly missing breaking his face on the hard concrete.

Perez watched the thread vibrate and his eyes tracked it upward into the shadows. An instant later something big was dropping from above and heading for Guillermo.

“Oh God! Help me!” Guillermo’s words were screamed.

Just that fast Mister Average was on the move. At least a hundred feet of space separated him from Perez’s cousin but he covered that distance at a speed that was unsettling and grabbed Guillermo by the scruff of his work shirt.

Fabric tore with a loud, ripping purr, but the sound was nearly lost under Guillermo’s scream as he sailed toward the open bay door.

Guillermo came straight at Perez and instinct made him duck away. Jenkins let out a grunt that told Perez all he needed to know. Either he’d caught Guillermo or he’d broken his fall.

The man in the suit was holding what was left of his cousin’s shirt in one hand and looking up as the first of the giant spiders dropped from above. He caught the tattered fabric in his fingers and spun his hand, wrapping his fist in the cloth before he stepped forward and punched the first spider in its head. The creature let out a hiss as it rocketed back on the web it used to descend, swinging high into the air, a massive tether ball that chattered and worked to control the swing with eight impossible legs.

The stranger looked at him and smiled – smiled! – and said, “You should run.”

Perez answered in the only way that made sense to him. He fired on the second spider as it dropped toward the man who had just saved his cousin. The bullet punched through the abdomen of the spider and the thing fell away and landed, twitching, trying to right itself.

That gunfire may as well have been the signal to start the race. Bloated shapes dropped from the ceiling, some descending on webs and others skittering down the walls of the structure. Adrenaline soared through Perez and he forced himself to breathe and focus. It didn’t matter what they were. It only mattered that they were the enemy. It mattered that a civilian was in trouble.

The civilian didn’t seem to agree with that assessment. He moved, grabbed the leg of the closest monstrosity and threw it as easily as he had Guillermo. It smashed into two more of its kind and the man charged right at Perez.

“I said move! Now!”

Perez slid to the side, prepared to let him get past, but the man planted a hand on his chest as he came through, and hurled him backward. Perez had been braced, his feet properly spread and his weight well distributed but that didn’t matter. He was lifted and thrown back, not with intent to hurt him, but to get him out of the way.

His head spun a bit and he reached to get the man off of him but it was too late. He had already stepped past and turned around and was heading back for the bay door.

West was firing into the building. He didn’t really aim, but instead cut loose, firing again and again. The only thing working to his benefit was that the collection of nightmarish shapes was packed closely together and every bullet hit something anyway. Jenkins, down on one knee and protecting Guillermo, aimed and fired, aimed and fired.

The stranger jumped high, caught the bay door’s edge and hauled the entire affair down with brute force that should not have been possible. Somewhere inside the structure a loud clang sounded and Perez could see the motor and chain assembly that should have been holding the door open falling from above and taking a few spiders with it.

The door smashed into the ground and jumped back up a few inches. From inside the building all he could see were the spiders. Oversized, scrambling toward the entrance, and moving in ways that would haunt him for as long as he lived.

Several of the damned things got through the narrow opening and immediately went for the stranger and for West, both of whom were too close to the doorway for their own good.

West pointed and fired and hit what looked like a wolf spider dead in its face. The entire shape pumped backward and collapsed against the narrow opening. Something inside the building roared and West flinched. Perez was pretty sure he flinched too, but it was hard to say when he was trying to look everywhere at once.

West fired again and got no satisfaction. The weapon was empty. He dropped the spent clip and pulled another from his belt, his eyes locked on the thing coming his way.

He wasn't going to make it.

Perez fired three rounds into the thing coming at his partner before it dropped. The first round had it turning to look in his direction, six bulging black orbs focused on him, and it lunged hard in his direction. The second bullet carved a trench across the back of the thing. The third went through the face and exited near the back end and the thing dropped.

While he was shooting, the stranger had forced the door closed.

“Let’s go!” He moved past the shattered remains of the giant spider and grabbed West’s shoulder, spinning him toward Perez. “Move! The door won’t stop them!”

“We can’t let them just get away!” Jenkins roared. His pistol was in his hand and pointed down. Guillermo stood next to him on shaking legs.

“I’ll be slowing them down, slick, but there’s no way in hell we’re stopping them from here. That warehouse is already overflowing.” As if to make his point the rolling steel door shuddered and buckled slightly.

The stranger reached out a hand and slapped the metal as if to warn off what might be on the other side. Perez gritted his teeth. “You’re only pissing them off!”

That grin again. That mad, sickening grin, and the stranger said, “Run. They’re going to take a few minutes to follow us. They won’t be using that door at any rate.” He started running to prove his point, heading back toward the front of the building.

As he ran the place where the man had touched the door started to glow. The light had a yellowish tint at first and then as it grew brighter the color was bleached away. Perez squinted and continued to look as whatever was behind the door started screeching and thumping the metal.

From fifteen feet away he could feel the heat coming off the door and he could smell the stench of burning metal and worse things. “It’s not here! I have to find Decamp and let him know.”

“What’s not here?” West was running hard, while Jenkins covered their backs, with Guillermo at his side.

“Whatever the hell summoned or created these things. Can’t just be a spell. There has to be a focus.”

“Say what?” The stranger stooped down in mid run and grabbed up a rock the size of a small apple. The projectile whipped through the air and pulped the head of another spider, this one coming from above them off the edge of the roof. It shrieked and sputtered and dripped vile fluids across the ground as it crashed into the dirt and gravel.

“Something is causing these creatures to mutate and grow, and it’s getting worse. We thought it was in the plant, but it’s not.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” West’s voice was cracking and his eyes were too wide, his face shocky.

“Just get to the front of this place. We’re going to have to regroup with Decamp.”

Behind them the heat was fading and the glow that had become overwhelming faded down as well.

Behind them the untouched metal doors were bulging now as the giant spiders tried to pound their way through.

Guillermo was screaming. Jenkins turned and fired.

Perez looked back just in time to see the door explode outward, vomiting a cascade of squat bodies and long, multi-jointed legs. He shivered as if he had a fever.

The spiders came on.

The stranger physically yanked him around for the second time. “Stop fading out on me! RUN!”

Perez bit into his lower lip and felt a sharp pain as his teeth broke flesh. It was a trick he hadn’t used since Iraq, but one that worked to help him focus and get past the threat of shock.

None of this could be happening. None of it made sense. It was happening just the same and he had to accept that.

Training took over when the thing came at him from the rocks nearby. He opened fire and blew the carapace of the spider apart.

Behind him something screamed loud enough to shake his body, but it didn’t matter. The front of the building was coming up quickly and Perez hoped that this Decamp guy the stranger kept babbling about might have some answers. And that they lived long enough to find him.

*   *   *

The loading bay was an ocean of skittering, flailing, hairy bodies, dropping from the ceiling and carpeting the floor. There was no way they could get out by that route. Calvin cursed and slammed the door shut as Tessa shot a dog-sized spider that rushed at him.

“No dice, Decamp,” Calvin said. “I don’t know what it was like when you came in, but it’s impassable now.”

Decamp said, “Then we’ll have to try the front. The spiders are growing in size and numbers and we have to get out of the building while we still can.”

“What the fuck is going on here, Decamp?” Tessa said. “You said you knew part of it.”

Decamp walked over to the door through which Tessa and Calvin had entered and put his ear to the panel. He looked back over at Tessa and said, “It’s magic, officer Malloy. Dark magic.”

Tessa said, “Bullshit. I don’t believe in that crap.”

“That will scarcely keep it from killing you, my dear. By the way, I assume you two have flash-bang grenades? Standard SWAT issue.”

“Yeah,” Calvin said. “I got four.”

“Excellent. Be so kind as to have two of them ready. When I open the door, throw them through. Officer Malloy, if you’ll shoot anything that attempts to come through the door, that should allow Officer Calvin to lob his grenades. I’m going to close the door before they go off, then after the explosion we’ll go through and try and reach the front entrance.”

Calvin said, “You must have been some teacher. You’re the calmest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen.”

“Years of experience, Officer.”

“Just call me Calvin.”

“And I’m Tessa. If we’re all going to be eaten by AoUSes together we might as well be friends.”

“AoUSes?” said Decamp

“A bad movie joke. Arachnids of Unusual Size.”

“Ah, of course. The Princess Bride. My movie trivia knowledge tends to lapse in times of stress. Now, if everyone is ready, we’ll put this poor excuse for a plan into action.”

Calvin took two M8-4 flash-bang grenades and pulled the primary pins. “Ready.”

Tessa checked the magazine of her M-4 and aimed the rifle toward the door. “Ready.”

Decamp stuck the .45 into a holster on his hip. He reached over his shoulder to a weird carbon black tube strapped on his back and slid a gleaming metal blade from inside.

“Seriously?” Calvin said. “A sword?”

“Call it an affectation. Here we go.”

Decamp grabbed the door handle and swung the door inward. A huge wolf spider pushed through and Tessa blew it to pieces. Calvin noticed that Decamp didn’t flinch even though he was in the line of fire. Had the man seen combat? Calvin popped the secondary pins of the grenades and pitched them through the door. Decamp slammed the door as the flash-bangs went off. As soon as they heard the explosions, Decamp swung the door open and drew his .45. With gun in one hand and sword in the other, he charged through the doorway.

Calvin went next, and Tessa took her usual position as rear guard. For once, Calvin didn’t mind giving up point. Decamp was the man with the most intel. Let him lead the way.

To Calvin’s surprise, they weren’t attacked the second they stepped through the door. The flash-bang wasn’t designed to do much damage, but at close quarters it had still killed a couple of the creatures. The others however seemed to be milling about in confusion. That’s what Calvin would have expected from humans exposed to the flash-bang, but could spiders even hear?

“Their disorientation won’t last long,” Decamp said. “Head for the entrance.”

Decamp began swerving around the confused spiders and Calvin and Tessa hurried after him. A large wolf spider, which had apparently been far enough from the blasts to be less affected, lunged at Decamp and he decapitated it with a deft flick of the thin sword. Calvin was impressed. The blade was stronger than it looked and had to be razor keen. A second spider lost two front legs and Decamp shot it with the .45 for good measure.

Several more spiders seemed to be shaking off the effects of the flash-bangs and they came swarming toward the fleeing trio. Calvin fired in controlled bursts, saving ammunition. He only had one magazine left for the rifle and he did not want to run out of ammo in this place.

Decamp reached the door and stepped out, looking all around. It was well that he did, as a large spider that looked different from any they’d seen so far dropped from above. Decamp stepped nimbly to one side and hacked the spider’s head off. Calvin made a mental note not to make fun of the guy’s sword again.

Calvin shot another spider then stepped through the door and turned to make sure Tessa was with him. She vaulted a bloated spider corpse and leaped through the door. She spun and slammed the door shut behind her.

A chorus of shouts from his left made Calvin turn toward the sounds. Perez, Jenkins, West, and two guys Calvin didn’t know came running around the side of the building, followed by a wave of spiders.

“Jesus!” Tessa said. “What the fuck do we do now?”

Decamp said, “Head for that van. Everyone.”

“That won’t keep them out,” Calvin said. “They can break through the glass.”

Decamp said, “Just do it. Trust me.”

Calvin nodded and sprinted for the SWAT van. He had no idea what Decamp had in mind, but they were probably all dead anyway, and he had no other plan.

As Decamp passed close to one of the two new guys he said, “This isn’t going well, Jonathan.”

The other man smiled. “Noticed that, did you?”

When the group reached the van, Decamp said. “Stand as close to the van as possible. I need everyone to hold the spiders off for just a few moments. Concentrate your fire on keeping them back and try not to shoot me.”

With that, Decamp took his sword and jammed the tip into the ground. He ran around the van in a tight circle, never letting the sword lift from the earth so that he cut a narrow line in the dirt all the way around. When the circle was completed he said, “You can stop firing. They won’t cross that line.”

“You’re out of your mind,” the big man said, still firing at the spiders.

Decamp shrugged. The wave of creatures rolled up like some mad tide of horror. Calvin gritted his teeth.

The spiders stopped.

Decamp said, “Everyone get in the van, and whatever you do, do not step outside the line.”

Tessa said, “What did you do? How the hell did you do that?”

“More of that magic you don’t believe in. Now into the van, please. We don’t have much time.”

The group crowded into the van. It was hot inside, but no one wanted to open any windows or doors. Calvin didn’t like the way West looked. His face was pale and waxy and Calvin figured he might be in shock. And who the hell could blame him?

Decamp said, “As I just told Officer Malloy, this situation is going to get worse very quickly. There are thousands of arachnids in this area and all of them are being mutated and will soon be out, searching for food. This facility is fairly isolated, but the spiders will soon begin looking for food closer to Bergen.”

“Jesus,” Calvin said. “We need to call in and let headquarters know what’s happening.”

“I don’t believe you’ll be able to do that, Calvin,” Decamp said.

Ignoring Decamp, Calvin pulled out his radio. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to call in for back-up earlier or for the fucking National Guard. Blame it on giant fucking spiders.

“Dispatch, this is SWAT Team One. Come in please,” Calvin said. There was no answer. Just a hiss of static. “Come in, dispatch.”

Again static, but this time Calvin thought he could hear a sort of whispering sound. He tried to talk again but the whisper seemed to grow louder, echoing from the radio. Calvin couldn't make out any distinct words, but he seemed to hear a series of sounds.

“Something's wrong. All I hear is what sounds like someone repeating gibberish. Like atlachna something.”

“Atlach-Nacha,” said Decamp. “The spinner in darkness.”

“What?”

Decamp said, “One of the Great Old Ones. An ancient god associated with spiders.”

“You're not making any sense, Decamp,” Calvin said.

“I'm making perfect sense. You just lack a point of reference for understanding.”

“I'm a smart guy. Explain it to me.”

“All right. All of you, listen please. My name is Carter Decamp and this is my associate, Mr Crowley. We are both experts in what you would call the occult. The supernatural.”

“Bullshit,” said Jenkins.

Crowley said, “Since you're only alive right now because you're sitting inside of Decamp's magic circle, you might want to listen to him.”

“If it makes you feel better, imagine there's a scientific cause for what's happening. Radiation or some such. In any case, you are surrounded by giant mutated spiders and there will be worse things later.”

“But what's causing it?” Perez said.

“In simple terms, an incursion from another dimension. Call it the Outer Dark. The void. I refer to it as the other side. But it's a dimension, the very nature of which is inimical to our own. Something from that dimension has crossed over into this one. A being or an artifact, and it is causing these spiders to mutate. The fact that your radio is manifesting voices from beyond and that they mention Atlach- Nacha perhaps explains why spiders are the first things affected. But there will be more.”

“This is fucking crazy talk,” said Jenkins. “What we need to worry about is how the hell we're going to get out of here and warn the town.”

“Very true, Officer Jenkins,” said Decamp. “How would you suggest we do that?”

“We're in a van, sir. How about we drive away?”

“Would you just leave whatever is causing this to continue its baleful influence?”

“We can come back with flamethrowers or whatever it takes.”

Crowley said, “If it gets a foothold it will take more than that to stop it. Decamp and I came here because we both were made aware of a flare-up of Eldritch power entering our reality. Don't interrupt, Jenkins. Just trust me on this. We thought whatever was causing the incursion was inside this facility. We were wrong. But it's close and we have to find it and deal with it.”

“How will you do that?” said Tessa.

Crowley smiled, and Tessa leaned away from him, resisting the urge to flinch. “Won't know that until we find it.”

“What brought you here, specifically?” Calvin said. “You got some sort of spook energy detector?”

“In a way. Jonathan is sensitive to such things and I have a grimoire that gives me warnings of this sort of occurrence.”

“But you say you missed your mark.”

“Only by a narrow margin,” said Crowley. “Now that I know this is related to Atlach-Nacha, I can pinpoint the source. It should be somewhere on the slope behind this plant.”

Decamp said, “What we need to know is can we count on you to help us reach it. The situation has grown out of hand faster than we anticipated.”

West, who had been sitting quietly said, “You want us to go back out there and fight our way past those things? You are out of your minds.”

Decamp said, “In some ways it's a moot point. The circle of protection that surrounds this van only works as long as I'm inside of it. It can only last a few minutes once I leave it.”

“So it's go with us or stay here with the spiders,” said Crowley. That smile of his flashed again. Either he was enjoying their discomfort, or he was a madman.

“Maybe we won't let you go,” Jenkins said.

Crowley said, “That would be an error in judgment.”

“We're going,” said Calvin. “Like the man said, we don't have much choice. Serve and protect, people. That's what we do. We can't let these fuckers overrun Bergen. What's the plan?”

Crowley, said “What sort of suspension does this van have?”

Calvin said, “Top of the line. Four wheel drive. Heavy duty shocks. Why?”

“Maybe we can drive to the source of this situation.”

Decamp said, “Would you take the wheel, Jonathan?”

“Since you asked so nicely, sure.”

There was something seriously unsettling about Crowley. He looked average enough, but Calvin just got a weird vibe off the guy. Of course, given the way things were going that might be good.

Decamp said, “As soon as we leave the circle the spiders will be on us. We don't want them turning the van over so we're going to have to take some action. What weapons do you have available?”

Perez said, “Couple more M-4s and a pump-action shotgun in the locker behind you. Beyond that it's what you’re looking at.”

“All right,” said Decamp. “Let's use two more of the flash-bangs to send the spiders around us running. It's dark out now so they won't like the light and the noise.”

Calvin voiced the question he had thought of earlier, “Can spiders hear?”

“Strictly speaking, no,” said Decamp. “They don't have ears. But they have sensory nerves on their legs that look like hairs. They can pick up vibration. They don't see well either, despite their multiple eyes. Mostly light and motion. It makes them quite susceptible to the flash-bangs.”

Jenkins said, “We're really going to do this? All right. I'll use my M8-4s. Just tell me when.”

The big man got up and opened the van's side door. Calvin felt his stomach lurch as he looked out at a sea of gleaming eyes and waving legs. He had never really been afraid of spiders before. That had sure as hell changed.

Crowley got into the front of the van and started the engine. He turned on the headlights and that sent a lot of the spiders scurrying for cover. He said, “They don't like the high beams. That will help.”

Decamp said. “Everyone shield your eyes. Use the grenades, Jenkins.”

Jenkins flipped the grenades out of the door and Calvin put his forearm over his eyes. He heard the blast and felt the concussive force and then the van was in motion. The spiders didn't indeed like the headlights. They scrambled away as the van plowed around the side of the building, heading for the slope behind the structure. A few fell in behind the vehicle and Perez shot any that came to close through the rear window.

They hit the slope and the van found traction and started up. Calvin could feel the bottom of the van scrape on rocks and limbs and he had a moment of panic as he realized the vehicle could get stuck at any second, leaving them in the dark woods with the spiders. He glanced around the van at the faces of his companions and realized he wasn't the only one having such thoughts.

Crowley drove the van with surprising skill. The trees on the slope weren't too thick and he was managing to find wide enough open areas to get through. As the van bounced and lurched, the headlights flashed on scenes out of hell. There were large areas of white webbing stretched between trees and in them he could see forms that were without doubt human. For a moment he thought he saw a pair of pleading eyes that were swiftly covered by a weaving spider.

“Something ahead,” Crowley said. “Looks like a light of some kind.”

Decamp moved up to Crowley. Calvin looked over his shoulder. Beyond the trees ahead of the van was a weird, coruscating purplish radiance.

Decamp said, “It looks like it’s inside the mouth of a cave.”

Calvin was about to ask a question when something smashed through the rear window. The front part of a wolf spider pushed through the opening. Something else hit the side of the van and the vehicle fishtailed and slammed into a large shape that shrieked and thrashed for a moment before quieting.

Everyone was thrown to the floor of the van. Calvin got his 9mm out and shot the spider stuck in the window. The sound was incredibly loud in the close confines of the van. One of the side doors had popped open and Jenkins started screaming as a spider lurched through the door and sank its fangs into him. A moment later Jenkins was jerked through the door into the dark.

Shit!” Tessa said. She drew her Glock and lurched over to the door. She shone her flashlight out and fired several round. “Jesus! They’re tearing him apart!” She continued firing until the Glock hit empty.

Calvin hurried to Tessa’s side and gently pulled her away from the door. “There’s nothing we can do.” He slid the door shut.

Crowley said, “We need to move before they swarm all over us.”

“Agreed,” said Decamp. “We’ll have to make for the cave.”

Perez said, “The cave? Are you fucking nuts? It’s probably full of these things.”

“It’s the only defensible position and our only chance of finding the source of these creatures.”

Calvin said, “Same drill as before? Flash-bangs, then run like hell?”

“Why mess with success?” said Crowley.

Calvin got two grenades ready. Perez opened the door, firing a short burst with his M-4 in case anything wanted to come in, then leaned away as Calvin threw the flash-bangs. With Mag-lights on full, the group climbed out of the van and started running toward the cave.

From the corner of his eye Calvin saw what Crowley had smashed with the van. He wished he had not. Scorpions were creepy enough without being the size of a horse. The thing was still alive and still twitching. They were lucky. The tail had been broken away from the base of the vile thing.

Calvin swept his rifle left and right, firing at anything that came close. Perez's cousin Guillermo stayed in the center of the group, obviously terrified of getting left behind. Tessa had the rear guard as always, and West was staying a little further to one side of the group than he probably should have. Calvin yelled for him to tighten up the formation but he didn't seem to hear.

Decamp moved along, using the sword when he needed. Crowley seemed to be able to evade the spiders, almost as if he knew what they were going to do before they did it. If by some miracle they got out of this alive, Calvin was going to have a lot of questions for the pair of 'occult specialists’.

Oddly enough, the number of spiders seemed to be diminishing as they neared the cave. It was almost as if the creatures didn't care for the sickly radiance which fluoresced from within.

Calvin sensed movement to his right and veered away. It was well that he had because a big area of the ground suddenly seemed to rear up and a bulbous head sporting long mandibles shot forward. West screamed as the mandibles closed on his leg and pulled him toward the dark gaping hole under the raised disc, which Calvin could now see was composed of webbing covered with earth. His memory flashed on a documentary he had seen one night on PBS. He was looking at a giant trap-door spider. It built a layer underground and waited for prey to pass close by. Then it sprang out, grabbed them, and pulled them into its hole to devour at leisure.

Calvin almost gagged at the thought of what would happen to West if they didn't help him. West was flat on the ground on his stomach, clawing at the earth as the spider tried to drag him into the lair. He was screaming and maybe even crying. Calvin tried to line up a shot, but in the darkness, with West flailing around, he couldn't draw a bead on the spider. A moment later it was too late as West vanished from sight.

Calvin started toward the area of ground that hid the hole, but he felt a hand clamp onto his arm. He turned to find Carter Decamp.

“You can't help him now. Keep moving or you're dead too.”

“But he's still alive. Down there in the dark with that thing.”

“I know. Nothing we can do. Go over there and there may be another one waiting. Now move, Calvin!”

Decamp took off and Calvin followed, hating Decamp and hating himself. A moment later they reached the mouth of the cave. It was bigger than Calvin expected, tall enough for them to stand inside, and miraculously, there didn't seem to be any spiders inside or anywhere close to the entrance. Maybe he had been right and the spiders didn't like whatever was in the cave. And Calvin really didn't want to meet anything those monsters feared.

Decamp and Crowley moved deeper into the cave and the others followed. There was something about the purple light Calvin found painful. At first he thought it was hurting his eyes, but then he realized the pain was deeper, as if the light was actually flowing into his brain, probing at his thoughts, and twisting through the maze of his memories.

They rounded a corner in what had become a tunnel and found a gigantic chamber. Calvin had been to the tourist attraction, Ruby Falls, when he was a kid and this was like that. A massive underground room filled with stalactites and strange formations of stone. The purple radiance played across these forms, casting deep, flickering shadows.

The floor of the chamber was cluttered with the white bones of animals and humans. A great mass of webbing hung in the center of the vault with thick strands stretching from floor to ceiling, supporting the mass. Directly below the webbing stood a tall, thick stone, pointed at the top and covered with carvings of some sort. It was the source of the purple light and the sickly glow flowed off it in waves.

“What the hell is that?” Tessa whispered.

“What we've been looking for,” Crowley said. “That stone is the artifact that's causing all of this.”

Tessa said, “There's something inside that sack of webbing.”

Calvin looked back at the mass. At first he thought the light from the stone was just making it look like the web was moving, but now he could see the surface was twisting and undulating. There was definitely something alive in side. “So we need to destroy the stone and all of this ends, right?”

“In theory,” said Decamp. “But there may be more to it than that.”

“Fuck that,” Perez said, raising his M-4.

Crowley said, “No, you idiot.”

But it was too late. Perez unloaded on the stone. Calvin didn't blame Perez. It was just rock after all, right? The shells from the M-4 should be able to shatter it and that would stop these monsters, right?

But that wasn't what happened.

The bullets glanced off the stone and ricocheted around the chamber. The stone began to give off a whining sound like a giant, angry hornet, and the purple glow grew in intensity. Above the stone, the movements in the web sac became more frantic and violent and then the sac ripped open along the bottom and something big fell out and landed with a wet, meaty thud among the bones.

Slowly the thing on the floor rose, gleaming wetly in the purple light. It had the upper torso of a large, well-formed man, but below the waist it had the bloated body of a gigantic spider. The pale human flesh was scored with stretch marks, red striations that showed where the flesh was changing too quickly. At the waist those marks were worse and sometimes devolved into shreds of split skin from which the vast spidery form had erupted, leaving bloody streaks of gore. Eight, segmented legs spread out to a diameter of at least fifteen feet. They were long and thin and a deeply polished black, much like the obsidian cast of the bloated body they supported.

The nightmare turned toward Calvin and the others, and Calvin saw that above the eyes in the oh-so human face were two more sets of shiny black orbs. The thing opened its mouth and half a dozen tiny black spiders dribbled out. From within the creature's mouth, two long, sharp, mandibles extended.

The thing rose on its eight legs and took a step toward the group. It moved with that unsettling scurrying step so many spiders had, seeming almost to jump it moved so fast.

Guillermo screamed and turned to run. With amazing quickness, the creature shot forward and drove one the sharp tips of one its legs through Guillermo's torso, impaling him and then casting him aside.

Perez howled with rage and brought up his M-4 and stared firing. The noise shook Calvin from the daze he had sunk into and he too brought his rifle into play. A split second later, Tessa joined them. The cave was lit up with the muzzle flair from the three machine guns.

The spider thing was unharmed.

Calvin said, “What the hell is that thing, Decamp?”

Decamp said, “An aspect of Atlach-Nacha. Not quite a god. Far more than human.”

Perez said, “How do we kill that fucking bastard?” His eyes were wide and wild; the man’s cousin was dead. Calvin had heard enough tales of the Perez family to know he was broken up about it. Still, the grief would have to wait.

“You don't,” Crowley said. “We do.” He was smiling again. Calvin shivered.

Decamp said, “We have to get to the stone. See if you can distract the creature.”

Calvin said, “I got one magazine left.” He rammed it home into the M-4 and then started firing rapid bursts from the rifle, aiming at the monster's head. As he did so he scrambled across the uneven cavern floor. Tessa did the same, also on her last clip.

One of the creature's legs shot out and Calvin twisted away. The sharp tip still tore through the fleshy part of his leg, and he bellowed in pain as he toppled. The spider thing rushed toward him. Tessa put herself between the creature and Calvin and emptied her weapon at the scrambling horror. The creature didn't even slow down.

“Decamp!” Calvin yelled.

Decamp looked back over his shoulder. He said, “Jonathan, get the stone.” Then he hopped down and ran to where Calvin had fallen.

Tessa swung her empty rifle and sent it spinning at the creature. So far the thing hadn't made any sound but Calvin saw that it was grinning around its mandibles. The damn thing was enjoying itself. A moment later, it wasn't. The thing threw its head back and emitted a high pitched screech as Decamp's oddly glittering sword cut through one of its legs.

The spider thing whirled and lashed out at Decamp with another leg. Decamp stepped to one side, avoiding the thrust, and sheered the tip off the attacking limb. The creature staggered back, favoring its wounded legs. Then, without warning, it lunged at Decamp and this time managed to strike him with the side of one leg. The impact sent the slender man tumbling.

The spider thing hissed and started toward Decamp. Calvin looked over to where Crowley was standing by the stone. It was almost as tall as he was. Crowley muttered to himself and closed his fingers around something that Calvin could not see. He lifted his closed hand and as Calvin watched, an orange flame ignited around Crowley's clenched fist. Crowley drew back and struck the stone. The surface of the standing stone cracked, and the purplish energies surged and flickered like a candle in a strong wind.

The spider thing stopped stalking toward Decamp. Its head whipped around and its six eyes glared at Crowley. “No,” the thing said in a sibilant, echoing voice that pounded at Calvin’s head like a tidal wave. Not heard so much as felt. It began to lurch toward Crowley, its progress slowed by its injured legs. It wasn't coming fast, but it was coming.

Calvin fumbled for his 9mm. He knew it wouldn't do any good but he couldn't just sit there. He glanced at Crowley again. Crowley struck the stone a second time, making bigger cracks in its surface. Flares of energy rippled and bled along those cracks.

“Not fast enough,” Crowley muttered as he saw the spider thing bearing down on him. He leaned forward, opening his hands. Whatever he’d clenched in his fist was gone. With a strength Calvin would have thought impossible, he tore the standing stone out of the ground, his feet sinking into the arid dirt as he strained. His body turned and he hurled his prize at the creature. The stone struck the spider thing and it stumbled and fell. But the stone, though lined with cracks, was still in one piece.

The spider creature slowly stood. Crowley crouched and then hurled himself over the creature. The monster made an awkward turn, trying to keep Crowley in sight, and in doing so, turned directly into a sword thrust from Carter Decamp that tore through the thing's abdomen. The great, swollen orb split open, disgorging a flood of black ichor, swimming with small spiders.

“Nice one, Decamp,” Crowley said. He lifted his hand again and this time his fist blazed with a white light. Crowley brought his fist down on the fallen stone and it shattered, sending fragments flying around the cave. The sound was as loud as a church bell struck by a hammer, and then everything went black. The purple light was gone.

It was Perez who got his mag-light working. He played the beam around the room, showing the lifeless hulk of the spider thing. The tiny spiders that had been swimming in its blood were dead as well.

“Is it over?” Calvin said.

Decamp said, “It's over. The spiders outside will have returned to normal size and they're probably as dead as the ones in here. That kind of metamorphosis carries a price.”

Tessa said, “Calvin we need to get you some medical attention asap.”

“We'll help you get him back to the van,” Crowley said. “Your radio should work now and you can call an ambulance.”

Perez said, “What the fuck happened here?”

Decamp produced a penlight from a pocket and stepped over to the fallen spider creature. The arachnid parts of its anatomy seemed to be shrinking away, leaving the form of a nude man. Decamp shone the light on the man's hand and something glittered. A wedding ring.

Decamp said, “I can speculate. This man, whoever he was, found this cave. Perhaps a landslide opened it, or maybe he was digging. He found the standing stone, a relic from antiquity, and somehow it came to life.”

“And created those freaks?” Tessa said.

“Yes,” said Crowley. “The stone is incredibly old, from a time before recorded history. There were dark things living in those days.”

“You sound almost as if you were there,” said Calvin.

Crowley flashed that dark grin of his again. His eyes locked with Calvin’s. “Do I?”

Decamp said, “The Eldritch energy from the other side poured into this man, changing him and taking over his body. He was a vessel for one of the entities that flourish in the outer dark. The spiders were just a side effect.”

Crowley said, “And that's all you need to know. Let's get Calvin out of here.”

“You two are going of have a lot of explaining to do,” Calvin said.

Crowley said, “Probably not.”

And he was right.

Kill Team Kill

Justin A Coates

“This is bullshit.”

It was the second time Macy had said it during the long march up the mountain. Sergeant Nielsen glanced at his MK48 gunner in annoyance as the younger man leaned against an Afghan pine.

“Shut up, Macy,” he said, feeling the same exhaustion he knew the machine gunner felt but refusing to show it. “You can bitch about it once we make it back to Desolation. Take a knee, face out, drink water.”

Macy looked back at his team leader with barely disguised disdain. He lit a cigarette as he got down in the prone, popping out the machine gun’s bipod behind the roots of the pine tree. Nielsen made sure to stump the toe of his boot into Macy’s side plate as he went to check on the rest of Team 1.

Erwin was seated against a smooth limestone boulder. The marksman peered down the scope mounted on his MK14 EBR. The 7.62mm sniper rifle was pulled snug into his shoulder, between where his plate carrier met his Multicam-pattern combat blouse.

“See anything interesting?” Nielsen asked.

“Not a thing,” Erwin muttered, slowly scanning the valleys below. “Not since that weird goatherd guy following us after Meri Khel.” He cocked his head to the side, affecting a higher tone of voice. “Did you see that chicken guy?”

“Yeah,” Nielsen answered. “That guy was weird.”

They both laughed quietly, having shared the same inside joke with the rest of the team for six months now. Being stationed at COP Desolation wasn’t easy; finding humor in the most idiotic or vulgar circumstances had kept the men of the 25th Infantry Division from killing each other. The combat outpost was tiny, and the daily missions grueling. Bleak humor was all they had.

“We still set to meet with Team 2 on time?” Erwin asked, briefly glancing away from his scope.

“Yeah. If we make this our last stop we should be fine.” Nielsen fiddled with his Camelback, sucking down a gulp of warm water from the hydration system hose. “Lemme know if you see anything.”

Folen and Coutts were on the other side of the small summit, overlooking a sheer drop of over a hundred feet. Coutts was in the prone behind his M249, the automatic rifle’s stubby barrel poking out into the open air. Folen’s M4 with underslung M320 grenade launcher was propped against a tree while Folen pissed a steady stream of clear liquid over the cliff.

“You’re gonna get shot in the dick if you keep silhouetting yourself like that,” Nielsen said.

Coutts looked up at him, grinning like an idiot. “Right in the diiiick,” he said, spitting out a thick black thread of chewing tobacco. “Quit diiiicking around, Folen.”

“I wanna see how far out I can get it,” Folen said, visibly struggling.

“I’m being serious, asshat. Cut it out.”

Folen buttoned his trousers and took up his position at the tail end of their small formation. “How much further we got to the objective, sarn’t?”

“Another five hundred meters up,” he said, briefly checking the GPS unit attached to his wrist. “As long as we follow this spur we should be fine. Team 2 will be waiting for us there. You all staying hydrated?”

“Roger,” they both replied, their heads returning to the slow, automatic swivel typical of anyone used to patrolling in a combat zone.

Returning to the center of the small patrol base, Nielsen keyed his microphone. “1-7, this is 1-1, over.”

Silence greeted him. He tried to keep his voice down. “1-7, 1-1. We’re within 500 meters of the objective. How copy, over.”

Silence. Dead, cold, empty silence. Nielsen was sweating despite the cool of the evening. Not for the first time he cursed himself for not speaking out against their platoon leader’s idiotic plan for locating the enemy weapon caches. Splitting the platoon into such small teams was stupid. It flew in the face of common sense; it flew in the face of basic tactics. If not for the platoon sergeant’s total incompetence and unwillingness to confront the new lieutenant, it would never have happened.

There’d been no radio contact for almost twenty minutes now. That was absolutely unheard of. The only thing to do was drive on to the next objective and hope to meet them there. Beyond that Nielsen didn’t have a clue, but he’d be damned if he’d let his team down by showing his fear.

“All right,” he said after a moment. “Let’s pick it up.”

They pushed on another three hundred meters. Every step was the same grueling, knee-locked affair as the last. The air in the mountains was thin. Nielsen resisted the urge to give the order to swap their helmets for patrol caps. Nightfall was coming soon, and they’d need their helmet-mounted night vision for even the shortest movement up the mountain.

They’d made it almost four hundred meters up the spur when Macy abruptly opened fire with his MK48. “Contact,” he said, dropping to a knee behind a small pile of rocks. The machine gun thundered briefly, firing a burst of nine armor-piercing incendiary rounds. “Two hundred fifty meters. High on opposite ridge. One enemy RPG team.”

Nielsen’s response was drowned out by the heavy crump of an exploding RPG-7. The rocket propelled grenade detonated against a nearby pine, sending splinters of wood and sap flying.

“1-7, this is 1-1, troops in contact,” he said into his useless radio, dropping to a knee as Macy went down into the prone. “Talk the guns!” He shouted as Coutts’ lighter M249 opened up further down the spur. The M249 and the MK48 quickly began firing complimentary bursts, each one opening up when the other paused to re-acquire sight pictures or reload.

A High-Explosive Dual-Purpose grenade sailed through the air from Folen’s position. Nielsen fired his own grenade launcher a second later. AK-47 rounds snapped through the air past his head. He reloaded his underslung grenade launcher, taking note of the bright muzzle flash of the enemy RPK light machine gun.

Both his and Folen’s grenades landed solidly in the midst of the enemy position. A plume of smoke and dust rose from the stand of trees where the enemy had been. “Cease fire,” Nielsen shouted immediately, fearful for the conservation of machine gun ammunition. “Folen, hit it again. Erwin, tag any squirters you can see.”

Mindful of where he’d seen the RPK, Nielsen sent another grenade hurtling through the air. Folen’s came shortly after, both of them hitting right on top of each other.

There was silence for a moment; then, a single round fired from Erwin’s EBR. “Erwin?” Nielsen said.

“Saw some movement. Just wanted to be sure.”

“All right. Buddy ACE report, then let’s get out of here.”

He moved to Macy’s position, quickly checking the other soldier for any injuries he might not have noticed in the brief adrenaline rush of combat. “Ammo count?” Nielsen said, checking the soldier’s night-vision pouch and tapping his rifle-mounted optic systems.

“500 rounds,” Macy answered. “Should have shot more. Shit’s heavy.”

“Yeah, well, until we link up with Team 2 we need to play it safe.” Nielsen tapped his soldier’s helmet, and quickly showed Macy his own sensitive items. The junior infantryman quickly checked his team leader for any injuries before returning the helmet tap. “Good work, Macy.”

None of the others had been injured, and ammo levels were still at acceptable levels. Not like it matters, Nielsen thought. We’ve got one or two firefights like that left before we need a resupply. He pulled a HOOAH! energy bar out of his pocket, gnawing on the slimy peanut butter mess. Gonna need to start rationing chow if we get to the objective and no one else is there.

Just the thought of it formed a knot of anxiety in his stomach. “I’m not fucking ready for this,” he muttered, washing the energy bar down with a swig of water before turning to the rest of his team. “All right, pick up. We need—”

“Hey sarn’t?” Erwin spoke, looking down his scope. “You’re gonna want to take a look at this.”

Nielsen pulled his rifle to his shoulder, glancing through his ACOG scope. The dust was beginning to clear from the enemy position, but he could see the bullet-ridden pine trees shaking. Small landslides of shale tumbled off the opposite ridge, along with a body twisted and bent almost beyond recognition.

There was something massive lurking in the dust cloud. Nielsen caught a glimpse of a broad, black shoulder, bristling with sharp spines. One of the pine trees collapsed underneath a massive claw, its yellow talons circling around the trunk and pulling it up out of the ground.

“What the hell is that?” Macy asked.

“No idea,” Nielsen answered, his heart thundering.

“I’m gonna shoot it,” Coutts said, reaching for his M249’s charging handle.

Nielsen snapped, “Standby, dammit. Just... standby.”

They watched for a moment as whatever it was lumbered down the opposite side of the ridge. For a moment they could still hear it snapping trees and triggering shale-slides in its wake. Then it was gone, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.

“Well, that’s it,” Folen said, putting in a fresh pinch of Copenhagen. “We’ve all gone crazy. Time to kill each other.”

“Oh thank God,” Coutts said, stretching. “I’m tired of carrying this stupid thing.”

“You fucks don’t have my permission to die,” Nielsen said, shaking his head. Just get to the rendezvous site. “We need to double-time it to meet up with Team 2. Bianchi has the Tacsat, we’ll be able to call back to Desolation and see if they can get eyes on that... thing.”

“It was a honey badger,” Folen said. Coutts snickered. “Honey badgers don’t give a shit.”

“Whatever it was, I don’t want to be with you idiots when it shows up again.” Nielsen turned and headed back up the spur. The others fell into place, the sound of doubt hiding inside their muttered jokes and curses.

*   *   *

Team 2 was dead. Not just dead; devoured, ripped apart, scattered all over the plateau where they’d been supposed to meet. None of them were remotely identifiable. It was all a jumble of torsos and spent shell casings.

“Honey badger got here first,” Coutts said, kicking at a massive claw embedded in a rapidly-cooling torso. “Look at this thing.” He pulled it free, holding it up like a sword. “Almost as big as my dick.”

“We gonna talk about this?” Erwin said, glancing at Nielsen. “Or are we just gonna keep pretending nothing weird is going on?”

“Pretending has my vote,” Folen said. He pulled a blood-soaked grenade bandolier off a limbless corpse and strapped it over his shoulder. “I know I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Me neither,” Coutts added, holding the claw against his crotch and thrusting suggestively. “Not getting paid near enough to even start to care.”

“The whole team is gone,” Erwin said. The beginnings of panic edged into his voice. “Hajji didn’t do this, sarn’t. That... thing killed all of them.”

“Sure looks that way,” Nielsen said. He pulled off his Oakley’s, and put his hand on Erwin’s shoulder. “Look at me. Take off your eyepro.” Erwin obeyed, his pupils darting all over Nielsen’s face. “It doesn’t matter who did this. Hajji, honey badger…”

“It was the Loch Ness monster!” Coutts said. Macy and Folen laughed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Nielsen repeated. “We’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna find the Tacsat, call back to Desolation, and get the hell out of here. You with me?”

Erwin stared over his sergeant’s shoulder for a moment. Nielsen slapped him. Erwin blinked, and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah. I’m with you.”

“Good.” Nielsen embraced him, and kissed his cheek. “Now let’s find that damn radio.”

Something started screaming to their south. They turned as one, dropping to a knee in a firing line, facing the direction of the spur they’d followed up the mountain. The stand of trees on the edge of the plateau disappeared, pulled down by the same yellow claw now strapped to Coutts’ back.

“For the record,” Macy said, slamming a fresh belt of ammunition into his MK48. “It was a pleasure serving with you gentlemen.”

“‘All remaining rounds to my position!’” Folen quoted as whatever it was roared again. “‘For the record, it was my call!’”

“‘Lovely fuckin’ war!’” They all shouted together as a monster came charging up the spur toward them.

It wasn’t a honey badger. It was a bear, or a wolf, or an amalgam of both. It lumbered on all fours, the sharp spines that covered its shoulders quivering with every step. Its wild, white eyes were already rolling, a purple-black tongue lolling between fangs the size of Nielsen’s combat knife.

It was easily seven feet tall at the shoulder. When it suddenly reared up on its hind legs, spreading scythe-like claws, it was tall enough to blot out the setting sun.

Too close for grenades, Nielsen thought as he switched his M4 selector switch to BURST. Too close to miss.

Macy was already firing. He leaned back, letting the recoil of the MK48 drive him into the ground. The 7.62mm rounds snapped through the air alongside Coutts’ lighter 5.56mm bullets, the heavy tungsten projectiles peppering the behemoth. Folen and Nielsen joined in a second later, followed by the steady crack of Erwin’s marksmanship rifle.

The beast dropped onto all fours, charging despite the firepower leveled against it. It swiped at Coutts, its claws ripping apart his ceramic armor and sending his M249 flying. He fell, rolling to his feet and yanking the recovered claw free. The soldier lunged forward, hacking at the thing’s nose and maw, screaming incoherently. Nielsen circled, trying to get a better line of sight, blasting away at the thing’s thick, knotted skull.

“Fuck you honey badger!” Coutts shouted. Its huge head snapped forward, catching him around the waist. He screamed, coughing up blood as he rammed the claw furiously into its snout. The claw snapped in half as the beast shook its head wildly, hurling him like a shotput. Coutts went flying, disappearing over the edge of the plateau.

Erwin lunged, driving the barrel of his EBR into its chest. He pulled the trigger until his magazine was dry. The creature roared, ramming him with the spines on its shoulder. They burst out the back of his skull, shredding his body armor. It grabbed his body with a clawed hand and shoved the remains into its cavernous maw.

Nielsen cursed as he reloaded, fumbling with his polymer magazine. The thing turned on him, snarling, its white eyes rolling back into its head. He slammed another magazine home as it charged, Macy and Folen’s shouts drowned out by its thick, throaty bellow.

It was nearly on top of him when it suddenly began thrashing about. It shuddered, skidding to a halt, throwing up clogs of dirt in all directions. It pawed at its own head, snarling, foaming at the mouth.

“Hey! Over here!”

Nielsen turned to see a soldier emerge from a stand of trees on the other side of the plateau. His thick beard was covered in blood. There was a vicious wound on his left arm, a claw slash nearly six inches long. In his right hand he clenched a dish-shaped device attached to a massive backpack by thick, gray wires.

He aimed the device squarely at the bellowing monster. A high-pitched whine filled the air. The creature’s snarl turned into a mammoth squeal of pain. It turned and fled, thundering back the way it had come.

The young sergeant turned toward the stranger. The other man huffed with exertion, the device shaking in his arm.

“Goddam thing is running out of juice,” he said. “You all right?”

“Fine,” Nielsen answered. “Just peachy.”

“Who the hell is this?”  Macy asked, coming with Folen to stand beside Nielsen.

The other soldier clipped the device to his belt. He pulled a wrinkled cigarette pack out of his shoulder pocket and offered one to Nielsen. Nielsen stared at him. He shrugged, and lit it for himself. “Sergeant First Class Morris,” the soldier said. “Attached to Task Force Griffin. Stationed up at Camp Eisenhower a click north of here.”

“Bullshit, that’s where you’re from,” Folen said. “You’re stationed at Camp Bullshit, and you drink from a Camelback full of fucking lies.”

“You wouldn’t know about Eisenhower,” Morris continued, ignoring him. “It’s a subterranean facility. CIA built it back in 2002 right after the invasion. We’ve been moving in and out for the last ten years.”

“And let me guess,” Folen continued. “You’ve got all kinds of crazy nasty shit down there including that... thing.” He frowned, noticing the cigarette dangling from Morris’ lips. “Wait. Let me get one of those.”

Morris handed him a smoke, and said, “Yes. All kinds of nasty shit, including Codename: BARGHEST, which you just met.”

“That’s a stupid name for a honey badger,” Nielsen said. “A really fucking stupid name.”

The SF soldier frowned. “It’s not a honey badger. It’s a genetically engineered grizzly with a load of mechanical augmentation. Small arms don’t work for shit; it’s got a solid inch of ballistic-resistant gel and synthetic spider-weave beneath its skin. Most of its organs are redundant, and the damn thing has a graphene battery as a power source if it suffers brain death.”

“Can you kill it with that?” Nielsen asked, pointing at the device clipped to Morris’ waist.

“No. It’s supposed to be a remote control,” Morris said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “But the only setting that seems to still work is the one set to ‘screw off’. I can’t control them, but I can make them leave for a while. If we can make it back to camp I—”

“Stop,” Folen interrupted. “You said ‘them’. Please tell me you meant ‘it’.”

“No,” Morris sighed. “That’s one of two that are still left.”

*   *   *

The entrance to Camp Eisenhower was a hatch in the ground hidden beneath a false layer of loose rock. Morris led the way down a steel ladder, which dropped into a concrete hallway after twenty feet. Pale overhead lamps flickered as the rest of the team followed, spreading out with their weapons at the high ready.

“If we can get to the bionics bay I should be able to access the control system,” Morris said. “I can recall them from there, and then use the kill switch once they get inside.”

“Or you could just flip the kill switch now without calling them here,” Folen said, his eyes glued to the door at the end of the hall. “That would also work.”

“We can’t leave these things lying around,” Morris snapped. “You think Uncle Sam wants the world to know he’s setting genetically modified bears lose to hunt down hajj? Does that sound like a winning strategy for hearts and minds?” They stopped at the door. Morris quickly punched a code into the keypad. “We call ‘em back here and flip the kill switch as soon as we hear them rooting around. Then I call for MEDEVAC, we go home, and all of you get a fancy award and a weekend in Qatar.”

The hallway they stepped into was covered in blood. The remains of corpses were everywhere, mangled bodies and black, slick blood covering the walls.

“Something must have gone wrong with the command signals,” Morris said as Macy cursed in disgust. “The three barghests were supposed to run a standard patrol last night. Instead they went berserk. My team was already on patrol when one ambushed us. Managed to take it down, but I was the only one to walk away from it.”

“I thought you SF guys had special magic beard powers,” Nielsen asked, keeping his rifle tight in his shoulder. “Your beard didn’t protect you?”

“Fuck you.” Morris winced, pressing a hand against the Israeli bandage over his wound. “Take a left up here.”

The kill team headed down another blood-slicked corridor. There were rooms on either side of the long hallway; rooms with doors that had been beaten down, rooms with shattered glass panels and scattered laboratory equipment.

Morris stopped briefly at one of them. “Sweet,” he said, ducking inside. Nielsen followed, nearly tripping over overturned weapon racks. Machine guns, semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons were scattered everywhere.

“Macy, Folen, get in here,” he said, quickly opening ammo can full of HEDP grenades. “Stock up on everything you can carry. Ditch your plates; they’re not going to protect us from those things anyway.”

“Here.” Macy pulled two M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapons out of an overturned locker. He handed one to Folen and took one for himself. “There’s something else in here…” He withdrew a long, hollow tube fitted with a wooden pistol grip.

“That’s a Gustaf,” Morris said, playing with a remote control he’d snatched from one of the few lockers still standing. “84mm recoilless.”

“Will it take one of those things down?” Nielsen asked.

“If you shoot it center mass, it should deal enough damage to the barghest’s mechanical and organic support systems to trigger a total shutdown,” Morris said. “And if not…”

A large metallic crate in the corner suddenly toppled over with a loud bang. A tracked robot wheeled out from where it had been hidden and stopped at Morris’ side. At around four feet tall, the robot was armed with sponson-mounted machine guns and a quad-barrel rocket system.

“This is MAARS-bot,” Morris said, patting the robot affectionately. “He’s armed with one XM806 .50 caliber machine gun, two M240L 7.62mm machine guns, and an M202AI FLASH Incendiary Weapon.”

“Sweet,” Macy said. “Is it gonna go rogue and try to eat us, too?”

His answer was an echoing roar from somewhere deeper in the compound. Morris cursed. “All right, one of the two little bears is already home,” he said. “We gotta go. Now. Follow me!”

He sprinted out of the room, MAARS-bot cruising along behind him. The others followed, quickly slinging their rocket-propelled weapons as they sprinted down the hall toward the bionics bay.

“It’s just ahead,” Morris shouted as they rounded a corner. “Oh, shit!”

The barghest they had encountered earlier was just ahead of them. It bled hydraulic fluid and boiling, dark-red blood. It appeared even more massive in the tightly confined space. It roared, its spines scraping and gouging the ceiling.

“Honey badger, 12 o’clock!” Folen shouted, immediately dropping to a knee and opening up. He fired on burst, burning through a 30-round magazine in a matter of seconds.

“Grenades!” Nielsen shouted as the barghest dropped and charged. The HEDP rounds sailed through the air, each of them smashing into the beast’s front legs. Nielsen could feel the intense heat of the blast at such close range. He opened up along with Macy, the other soldier’s MK48 filling the air between them and the monster with armor-piercing rounds.

“Use your stupid ray gun, Morris!” Macy shouted.

“I’m outta juice!” Morris answered, ditching the huge power pack with a curse. He snatched up the controls for MAARS-bot, muttering a litany of profanity as he adjusted the robot’s controls.

“Any second now, Morris! Feel free!” Nielsen bellowed. The barghest was almost on them, growing wider by the second, undeterred by the gallons of blood and black hydraulic fluid pouring from its wounds.

“Got it!”

The robot chirped pleasantly, and suddenly the rocket pods on its central chassis burst into life. Four 66mm incendiary rockets screamed through the air, each one landing right on top of the other. The monster’s front legs were sheared clean off. One of the rockets detonated inside the barghest, showering all of them with blood, guts and machine parts. The metallic skeleton of the creature was revealed, along with sparking wires and steaming organs.

The barghest mindlessly pushed itself toward them with its hind legs. The kill team kept up their rate of fire until it was only a few feet from them. Finally it stopped, right in front of Folen, a mechanical screech signaling the death of its primary power source.

Folen peered down at its massive, bloody jaws. He chuckled, and kicked it in the eye.

The barghest lunged forward, its teeth sinking into his leg. Folen screamed as it savaged the wound, jerking its head back and forth. His limb came away at the hip, bright arterial blood fountaining through the air. The others yelled, dumping rounds into the creature’s head until its skull was nothing more than a black and red smear on the shattered tile.

Nielsen immediately went to Folen’s side. The soldier clasped his sergeant’s arm, looking up at him with a mixture of sorrow and annoyance.

“Nielsen,” he whispered. “Tell my wife…”

The sergeant squeezed his hand. “I will, Folen. I promise.”

“No... listen. Tell my wife I said…” Nielsen leaned forward, until Folen’s lips brushed his ear. “... fuck Obama.”

“Goddammit,” Nielsen said, standing up as Folen briefly cackled at his own joke before dying. “Macy, how much ammo you got left?”

“I’m Winchester,” Macy answered, unceremoniously dumping his MK48 onto the ground. “I’ll take Folen’s LAW. And his M4, so I can shoot myself once this is all over.”

“Great idea.” He turned to Morris, and gestured at the huge corpse blocking the corridor. “We aren’t getting around this. Is there any other way to the bionics bay?”

“Yeah. We gotta backtrack a bit, but we’ll make it there quick if we hustle. Follow me.”

The bionics bay was as big as some brigade-level operation centers Nielsen had seen. Massive screens covered the walls. Multiple rows of desks were set up, as well as what looked like a laboratory in a separate chamber near the eastern end of the bay. There was no sign of violence like there was elsewhere in the camp; everything was still, almost bizarrely serene.

“You better put me in for a bronze star with valor,” Macy said to Morris, taking up a defensive position behind a row of desks. He unlimbered his LAW, extended the rocket tube, and placed it lightly on his shoulder.

“I’ll deny any award he puts you in for,” Nielsen replied, kneeling behind the row across from Macy. “You’ve got a bad attitude. Maybe you’ll get a certificate of achievement. Maybe.”

“All right, ladies,” Morris said from one of the computers, typing away furiously. “I sent the return command a minute ago. Now all we gotta do is wait.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the sturdy steel doors they had entered through collapsed, along with much of the wall. The remaining barghest exploded into the room, barreling straight for Morris and the command console. Nielsen cursed, squeezing the trigger of the recoilless rifle as Macy opened up with his LAW. Nielsen’s round went wide, landing in the bionics lab with a muted crump. Glass flew everywhere, the lethal shards forcing him to duck and cover.

MAARS-bot opened up with all four machine guns mounted to its frame. The 7.62mm rounds pinged loudly as they penetrated the monster’s subcutaneous shell. The .50 cal rounds blasted huge chunks out of the barghest's flank. Despite missing most of its left front limb from Macy’s accurate rocket attack, it barged through the rows of desks and threw itself at Morris.

There was a brief moment of panicked screaming, rising only slightly over the nonstop barrage of bullets. Macy fired the LAW he’d recovered from Folen, managing to completely shred the creature’s left rib cage. Blood and pressurized lubricant sprayed everywhere, live wires hissing as they crossed each other.

It turned to face them with most of Morris hanging from its jaws. The console the SF soldier had been busily typing into was mangled, destroyed beyond repair. The barghest roared, sending a chunk of Morris’ leg flying through the air.

“Fuck you,” Nielsen snarled, squeezing the trigger on his M320. The 40mm grenade thundered against its snout with a shriek of tortured metal. Macy primed and threw two hand grenades in quick succession, both of them erupting beneath the monster’s heaving gut.

The MAARS-bot continued its unrelenting stream of tungsten and lead. Subjected to such withering firepower, the barghest's outer skin was blasted to pieces until it was nothing more than a huffing, wheezing skeleton. It rounded on the robot, flipping it onto its side and viciously pounding it with heavy strikes of its massive paws.

“MAARS-bot, no!” Macy yelled. “Save yourself, robot friend!” The robot chirped weakly in response, before exploding in a shower of sharp metal pieces.

The barghest rounded on Macy. The infantryman hastily back stepped, firing controlled pairs into its mouth as it advanced on him. He tripped over a fallen computer screen and went down. The barghest howled, rearing up on its hind legs to deliver a crushing strike.

Nielsen’s one remaining 83mm round caught it right in the ribs. The projectile detonated with the thunder of a mortar round, blasting the cyborg monster apart from the inside out. The top half of its body blasted toward the ceiling, its torso spewing rancid blood everywhere. Its upper half crashed onto the floor a moment later, its eyes rolling across the ground to stare accusingly at its killer.

The sergeant limped over to Macy and helped him to his feet. Macy looked at the bisected corpse, then glared at Nielsen.

“This is bullshit.”

RESTLESS

Lee Murray

Taine replaced the demi-tasse on its saucer. Barely a mouthful, and the cup so dinky he could hardly grasp the handle. He should have asked for two.

“Everything okay?” asked Jules, who was sitting opposite him.

Taine smiled. It was more than okay. He was here, with her, on the terrace of a French café enjoying a European summer while back home the army tidied up loose ends from that business in the Ureweras.

R&R was what the major had ordered. “Take some leave, lad. I need you and your boys out of sight and out of mind while I sort this,” Arnold had said.

It was easier said than done. Since that last assignment, Taine had been restless. Even the 26km run along the Sarthe, when Jules had been presenting at her conference in Le Mans, hadn’t helped shake the feeling. It’s what you get from years of soldiering. Always on alert, always checking over your shoulder. Like this tingle at the back of his neck…

He stood, the wrought iron chair clattering on the stones behind him.

“Taine?”

Why the tingle...?

There! Crawling across the milky flagstones was a woman, her nails tearing on the cobbles, knees grazed, each breath dragged from her lungs.

“La velue!” she whispered and collapsed, her face dropping to the stones just metres from Taine’s feet.

Like a hot wind before a storm, the whispers ricocheted off the stone walls of the lane.

“Qu’est-ce qu’elle a dit?”

“La velue?”

“C’est pas possible!”

“Ambulance!” Taine shouted.

The café patrons edged away.

What the hell was the French for ambulance?

Taine crouched, reaching for the woman’s pulse, but the café owner, more pastries in his belly than on platters at the counter, yanked him back. “Touchez pas, monsieur. Do not touch!”

Taine shook him off. “This woman needs an ambulance!”

“No one will touch her, monsieur. She is cursed.”

English. That was unusual. In Le Mans, on the tourist beat, most retailers spoke at least some English, but La Ferté-Bernard was small, just a few thousand inhabitants, and this café was mainly for locals.

“Did you not hear her say la velue?” The man spoke in gestures, too. “Can you not see le piquant in her back?”

Piquant? What’s a piquant?

Taine scanned the woman’s back. There, where red locks met the top of her sundress, a slender quill was embedded in her shoulder blade, the skin at the point bloated and red. Taine stooped to pull it out, then paused, his mind racing. Poison? That didn’t make any sense. This was France, the centre of civilisation and culture, not the African jungle. There were easier ways of administering poison than using a dart. Although darts mean the shooter had to be close…

Taine’s head whipped up. He checked the lane for the shooter. The rooftops. Trees. No one.

He turned back to the woman. Jules was bent over her, speaking softly.

“Touchez pas, je vous dis!” the café owner bellowed.

Ignoring his jabbering, Jules tilted her head toward the woman, the cheerful bob of her pony-tail incongruous with the gravity of her expression.

The woman’s skin rippled in waves as if someone was reading Braille from the inside. Foam bubbled at her mouth and dribbled onto the sun-bleached stones.

“What is it?” Taine asked.

“I don’t know. It’s… if I didn’t know better, I’d—”

With a rasp, the woman’s skin burst, splitting like an overripe tomato, grey-green pulp spilling onto the ground.

The remaining customers shrieked, all politeness evaporating in the late summer heat as they toppled tables and upturned chairs in their haste to get away. Serviettes fluttered. A can of Coke bumped across the path, dark liquid fizzing out.

What the hell?

Thousands of tiny organisms erupted from the corpse, the green mass swarming across the flagstones. Taine slammed Jules against the stone wall and out of way. The creatures scuttled towards the canal and over the edge. A few disappeared down a drain, dropping between the iron gratings. Within seconds they were gone.

Taine stepped back, releasing Jules.

Not poison then. “What were they? Some kind of crab?”

“It looked like… a crustacean of sorts,” Jules said, her voice shaky. “Oh my god, that poor woman. I think… I think she’d been incubating them. Taine, they ate her from the inside out, like wasp larvae gorging on a caterpillar.” Shivering, she wrapped her arms about herself.

Closing the distance between them, Taine held her, looking over Jules’ head at the woman’s body – now a carcass. Only skin and bone remained.

A movement caught his eye. A single spawn flopped in the puddle of spilled Coke, then stilled. Gently putting Jules away from him, Taine crouched to examine it. Smaller than a fingernail, it was shaped like a single fish scale and covered in hairs.

Footsteps.

Coming at a run.

The shooter? Taine spun, placing his body in front of Jules as a man dashed around the corner, a child in his arms. Spying the dead woman – more clothes than corpse – the man cried out, slowing and crumpling to his knees. “Non, non, non…” he babbled.

The café owner picked this moment to shut up shop, his belly wobbling as he hastened to wind in the awning. It closed with a snap.

“Hey,” Taine said. “You can’t just leave. These people need help!”

“C’est fermé,” the man said, slamming the bi-fold doors. It didn’t need translating.

Leaping forward, Taine grabbed the handle and shook it.

“Taine!” Jules called. She glanced at the child. At what he’d missed.

In the skin between the boy’s toes was a tiny quill. Who fires a dart that small? That low? And at a child?

Streaks of white were spreading over the child’s foot. Wormlike swellings snaking beneath his skin.

The man’s eyes boggled. He drew in a breath and lurched backwards, letting the child roll onto the path. “Non,” he breathed. “Non!” He scuttled backwards a few steps, then turned and bolted.

“Hey! Come back,” Taine shouted after him.

Jules grabbed Taine by the forearm. She’d gathered up the boy. “Taine. Let him go. Whatever these are, we need to stop them from spreading or we’ll lose him too.” She yanked the silk scarf from around her neck, handing it to him. “Use this as a tourniquet. Make it tight.”

Taine seized the gauzy fabric and tied it around the boy’s mid-foot, using a spoon to twist the fabric until the skin around it was white with pressure. The boy screamed. Jules held him tight.

“Sorry, kid,” Taine whispered.

He lifted the child out of Jules’ arms, their eyes meeting, fingers touching as they passed him. Then, hugging the boy to his chest, Taine ran. At the corner, he looked left then right, searching the shopfronts for the ubiquitous green cross that signalled a pharmacy. There were none.

Any other time they’d be everywhere.

Taine thumped the nearest door with his elbow. No answer.

He tried the next. Nothing. Had the curtains twitched?

Jules caught up.

“Jules, we need an ambulance, the fire brigade, an auto-shop, anywhere with a first aid kit.”

She was fumbling with her cell phone. “I’m looking… my French isn’t that good.”

It didn’t matter. Whoever Jules contacted would not make it in time. The boy was in danger of being consumed from the inside. In the few minutes it had taken reach the square, the boy’s toes had swollen to plump purple grapes, the skin stretched so thin it was almost translucent. Taine had to do something now.

There!

M. et Mme Lompech. Charcuterie-Boucherie.

It would have to do. Taine sprinted across the square and into the store, the door rattling behind him as it closed.

“Bonjour, mons—” said the wide-faced woman behind the counter. Taine didn’t wait for her to finish, barrelling past her into the rear of the store, where a man –presumably Lompech – was at work. Taine shouldered him aside, thrust the child on the bloodied butcher’s block, and snatched up a cleaver. The child squealed, and kicked out his feet, desperate to escape. Then, he caught sight of his foot. It was as ugly as an engorged leech, the grey skin mobile. The boy screamed again.

“Mais, qu’est-ce que vous foutez là?” the butcher shouted.

The wife appeared at the door, her eyes sweeping over Taine, the boy, and the cleaver. She started to yell.

Taine didn’t have time to explain, and even if he did, he didn’t know the words.

He raised the cleaver.

But the butcher wasn’t about to go down without a fight. Solid as a ship’s mast, and his face the colour of polished cherry, he lowered his shoulder, and charged. All it took was a neat side-step to send him sprawling. Lompech skittered into a sack of flour.

Taine turned his attention back to the boy. Raised the cleaver again.

“Non!” the wife shrieked.

Lompech was back on his feet, readying himself for another charge.

“Look, there’s no choice,” Taine yelled.

Lompech’s face hardened.

Taine remembered the café woman’s warning. “La velue,” he said.

The butcher froze, his face suddenly pale.

His wife covered her mouth. “Mon Dieu,” she gasped through her fingers. “La velue.”

The butcher stepped forward and Taine prepared himself for the onslaught. Instead, Lompech took the child by the shoulders, burying the boy’s face in his chest and holding him fast. He glanced at the boy’s foot then nodded at Taine.

Taine didn’t wait. He dropped the cleaver, hard, severing the foot below the ankle.

The cleaved appendage flew off the block. It smacked the worn stone slabs. Hairy white maggots slithered out, crawling down the drain the butcher used to sluice the area after a kill. In seconds, all that remained of the foot was the shrivelled flap of skin.

Mercifully, the boy had fainted. Cradling the child’s head, Lompech’s wife ran her fingers over the boy’s hair, crooning quietly, while her husband staunched the bleeding stump with his butcher’s apron.

Taine had to give the man his due. The butcher hadn’t cared for the risk to himself. Hadn’t hesitated to place his mitt over the oozing stump. Taine supposed butchers were less squeamish than most. Or perhaps Lompech thought if anything still infected the boy, his meshed glove would protect him.

Taine switched on the gas and heated the cleaver over the flame.

When it was white-hot, Lompech raised his hands to reveal the boy’s grizzled stump. The wife held her breath. Taine laid the flattened blade against the wound, cauterising it, the scent of seared meat filling the air. Unconscious, the boy flinched. Taine stifled nausea as the stench filled his nostrils. They’d done what they could. Breathing heavily through his mouth, Taine slumped against a bench while the butcher wrapped the wound in muslin.

Out the front, the door rattled. “Taine!”

Jules.

“I’m in here.”

Five grim-faced gendarmes crowded the tiny back room, FAMAS F1 series assault rifles aimed at Taine.

“À terre! Mettez-vous à terre! On the ground!” the leader screeched.

Taine raised his arms.

*   *   *

The office was dark with polished wood-panel décor and two French flags arranged in a patriotic V. There were three men in the room: the butcher, the mayor Godefroi, and a third man dressed in black and blue combat gear, who was leaning casually against a wall, yet to introduce himself.

The mayor was nervous. Almost effeminate, Godefroi’s slight frame reminded Taine of his corporal Coolie – former corporal – although the resemblance stopped there. The man had none of Coolie’s calm, none of his finesse. Taine and Jules had been in his office less than five minutes, and already he’d knocked a stack of papers off the corner of the antique desk. Now he was pacing the room, and pulling at his tie. He still hadn’t said anything.

“Am I under arrest?” Taine asked.

Godefroi stepped over the fallen files and stopped in front of them. “Well, that depends…” the mayor said in heavily-accented English. The room was air conditioned, but sweat beaded on his brow.

“Look, I was just trying to save the kid’s life,” Taine replied, his hand tightening on the scrolled armrest of the tiny divan he shared with Jules.

“By amputating his foot? Benoit will be a cripple for all of his life.”

“He’s alive, isn’t he? Surely, that has to count for something!” Jules protested.

“You weren’t there, sir,” said Taine, keeping his voice even. “We’d just seen a woman die in the street, and then there was something growing in the boy’s foot. Maggots, but not maggots. Ask Lompech. He saw them.”

The mayor’s eyes darted to the other men in the room.

Jules leaned forward. “The woman, before she died, she mentioned something, she said: la velue?”

Lompech spoke sharply to Godefroi in French. The mayor replied and a heated conversation began.

Straightening, the third man raised his hand and the pair ceased their bickering.

“You are Sergeant McKenna of the New Zealand Defence Force, yes?”

“You know me?”

He waved his raised hand. “I looked you up. Made a few calls. I am Lieutenant Alan Alcouffe.”

“Lieutenant? So those were your guys pointing bullpup assault rifles at me earlier?”

Alcouffe shrugged. “Yes, we are armed. The gendarmerie départmentale is a division of the French military.”

“Why am I being held?” Taine asked. Arnold wasn’t going to like this. Out of sight and out of mind, the major had said.

“Because we need your help.”

Taine shook his head. “Sorry, I’m off duty.”

Alcouffe folded his arms across his chest. “Sergeant McKenna,” he began, while Godefroi translated for Lompech, “what we require won’t take long. A few days at most. You do not have to help us, but you should know that we have the right to detain any person suspected of terrorism for up to 96 hours...” His let his voice trail off.

“Terrorism!” Jules said. “But that’s crazy. We’re not terrorists.”

Taine took her hand. “I’m listening,” he said. The last thing they needed was be labelled as terrorists.

Alcouffe smiled. “The woman you saw die in the street today,” he continued, “the thing that killed her was not… human.”

Jules’ nostrils flared. “We’re well aware of that!”

“And what do you think it was, Dr Asher?” Alcouffe said. “In your professional opinion?”

Taine frowned. So Alcouffe had checked out Jules’ biology credentials, too.

“It was some sort of parasite,” Jules was saying. “Like a wasp larvae or a flatworm, although I’ve never seen this particular organism before. Its use of a… um… human substrate might have been accidental, though. Tetanus is like that – normally a soil bacteria, but if gets into the human body by accident, say via a rusty nail, it can be fatal.”

“Jules,” Taine said softly. “This wasn’t an accident. The parasite got in by injection. It was deliberate.”

“Then, what are they trying to imply? That you and I injected that poor woman with the parasite? The boy, too? But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would we have helped them if we wanted them dead? And more to the point, what possible reason could we have for wanting them dead?”

“We know it wasn’t you who killed her,” Godefroi said.

“Good! Then we should be free to go,” Jules said.

Alcouffe sighed. “Sergeant McKenna is correct when he says the killing was deliberate. But you are correct, too, Dr Asher, which is why we also need your help.”

Godefroi nudged Lompech. The butcher stepped forward, holding a stainless steel meat dish containing the remains of Benoit’s foot, including the tiny needle.

Alcouffe went on. “The woman was attacked by a peluda, a rare animal capable of shooting lethal quills. Village records show it’s not the first time the animal has appeared in the village. It came from the Huisine River—”

Jules dragged her gaze from the shrivelled flap of skin. “Hang on, hang on, back up a bit. Peluda. Is that what la velue means? You can’t be serious. Isn’t that like a Greek manticore?”

Alcouffe nodded. “Something like that,” he said slowly.

Tugging at the hem of his jacket, Godefroi took a deep breath. “The peluda is a dragon, Mademoiselle Asher. It has appeared before, the last time killing seventeen villagers, including two children. We can’t let it happen again.”

“But it’s a cryptid.”

Taine arched a brow. She was speaking English and still he didn’t understand.

“A cryptid is a myth,” Jules explained. “A creature whose existence is based on anecdotal evidence. Bigfoot. Chupacabra. The Loch Ness monster. There’s no hard evidence these creatures actually exist.” She turned to the others. “Surely, you can’t believe—”

“What about a taniwha?” Taine said quietly. “Would that be a cryptid, too?”

Jules eyes widened. She clamped her mouth shut.

Taine looked at Alcouffe. “So, why us? You have the body, and the boy’s testimony – why not call in your military?”

The lieutenant adjusted the cuff of his uniform. “I would like nothing better than to see a couple of Leclerc tanks roll in, a compagnie of soldiers, a batterie—”

“You haven’t called it in, have you?” Taine interrupted. “Because you know they won’t believe you. A dragon who preys on women and children? You’d be a laughing stock. It’s a fairy tale.”

Alcouffe ignored him. “Until we know more about the creature, we feel it’s imperative this be kept quiet.”

“The villagers already know,” Taine said. “Today, at the café, they wouldn’t help.”

“Legends and hearsay,” Alcouffe replied, stepping to the window. “There have been stories. But add a dead woman, and a lame boy, and people will want to know if there’s any truth to those stories. We’ll be overrun by tourists and sight-seers looking for fame and getting into danger.”

Taine nodded.

“How did you keep people out last time?” Jules asked.

“The last time was five hundred years ago, Mademoiselle Asher,” Godefroi said. “There was no Internet in the middle ages. No mass media. We posted people at the outskirts of the village and had them tell visitors we had the plague. It was close enough to the truth. Nobody came.”

Taine’s mind raced. Armies dealt in hard intelligence. Facts. The French army would fling any report about a dragon back in Alcouffe’s face. The lieutenant had no choice but to protect his community with the resources he had available. It was a choice soldiers knew well enough. But as far as Alcouffe was concerned, Taine was expendable. Deniable. Taine knew Alcouffe could pull it off, too. It would be simple enough for Alcouffe to suggest Taine had taken it upon himself – to avenge the French bombing of the Rainbow Warrior for example.
A foreign national, a soldier and suspected terrorist, if Taine died – if anyone in the operation died – he was the perfect scapegoat.

Taine’s grip tightened on the armrest. The safest option would be for him to sit quietly in custody for four days. Wait it out. Taine almost smiled. He couldn’t do it. Already, he was chaffing to do something. Sit on his arse in a French jail while someone else did the dirty work? Yeah, right. Defending lives was what soldiers did, what he did.

Still, Jules didn’t deserve to be dragged into this…

He turned to her.

“I’ll be careful, if you will,” she said.

Taine smiled. He should have known.

Stepping away from the window, Alcouffe clapped his hands together. “Excellent!”

But Taine wasn’t done with him. Getting to his feet, he stepped forward until his face was almost touching the lieutenant’s. “Yes, we’ll help, but I want your assurance that, whatever happens to me, when this is over, Dr Asher is allowed to go home.”

Alcouffe’s gaze slid to the window.

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes, yes,” Godefroi said quickly. “Les assurances. You have them. Tell him, Alan.”

Alcouffe turned back, his eyes narrow. “I give you my word.”

Pushing to her feet, Jules smoothed the fabric of her shorts then took the meat dish from Lompech. “Right, if you boys are done proving who has the most testosterone, I’m going to need a lab.”

Godefroi led her to the door. “My nièce is the chemistry teacher at the Lycée Robert Garnier,” he said. “She will show you.”

*   *   *

Taine slung the rifle over his shoulder. Fixing the radio earpiece into place, he looked around the room. Dressed in full riot gear, men were stuffing electrolyte drinks and cereal bars into their pockets. Taine did the same, also adding a bush knife to his equipment. Two M67 fragmentation grenades remained on the table.

“You are familiar with them?” Alcouffe asked.

Taine picked one up, testing its weight in his hand. “The New Zealand Defence Force uses them, yes.”

“Then they are for you. My men are not trained to use them.”

Taine clipped the grenades to his belt. “When do the rest of your team turn up?”

“This is all of us,” Alcouffe replied.

“Five men to slay a dragon? No wonder you wanted my help.”

The Frenchman glared. “Right now, three of my men are following the crab creatures through the pipes and waterways under the town. They volunteered for this task even though they risk being stung by barbs and eaten alive. They have no idea where the crabs will lead them, and no idea what they will find.” He took a step forward, until Taine could feel the man’s breath on his face. “They are some of the bravest men I know.”

Adjusting the strap on his shoulder, Taine nodded. “Better one brave man than fifty cowards.”

Alcouffe stepped back, studying him. After a moment, he gestured to one of the gendarmes. “This is Guy. He speaks English.”

Guy stuck out a hand to shake Taine’s. “Guy Lompech, Sergeant McKenna. Enchanté.”

Broad for a man in his twenties, something about the soldier struck Taine as familiar.

Taine raised an eyebrow. “Lompech?”

“Yes, yes, he’s the butcher’s son,” Alcouffe interrupted. “We don’t have time for aperitifs and chatting. This is Bruno, over there that’s Thierry, and the short one is Pascal Le Cannu.”

Carrying a grenade launcher, Le Cannu acknowledged Taine with a handshake. “My tailor is rich,” he said, grinning.

“I’m sorry?”

“My tailor is rich. Le Cannu is learning English,” Lompech explained.

“Oh, right.” Taine smiled at Le Cannu. “That’s great.”

“Please, how do you call this?” Le Cannu said, patting the weapon at his hip.

“A grenade launcher?”

“Grenade launcher, yes. I have the grenade launcher,” the gendarme said in halting English, the word grenade more like gargling than speech.

Taine gave him the thumbs up. “Very good.”

It was: a grenade launcher was what was needed for killing a dragon, although how useful it would be in a tight space was debatable. But there were no others available, so Taine would have to make do with the hand grenades. About the same firepower, less to carry.

Alcouffe went on. “Only Lompech speaks English. The rest, no. Or only a few words. You’ll have to use hand signals.” The lieutenant broke into French. Taine heard his name, and the words soldat néo zélandais…

“Are you familiar with le clarion, Sergeant?” the butcher’s son asked. Taine’s confusion must have shown because Lompech tilted his head towards the rifle. “Le clarion, the bugle. It is what we call the FAMAS.”

Taine checked the gun over. Safety, single fire, automatic, and a tiny trigger guard which meant gloves were out of the question. New Zealand’s Steyrs had a larger guard, but maybe its penetration was superior to the Steyr. Taine hoped so; seeing as they were off on a dragon hunt. He pointed to the trigger. “Squeeze this here?”

Lompech chuckled. “That is all you need to know.”

One hand on his earpiece, Alcouffe help up a hand for silence. “It’s Tatou. They have found something.”

Twelve minutes later, the soldiers had gathered on the outskirts of town, nine of them now, including Tatou, Rossi and Laloup. They were standing knee-deep in the canal at the entrance to a tunnel disappearing into the wall. Blackened and slick with slime, the opening was gated with a solid iron grating, now hanging on an angle, the lock broken off.

Leaving Laloup at the entrance, Alcouffe signalled to Tatou, who took point as they entered the darkness.

The tunnel descended quickly, the sloping ceiling passing beneath the canal. Water fell from the stonework above them, creating a stream that flowed into the depths of the earth. Ankle deep in the water, the cold penetrated Taine’s boots.

“I thought heat was supposed to rise,” Lompech grumbled under his breath. “The cold is seeping up from my feet. If we spend too much longer in this water, I think my balls will freeze off.”

Taine pulled the collar of his jacket closer as an icy drip trickled down his neck. He’d been in tunnels before, but something about this one was sending shivers up his spine. “What is this place?”

“A quarry. It’s where they got the stone to build the canal and the town. There are hundreds of tunnels down here; the town’s built on top of it.”

“Are there other entrances?”

“A few. The town barred them all up before I was born. After a group of teenagers got lost and died down here.”

“I guess that explains why the place feels like a crypt,” Taine said.

“Let’s hope it’s not ours,” Lompech Junior replied.

*   *   *

Jules turned the maggot specimen over using a stylus while Godefroi’s niece, Sandrine, steadied the dish. It looked like a hairy caterpillar. Jules prodded it again. The creature’s bristles shot up, sending out a spray of tiny filaments.

Startled, Jules jumped back, knocking over an open can of Coke and sending it spilling across the benchtop.

“Merde!” Sandrine yanked her hand back, and shook her finger.

“Did it get you?” Jules righted the Coke can. Black liquid dripped off the bench.

“No, it’s nothing. A shock, only. I did not expect it to move.”

Jules grabbed at Sandrine’s wrist, turning her hand over and examining her gloved finger. Barely visible, the tiny fibres clung like thistle fluff to the latex. A charge effect? Or were the quills barbed, like a porcupine’s, so they slid into a victim easily but needed three or four times the force to pull them out?

Carefully, Jules curled Sandrine’s glove off, dropping it into a stainless steel waste container. Taking a magnifying glass, she looked closely at Sandrine’s finger. A few fibres had penetrated the glove. Surely, the maggot quills were just for protection. They had to be too small to inject eggs? But the tip of Sandrine’s finger was already streaking red.

Sandrine paled. “I’ll rinse them off…”

“I think it’s too late.”

Sandrine used her free hand to point to the line of lab benches under the window. “Jules, the… tiroir… the drawer, three from the left. Scalpels.”

Jules ran, leaping over the puddle of Coke, to the drawer, ripping the packaging off a sterile scalpel as she returned. At the bench, she hesitated.

“We don’t have any anaesthetic.”

Sandrine shook her head. “My uncle said Benoit lost his foot,” she said calmly. “It’s okay, the scalpel—”

Jules didn’t wait for Sandrine to finish her sentence. She sliced the pad off Sandrine’s finger. Blood welled. Drawing in a breath, Sandrine grimaced. She let the wound drip into the specimen container for a few seconds, then closed her hand to stop the flow.

“I wouldn’t recommend taking to crime,” Jules said. “I think your fingerprint is going to be a dead giveaway.”

Sandrine smiled weakly.

“Let’s keep an eye on it for a bit. Where’s your First Aid kit?”

“There. On the wall.”

The kit included a box of Doliprane. Jules checked the side of the box for the active agent. Paracetamol. She handed a couple to Sandrine, then took out a gauze bandage and covered the wound.

“So how did you end up here teaching school, Sandrine? Most people can’t get away from their hometown fast enough.”

“Oh, I tried to get away. I got as far as Lyon. After my doctorate, I worked for a private research organisation: companies who couldn’t afford to set up their own laboratories outsourced work to us. It was a great – a lot of variety. I was there five years, but then, I didn’t get a good peer review. One of my male colleagues found my presence in the lab distracting.”

It was a story Jules had heard before.

Sandrine shrugged. “So I left and became a teacher. Now I am head of the science.”

“Top of the glass ceiling, then.”

Sandrine grinned. “Exactement. I have my own lab, and my students are wonderful.” She lifted the bandage and smiled. “And it looks like I still have all my fingers.”

“Let me see.” Jules lifted the gauze, and blew out a slow stream of air. The skin around the wound was pink and healthy. There were no signs of any burrowing maggots. Jules replaced the bandage, and taped it down. “We can’t keep cutting off bits of people who get infected. We need to find a way to stop them.”

“Maybe we can kill them with some kind of pesticide, but I suspect the sheath protects them.”

“Plus, spraying people with pesticide isn’t ideal.”

“That too.”

Jules took another look at the maggot.

Damn!

The Coke had splashed in the meat container, contaminating the sample.

“Careful,” Sandrine warned as Jules checked the maggot with the stylus, this time prepared for it to move. But the creature didn’t budge.

“Maybe the maggots don’t survive a long period outside a host?” Jules suggested.

“It’s easy enough to test that theory – we’ll use the maggots growing in the flap of skin you just cut off my finger.” Jules had to admit, the woman had sang-froid. “Unless it was the Coke?”

Sandrine frowned. “Cell rupture caused by phosphoric acid?”

“Or citric or carbonic acids. Or a combination of all three?”

“I don’t believe it. Surely, those acids are too weak to cause any real damage.”

Jules agreed it was unlikely. It was an urban myth that Coke could dissolve a nail or strip the enamel from a human tooth. But soda drinks were a recent invention, at least as far as the peluda was concerned. An urban myth to kill a myth? The idea was so far-fetched…

Jules stripped off her lab-coat, throwing it over a stool. There was only one way to check.

Sandrine looked up. “Dr Asher? Jules? Where are you going?”

“Back to the alley where the woman was killed.”

*   *   *

After descending for about twenty minutes, Tatou led them left into a tunnel while the water continued straight across into some culverts. At least now they were in the dry. They continued along the stone corridor until a large opening appeared, heading off to the right. A cavern. In Taine’s night vision goggles, the entrance resembled a colossal green and black maw.

They crept forward. At the cavern entrance, their backs against the rock, Alcouffe motioned to Taine that he should look first, pointing two fingers to his eyes, and back to the entrance.

Of course. Taine was expendable. Still, he may as well find out what they were up against. He took a breath, raised his weapon, and eased into the grotto.

Cripes. The cavern wasn’t man-made. Wreathed with rocky outcrops, it was hung with the same hairy crabs that had burst from Benoit’s mother’s stomach. Like fairy lights at the mall at Christmas, they were hanging from the walls, the roof, squeezed into cracks in the rocks, everywhere. The ground though, was littered in rubble, a mound rising in the centre, stark against a green background… Bones. Heaps of them, like waste from an abattoir. Taine identified a few skulls: rodents, dogs, sheep, horses, and human....

“Well?” Alcouffe whispered when Taine had eased back into the tunnel.

“It’s a nursery of those crab things.”

“How many? Are they moving?”

“Millions of them. They’re moving – but not scuttling about – just waving their spines in the air like seaweed. And there’s—”

Alcouffe cut him off. “The dragon, McKenna. Did you see it?”

Taine shook his head, but even as he did a low hiss came from inside the cavern. Taine’s blood ran cold. It was in there? How had he not seen it? Putting a finger to his lips, he slipped into the cavern again. Careful not to disturb the crabs, he took cover behind a boulder and peered out.

He didn’t know what he’d expected the dragon to look like. More story-bookish. Or like a dinosaur. Something bigger anyway. Instead, the peluda resembled a large shaggy goat, but with a long muscular neck, and a smooth snake-like head and tail. It looked like some kind of bizarre genetic experiment gone wrong. Bent over a bone, it was gnawing at a piece of gristle still clinging to the shaft. It must have been hidden in the crags at the back of the cave. The dragon hissed, and even from a distance the stench was nauseating.

Behind Taine, a safety clicked off. There was a crunch of gravel.

The dragon dropped the bone, snapping its snake-head around to follow the sound. Taine checked the crabs, expecting them to be surging from the walls. They remained where they were, apparently disinterested.

“Merde!” someone cursed.

Taine risked a glance back. Alcouffe hadn’t waited. Tatou was now on the other side of the entrance, but, just inside the cavern, Rossi was sprawled on the ground – tripped over a bone. Why hadn’t Alcouffe waited for Taine’s intel? Did he already know what they were up against?

The peluda hissed again, and Taine swung to face it. His throat tightened. The dragon’s shaggy hair had stiffened into needle-like spines, almost doubling the creature’s size, like a cat with its hackles raised. The black barbs glinted, Taine’s night vision goggles capturing every speck of light.

Taine raised his rifle. He sighted a spot low on the creature’s chest. But Alcouffe was dashing across the gap to cover the downed man. Taine cursed. As Rossi scrambled to his feet, Alcouffe raised his Sig pistol and fired.

The bullet glanced off the creature, ricocheting into the walls and sending a shower of crabs to the ground. The crabs scurried back to the walls. The peluda remained unharmed.

Taine could have cried. What was that saying? Déjà vu all over again. The dragon’s spines had deflected the bullet. They would’ve been better off bringing the gendarmes’ riot shields.

The highly pissed peluda thundered towards Alcouffe, its clawed lizard feet crushing bones as it hurtled across the cavern. It opened its snake jaw wide and hissed. Taine gagged at the smell.

“Tirez, tirez,” Alcouffe commanded as a volley of spines rained around him. “Shoot!” The gendarmes opened fire. Rossi sprinted for cover.

Taine fired, and fired again. Tatou did the same from his side. For all the good it did. The FAMAS wasn’t any more effective than the Sig. Bullets pinged everywhere, but nothing was penetrating those spines. They were like a palisade surrounding a Māori pā site.

Unperturbed by their barrage of fire, the peluda swung its hairless tail over its head, thrusting a tail spike as thick as a table leg, and driving it deep into Rossi’s jugular. Upright, the gendarme jerked to a stop. The peluda wrenched its spike out. Rossi fell face down and didn’t get up, black blood pumping from his neck.

Advancing into the cavern using the rocks for cover, Alcouffe and his men were firing again: Alcouffe and Tatou on the far side, Thierry and Bruno at Taine’s back, Le Cannu, with the grenade launcher, out wide. Lompech was running deep, taking advantage of the distraction to skirt the edge of the cavern, dodging the rain of crabs and rock.

“Lompech, you have a plan?” Taine yelled over the firing.

“The legends say the tail is vulnerable.” Lompech ducked behind some rocks as a bullet skimmed by his head. “I thought I’d see if there was any truth to it.”

Taine jumped up. Sometimes there was truth in legends. “Coming with you. And watch out – vulnerable or not, that tail is deadly.”

Taine was scrambling across the bones when Le Cannu dropped to one knee and grabbed Rossi by the jacket, intending to pull his body out of the cavern. But Rossi was built like a rugby prop, and Le Cannu like a halfback, so he only managed to drag the body a few metres when the dragon spat a jet of black saliva, hitting him square in the chest and throwing him backwards. The gendarme yelped. His uniform was sizzling, smoke rising as the fabric disintegrated.

What the hell? Was the monster was spitting Napalm now?

Leaving Rossi, Le Cannu was scrambling backwards, trying to get out of range of that spitting, steaming maw.

Seeing the danger, Lompech hooted and threw stones that plinked into the rubble. It worked: the peluda swung to face the threat at the rear of the cavern.

Taine leaped then, sliding towards Le Cannu like a batter in one-day cricket match, ducking his head to avoid the swing of that tail. He drew his knife and lowered his arm. Le Cannu’s eyes went wide as Taine sliced upwards, laying open Le Cannu’s clothing from waist to neck. A blackened wound covered his chest and stomach.

“Take it off!” Taine shouted. He mimed taking off the jacket. There was no need for charades: Le Cannu had dropped the grenade launcher and was already shrugging off his coat. Taine grabbed his free arm and dragged him to the cavern entrance.

Alcouffe and his men had also retreated to the tunnels. Realising their firepower was a waste of time, they were hurriedly fitting bayonets to their FAMAS assault rifles.

“Lompech!”

“I am okay!”

Like bread in a toaster, the butcher’s son had wedged himself between two large rocks at the back of the cave, sheltering from the hail of spines. The dragon twisted and thrashed, whipping its tail to get at him.

“Alcouffe!” Taine shouted across the cavern entrance. “Lompech is going to get himself jabbed.”

“Yes, but he can wait: the beast’s tail is free.”

Alcouffe signalled to the Frenchmen, who charged at the creature, their bayonets raised. Taine noted that Alcouffe hadn’t bothered to include him in his orders. Or to tell him about the tail’s supposed weakness. With no time to fix his bayonet, Taine drew his knife and followed.

Alcouffe’s men moved forward, spread out in a semi-circle behind the creature. Suddenly, Bruno darted in and took a jab at the hairless tail. As soon as he drew back, Tatou stabbed at it. The dragon spat acid. Thierry leapt out of the way.

So, that was the plan. They were a wolf pack, worrying their prey. Le Cannu had stepped in to take his turn, when the dragon snapped its muscular hairless tail sideways, picking up Bruno in the sweeping movement. Like a cow flicking away flies, the creature slapped the gendarme against its flank, the erect spines shooting through his body. Impaling him.

Eyes wide, Bruno grunted. He looked down at his torso, the spines tethering him to the peluda’s side, like a fly to sticky paper. Before anyone could react, the tail whipped back, this time picking up Tatou and flinging him across the cavern. Stunned, Tatou hit the wall, grated down its crabbed surface, the skin on his neck dripping like redcurrant jam.

There was no time to mourn. The tail was whipping around again, and this time Alcouffe was its target. But Alcouffe’s eyes were still fixed on Tatou. In a second, the lieutenant would be sleeping on a bed of nails.

Shit.

Le Cannu’s grenade launcher! It was on the floor. Taine threw himself on the ground surfing though the bones to snatch up the launcher with one hand. He swung it low, taking Alcouffe out by the legs. Alcouffe tumbled to the ground, the peluda’s tail skimming over his head and relieving him of his helmet.

“Merde!”

Taine was already on his feet, slashing at the tail as it passed. He thrust deep. The dragon screamed. Blood spurted. It turned its snake-head to Taine, staring at him through slitted eyes. It opened its maw.

Taine raised the grenade launcher, and shoved the barrel deep into the dragon’s gullet. Suddenly, he was pushed from behind. Someone shouldering him, adding their weight to the scrum.

“No! Get clear!” Taine shouted. He didn’t dare fire. Not without risking the life of the man behind him. He’d have to choke the beast. He rammed the launcher in deeper. The creature gagged, the reek overwhelming, but instead of succumbing, the jaws opened wider.

Taine remembered the horse skulls. Please no. Don’t let it be able to detach its lower jaw like a snake. The peluda’s jaws belched, opening further. The beast twisted, the deadly spines on its flanks just half a pace away.

Choking it wouldn’t work. Taine had to shoot. He might die, the man behind him too, but he had to take the risk. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Lompech loomed into view.

Damn it.

He was in the line of fire. If Taine fired now, Lompech was mincemeat.

“Move! Out of the way!” Taine yelled. His body was shaking with fatigue, his boots slipping underfoot. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. Lompech or no, he had to fire. There was no other way.

He squeezed…

There was a wet crunch of steel on bone. The dragon shuddered and went limp. Lompech had driven his bayonet into the animal’s brain. “C’est fini,” he said.

Panting, Taine released his grip on the trigger. He withdrew the launcher, blood and drool dribbling from the barrel, and let the creature’s head drop to the ground.

Le Cannu helped Thierry to his feet. Alcouffe put his helmet back on.

On the side of the dead beast, Bruno’s grin was macabre.

*   *   *

The radio crackled.

“Godefroi?”

“Taine, thank God you’re okay. It’s me, Jules.”

“Not everyone is okay, Jules.” Against the wall, Tatou’s body was close to bursting.

Taine heard her gasp over the static. “I’m at the town hall. The butcher and his wife are here.” She spoke in a whisper.

“Lompech is fine, but we lost some of the others. The spines infected them. We still have a nursery of hairy crabs to deal with, but things are quiet at the moment.”

“Taine…” She broke off. “Taine, about the spines. Sandrine and I might have discovered something. I went back to the café. Remember the can of Coke that spilled on the stones? The puddle had dried, but the crab was still squeezed in a crack. It wasn’t dead, just stunned, because I took it back to the lab and after a while it recovered. Weak acids, like Coke, appear to anaesthetise them. Which is good because it gives us time to irrigate and cauterise a wound before the maggots can take hold.”

Too late for Tatou though.

Taine kicked at the smouldering remains of Le Cannu’s jacket. “The big one – the dragon – spat acid.”

“Spat it?”

“Spat it, sprayed it.”

“That’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“In the animal kingdom, if you’re going to go to all the trouble of making chemicals then it makes sense to use them.”

“It was a defence mechanism?”

“Maybe. But in the last five hundred years? How many predators do you think a cave-dwelling dragon has?”

Taine stooped to pick up his knife. “Good point.” There was a pause. “Jules?”

“Did you say the crabs had been quiet?”

“Yep. They’ve been hanging about on the walls, minding their own business. Unless you touch them. Then, they’re not so friendly.”

“Hang on…” There was chatter on the line. When she came back, Jules said, “Taine you have to get out of there. Get everyone out now.”

“But the dragon’s dead, Jules. We killed it.”

“Taine! Please get out. The dragon’s acid might be what’s kept the crab in hibernation. The way a queen ant emits a chemical to let worker ants know whether to raise princesses or drones. Without the acid’s calming effect, Sandrine and I… we think it will trigger the next phase of the peludas’ life cycle. The adult phase.”

Taine’s stomach curdled. He glanced around the cavern. While he’d been talking to Jules, the crabs had been sluicing off the walls, dropping to the ground. Thousands, possibly millions of them were on the move: each one with a full set of deadly spines, each one, if properly nourished, capable of growing into a full-sized dragon. The peluda were hatching. And the only food source available was…

“Taine, we used a Bunsen burner—”

“Gotta go.”

“—fire kills them.”

Taine was already shouting to the remaining men. “Fall back. Out of the caves!” He hoped the urgency told everyone what they needed to know.

Thierry stooped to pick up Rossi’s body, dragging him into the tunnels, the dead man’s boots scraping the grit.

Lompech hesitated, looking first at Bruno and Tatou.

“Leave them!” Alcouffe yanked Lompech towards the tunnels by his sleeve.

Taine was only steps behind, Le Cannu alongside him, when the peluda’s severed tail whiplashed involuntarily, upsetting the mound of bones. Both Taine and Le Cannu jumped, Taine landing on the other side of the cairn, but Le Cannu wasn’t so lucky; a human skull rolled into his path. Prepared for a first jump, the gendarme hadn’t expected a second. He stepped on the skull, his ankle turning with a crack. Off balance, he careered into the wall, slipping sideways. His soldier reflexes kicked in and he rolled away from the wall, but not before the tiny creatures had grazed the length of his body, barbs sticking in his side like a pins in a pincushion.

Taine was closing the distance to him when Le Cannu raised his gun. Aiming at Taine. Taine stopped short. A spine had pierced Le Cannu’s eye. Larvae were swarming into the socket, the tissue bulging so the man’s eye was merely a slit. Raising his chin, Le Cannu pointed to the grenade launcher. “Give.” He was calm. He knew he was dead. “Grenade launcher,” he said softly. He lifted a finger to the ceiling of the cave.

Taine handed him the launcher. He tapped two fingers to his watch. “One minute.”

Le Cannu waved him off. A white grub crawled out of his eye and down his cheek. “Allez, vite!”

“Where’s Pascal?” Alcouffe demanded when Taine caught up.

“The spikes got him,” Taine said, noting the clench of the lieutenant’s jaw. “He’s going to blow the cave.”

Alcouffe nodded. “We’d better move out then.”

Lompech led since Tatou was dead. Taine counted his steps. Four minutes. No explosion. Le Cannu must have been eaten before he could bring the ceiling down, the poor bastard. Alcouffe must have come to the same conclusion, because seconds later he called a halt. Taine felt the sweat cool on his neck. He would have to go back.

“I’ll come with you,” Lompech said, but Taine shook his head. “Go on,” he said. “Help Thierry with Rossi. I’ve got this.”

“Yes, let the New Zealander do it,” Alcouffe barked. He moved off.

Lompech glared at Alcouffe’s back, then turned to Taine. “Whatever happens, I will make sure the lieutenant keeps his word.”

They shook hands and the butcher’s son turned and ran, leaving Taine alone.

Taine sprinted back along the tunnel. He didn’t make it as far as the cavern, the night vision goggles revealing a mass of crabs pouring through into the tunnel in a sea of movement. In places, the wave of creepy-crawlies was as high as his knees. The grenade launcher was out. There was no way of getting back to the retrieve it. He’d have to use the M67s. Is that why Alcouffe had given him the grenades? To make it easy to pin all this on the crazed Kiwi and keep the paperwork clean.

You have done some crazy shit lately, McKenna.

Taine ran his eyes over the ceiling, checking for the spot most likely to bring the roof down. La Ferté-Bernard was built above this labyrinth. What if he destroyed the entire town? He’d have to risk it. There was no other option. That seething mass could not be allowed to leave the caves. Taine spied a deep crack in the stones. That should do the trick.

He pulled the pin on the grenade, hurled it, then threw himself into an adjacent layby.

The explosion roared through the tunnels, rattling his bones. Debris and rocks collapsed, filling the tunnel with dust and noise. Taine held his breath waiting for the crush that would break his back and bury him alive. It didn’t come.

When the rumble subsided, Taine raised his head. He’d sealed the tunnel and the town hadn’t caved in on top of him!

He got up and checked the cave-in for cracks. Nothing. The wall of boulders was solid, and apart from a half dozen crabs which he crushed underfoot, the legend of the peluda was buried behind it. Blowing out hard, Taine turned to make the climb back to the surface. Hopefully, the way out wasn’t blocked.

Out of nowhere, a crab dropped from the ceiling, landing on his gloveless hand.

Damn it. Missed one.

Quickly, Taine brushed the creature off, stomping on it with his boot.

No, no, no.

He checked his skin, feeling the blood drain from his face. A tiny spine was stuck in his wrist.

Taine’s heart scudded. Fuck.

He concentrated, slowing his heartbeat as he slid his knife from its sheath and scraped the barb away. It lifted off as if it was nothing more than a bee-sting.

Don’t die, don’t die. You promised Jules.

He dug into his wrist with the knife, slicing away a layer of flesh. There was nothing else he could do. If the spine had done its work, he’d be dead in minutes.

Taine slumped to the ground, his back against the rock wall, and watched his wrist begin to swell, resisting the urge to itch it. How could such a small thing be so lethal?

He thought of Benoit’s mother, of Le Cannu, Tatou, and Bruno. The peluda had caused some cruel deaths, and Taine’s would be next. He couldn’t let his body be eaten by the maggots already setting up camp inside him. If he did that, the peluda would be unleashed and the whole unnatural life cycle would start over…

Taine unclipped a grenade and juggled it gently from hand to hand. Fire killed them. It was the last thing Jules had said to him. Taine’s heart contracted when he thought of her. He’d promised her he’d be careful. He’d promised himself so much more. Their life together had barely started. After this holiday, he’d hoped… it didn’t matter now.

Hang on.

Jules had said acid calmed them. That the acid put the crawlies into some sort of hibernation. Taine had pocketed a drink when he’d kitted up earlier. Maybe there was enough acid in it to dull the maggots? Enough to get him to the surface before they consumed him? If he could reach the canal, maybe Jules or someone could get eggs and the grubs out, possibly without having to amputate his hand…

And wouldn’t that piss off Alcouffe?

Taine gripped the knife, slicing a wider chunk out of his wrist where the barb had entered. He poured the drink into the wound. Slowly. Drenching it. In his night goggles, the liquid ran black, seeping into the grit.

Was the itching slowing? Or was that wishful thinking? Maybe it was, but Taine had always liked long odds. Gave you something to play for.

Splashing his field bandage with the remainder of the liquid, Taine wrapped it around his wrist. Then he got to his feet, and ran.

A Hole in the World

Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden

Vasily Glazkov was warm. He reveled in the feeling, because he had not been truly warm for a long time. His fingers and toes tingled with returning circulation, and he could feel a pleasant stinging sensation across his nose and cheeks. Beyond the open doorway Anna held a steaming mug out to him. She was grinning. Around her was the paraphernalia of their mission – sample cases, laboratory equipment, tools and implements for excavating, survival equipment and clothing. As he entered the room the door slammed shut behind him, the window shades lowered, and they were alone in the luxurious warmth. Nothing mattered except the two of them. He took the mug and sipped, the coffee's heat coursing through him and reaching even those deepest, coldest parts that he'd believed would never be warm again.

Anna started unclipping her belt and straps, popping her buttons. She dropped her rifle and pistol, her knife, shrugging out of her uniform to reveal her toned, muscled body. He felt the heat of her. He craved her familiar warmth and scent, her safety, but he still took time to finish the coffee. Anticipation was the greatest comforter.

"Vasily!" A hand grasped his arm and turned him around. He frowned, stretching to look back at his almost-naked lover. But however far he turned she remained out of sight.

"Vasily, wake up!"

Glazkov's eyes snapped open. His breath misted the air before him, and he sat up quickly, gasping in shock as his dream froze and shattered beneath gray reality.

"Amanda?"

Amanda Hart stood in his small room, bulked out in her heavy coat. There was ice on her eyelashes and excitement in her eyes.

"Vasily, you've got to come."

"Where?"

"Down into the valley. It's stopped snowing, the sun's out, and you have to come. Hans is getting ready."

Glazkov looked around and tried to deny the sinking feeling in his gut. His room was small and sparse, containing his small supply of grubby clothing, a few books, and a single window heavily iced on the inside.

"You've been out alone again?" he asked. They had all been warned about venturing beyond the camp boundary on their own. It was dangerous and irresponsible, and put all of them at risk. But Amanda was headstrong and confident, not a woman used to obeying orders. He wondered if all Americans were like that.

"That doesn't matter!" She waved away his concerns.

"So what's down in the valley?" Glazkov asked. The cold was already creeping across his skin and seeping into his bones. He wondered whether he would ever be warm again, even when he and Anna were together once more. It was only twelve weeks since they'd last seen each other, but the inimical landscape stretched time and distance, and the sense of isolation was intense. In this damned place the cold was a living, breathing thing.

"Come and see," Hart said, and she grinned again. "Something's happened."

Outside, the great white silence was a weight he could almost feel. It always took Glazkov's breath away – not only the cold, but the staggering landscape, and the sense that they might be the only people alive in the whole world. There were no airplane trails to prove otherwise, no other columns of smoke from fires or chimneys. No evidence at all that anyone else had ever been there. Old footprints and snowcat trails were buried beneath the recent blizzard. The three interconnected buildings that formed their camp – living quarters, lab and equipment hall, and garage – were half-buried, roofs and upper windows protruding valiantly above the white snowscape.

"We taking the snowcat?" Hans Brune asked.

"It's only a mile," Amanda replied.

The German tutted and rolled his eyes. His teeth were already clacking, his body shivering, even though he was encased in so much clothing he was barely identifiable as human.

"Come on, Hans," Amanda said. "I've already been down there once this morning."

"Stupid," Brune said. "You know the rules."

"You going to report me?"

Hans shook his head, then smiled. The expression was hardly visible behind his snow goggles.

"So if we're going to walk, let's walk," he said. "I'm freezing my balls off already."

"You still have balls?" Amanda asked.

"Big. Heavy. Hairy."

"Like a bear's."

They started walking, and Glazkov listened to the banter between his two companions. He knew there was more than friendship between them – he'd seen creeping shadows in the night, and sometimes he heard their gasps and groans when the wind was calmer and the silence beyond the cabins amplified every noise inside. None of them had mentioned it, and he was grateful to them for that. On their first day here they had all agreed that any relationship beyond the professional or collegial might be detrimental to their situation. While they weren't truly cut off, and their location was less isolated than it usually felt, there were no scheduled visits to their scientific station for the next six months. Hart and Brune probably knew that he knew, but there was comfort in their combined feigned ignorance.

He knew Amanda had a husband back home in America. Hans, he knew little about. But Glazkov had never been one to judge. At almost fifty he was the most experienced among them, and this was his fifteenth camp, and the fourth in Siberia. He'd been to Alaska, St Georgia, Antarctica, Greenland, and many other remote corners of the world. In such places, ties to home were often strengthened by isolation, but sometimes they were weakened as well. Almost as if such distances, and the effects of desolate and deserted landscapes, made the idea of home seem vague and nebulous. He had seen people strengthened by their sojourns to these places, and he had seen them broken. He knew the signs of both. Most of the time, he knew better than to interfere.

Amanda led them away from the research station and toward the steep descent into the valley. The trees grew close here, hulking evergreens heavy with snow, and beneath their canopy the long days turned to twilight. But once they were into the thick of the forest the snow was not so deep, and the going was easier.

Glazkov, Hart and Brune were here as part of an international coalition pulled together to study the effects of climate change. While politics continued to throw up obstacles to meaningful action, true science knew no politics, and neither did the scientists who practiced it. Sometimes he believed that if left to real people, human relations would settle and improve within a generation. Sport, music, art, science, they all spanned the globe, taking little notice of politics or religions, or the often more dangerous combination of the two. So it was with their studies into climate change. Deniers denied, but Glazkov had seen enough evidence over the past decade to terrify him.

"So what were you doing out here on your own?" Brune asked.

"Couldn't sleep," Hart said. "And I heard a noise. Felt something. Didn't either of you?"

"No," Brune said.

"Not me," Glazkov said. "What was it?"

"A distant rumble. And something like... a vibration."

"Avalanche," Brune said.

"It's possible," Glazkov agreed. "Temperatures are six degrees higher than average for the time of year. The snowfalls've been less severe, and there's a lot of loose snow up in the mountains."

"No, no, it wasn't that," Hart said. "I've seen what it was."

"What?" Glazkov asked. He was starting to lose his temper with her teasing.

"Best for you to see," she said. They trudged on, passing across a frozen stream and skirting several fallen trees, walking in silence for a while. "I thought it was an avalanche," Hart said, quieter now. "Wish it was. But the mountains are ten miles away. This thing... much closer."

Glazkov frowned. For the first time since she'd woken him, she sounded nervous.

"Should we call this in?" he asked.

"Yeah, soon," she said. "But we need photos."

"We can do that afterward."

"Not if it goes away."

They walked on through the snow, emerging from the forest into a deeper layer, grateful for their snow shoes. Brune shrugged the rifle higher on his shoulder, and Glazkov glanced around, looking for any signs of bears. There was nothing. In fact...

"It's quiet," he said.

"It's always fucking quiet out here," Brune replied.

"No, I mean... too quiet." He almost laughed at the cliché, but Hart's and Brune's expressions stole his breath. Heads tilted, tugging their hoods aside so they could listen, he could see realization dawning in both of them.

Far out on the desolate Yamal Peninsula, three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, there were few people, but they were used to hearing the calls, cries and roars of wildlife. Brown bears were common in the forests, and in more sparsely wooded areas there were elk. Musk deer were hunted by wolves. Bird species were also varied, with the great eagle owl ruling the skies. Some wildlife was dangerous, hence the rifle. Yet after twelve weeks here, not a shot had been fired.

"Nothing," Brune said. He slipped the rifle from his shoulder, as if the silence itself might attack them.

"I didn't notice before," Hart said. "Come on. Not far now, and we'll see it from the ridge."

"See what?" Glazkov demanded. Hart stared at him, all the fun vanished from her expression.

"The hole," she said. "The hole in the world."

*   *   *

Oh my God, she's right, Glazkov thought. It really is a hole in the world. But what's at the bottom?

"I didn't go any farther than this," Hart said.

"I don't blame you," Brune said. "Vasily?"

"Sinkhole," Glazkov said.

"Really?" Hart asked. "It's huge!"

"It's inevitable. Come on."

They started down the steep slope into the valley and the new feature it now contained. Glazkov thought it might have been over five hundred feet across. With the sun lying low, the hole was deep and dark, only a small spread of the far wall touched by sunlight. At first glance he'd had doubts, but there was no other explanation for what they were now walking toward.

A melting of the permafrost – an occurrence being seen all around the globe – was releasing vast, stored quantities of methane gas. Not only a consequence of global warming, but also a contributing factor. In some places such large quantities were released that these sinkholes formed overnight, dropping millions of tons of rock into vented caverns hundreds of feet beneath the surface.

"We'll need our instruments," he said. "Methane detectors. Remote camera. Everything."

"So let's go back and get it all," Brune said. "And we need to call this in. We really do."

"Yes," Glazkov said.

"Yeah," Hart said.

But they kept walking toward the hole, hurrying now, excitement biting at their heels.

It took fifteen minutes to descend to the valley floor. It would take a lot longer to climb back up, but Glazkov didn't care. He could already detect the eggy trace of methane on the air, but it didn't smell too strong for now. It started snowing again, and as they followed a stream across the valley floor toward the amazing new feature, visibility lessened. The stream should have been frozen at this time of year, and much of it still was. But a good portion of the water flowed. Approaching the hole's edge, Glazkov heard the unmistakable sound of water pouring down a rock face.

"What was that?" Brune asked. He was frozen behind them, head tilted.

"Waterfall," Hart said.

"No, not that. Something else."

They listened. Nothing.

"We should head back," Brune said. "We need breathing equipment, cameras."

"Not far now," Glazkov said. He was unsettled to see that Brune had slipped the rifle from his shoulder.

"What are you going to shoot?" Hart asked, laughing. "Monsters from the deep?"

Three minutes later, as they emerged from a copse of trees only a hundred feet from the hole's edge and saw what waited for them there – the crawling, tentacled, slick things pulling themselves up out of the darkness, skin pale from lack of pigment, wet mouths gasping in new air – Amanda Hart was the first to fall.

*   *   *

Captain Anna Demidov and her team were ready. Fully equipped, comprehensively briefed, fired up, she was confident it would be a straightforward search and retrieval without the need for any aggressive contact. But if the separatists did attempt to intervene, Demidov's small Spetsnaz squad was more than ready for a fight. Either way, they would return with the stolen information. In this day and age a printed file seemed almost prehistoric, but the habits of some of Russia's top intelligence operatives never ceased to amaze her.

With her squad milling in the helicopter hangar, she took the opportunity to assess them one last time. Her corporal, Vladimir Zhukov, often teased her about being over-cautious and paranoid about every small detail. Demidov's reply was that she had never lost a soldier in action, nor had she ever failed in a mission. It was something he could not argue with. Yet the banter continued, and she welcomed it. The good relationships between members of her five-person unit was one of the most important factors contributing to success.

"All set, Corporal?" she asked.

Zhukov rolled his eyes. "Yes, Captain. All set, all ready, boots shined and underwear clean, weapons oiled, mission details memorized, just as they all were five minutes ago."

Demidov appraised the corporal from head to toe and up again. A full foot taller than she, and a hundred pounds heavier, some knew him by the nickname Mountain. But no one in their unit called him that. He didn't like the name, and none of them would ever want to piss him off.

"A button's undone," she said, pointing to his tunic before moving on. She heard his muttered curse and allowed herself a small smile.

Private Kristina Yelagin was next. Tall, thin, athletic, grim-faced, she was one of the quietest, calmest people Demidov had ever met. She had once seen Yelagin slit a man's throat with a broken metal mug.

"Good?" Demidov asked. The woman nodded once in reply.

"I don't like helicopters," Private Vasnev said. "They make me feel sick."

"And when have you ever been sick during a helicopter trip, Vasnev?" Demidov asked.

"I didn't say they make me sick, Captain. I said they make me feel sick."

"Feel sick in silence," she said.

"It's okay for you, Captain," Private Budanov said. He was sitting on a supply crate carefully rolling a cigarette. "You don't have to sit next to him. He's always complaining."

"You have my permission to stab him to death if he so much as whispers," Demidov said.

Budanov looked up at her, his scarred face pale as ever, even in the hangar's shadow. "Thank you," he said. "You all heard that? All bore witness?"

"See, now even my friends are against me!" Vasnev said. "I feel sick. I don't want to go on this mission. I think I have mumps."

A movement caught Demidov's eye and she saw the helicopter pilot gesture through the cockpit's open side window.

"That's us," Demidov said. "Let's mount up."

Professional as ever, her four companions ceased their banter for a while as they left the shadow of the hangar, boarded the helicopter, stowed their weapons, and cross-checked each other's safety harnesses. Demidov waited to board last. As she settled herself and clipped on her headset, and the ground crew closed and secured the cabin door, the crackle of a voice came through from the cockpit.

"We've got clearance," the pilot said. "Three minutes and we'll be away."

"Roger," Demidov acknowledged.

"Sorry to hear about Vasily, Captain,” the pilot said.

Demidov froze. The rest of her squad, all wearing headsets, looked at her. Corporal Zhukov raised his eyebrows, and Vasnev shrugged: Don't know what he's on about.

Demidov's mind raced. If something had happened to Vasily and she hadn't been informed, there must be a reason for that. Perhaps the general would assume that such a distraction would affect her current mission, and he'd inform her of any news upon her return in six hours.

But after the pilot's comment, her distraction was even greater.

"What's that about Vasily?" she asked.

The comms remained quiet. A loaded silence, perhaps. Then a whisper, and the helicopter's turbines ramped up, the noise increased, and the green 'prepare for takeoff' light illuminated the cabin.

Demidov hesitated, ready to throw off her straps and slip through to the cockpit. But she felt a hand on her arm. Budanov. He shook his head, then lifted what he held in his other hand.

Without pause, Demidov nodded, giving silent assent.

Private Budanov was their communications and tech guy. Just as heavily armed as the rest of them, he also carried a bewildering array of hi-tech equipment, some of which Demidov barely understood. There were the usual satellite phones and radios, but also web-based communication systems and other gadgetry, all designed to aid their mission and help them in case of trouble. He'd saved their skins more than once, and now he was promising something else.

Sorry to hear about Vasily, Captain.

As the helicopter lifted off and drifted north, Budanov opened a palmtop tablet and started tapping and scrolling. Three minutes later he handed it to Demidov, a map on the screen. He motioned for her to place her lover's last known position on the map, which she did – the scientific research base on the Yamal Peninsula. He took the tablet back, nursing a satellite phone in his other hand, and four minutes later he paused.

None of them had spoken since taking off. When Budanov raised his eyes and looked at his Captain, none of them needed to.

Demidov took the tablet from his lap and looked at what he'd found.

*   *   *

"This is all on me," Captain Demidov said. Her heart was beating fast, and a sickness throbbed heavy in her gut. Part of that was understanding what she was doing – disobeying orders and going AWOL whilst on a highly sensitive mission, as well as hijacking a Russian army helicopter. But most of the sickness came from the dread she felt about Vasily's doom.

Science team missing... seismic readings from the area...

"Captain, I can't alter course," the pilot said. She could see his nervousness. He and his co-pilot were sitting tense in their flight seats, and she could sense their doubts, their inner debates. They wore pistols, true. But they also knew who they carried.

"I'm ordering you to," she said.

"Captain, my orders—"

"I'm not pulling rank," Demidov cut in. "This isn't about that. But I will pull my gun if you don't do what I say."

"And then what?" the pilot asked. "You'll shoot me?"

... drastic landscape alteration... entire region quarantined...

"Let's not discover the answer to that question. Yelagin, here with me." Private Yelagin squeezed through into the cockpit beside Demidov and behind the two pilots. "You know what to do," Demidov said.

Yelagin leaned forward and started flicking switches. She'd been a pilot before being recruited into Spetsnaz, and she knew how to disable tracking devices and transponders, and where any emergency beacons might be.

"Keep an eye on them," Demidov said. "I'm going to speak to the others. And Kristina... thanks."

Yelagin nodded once, then settled against the bulkhead behind the pilots.

Back in the cabin Demidov looked around at the others. She saw no dissent. She hadn't expected any – they'd been together as a solid core group for over four years, had seen and done many terrible things, and she knew their trust and sense of kinship went way beyond family. Yet she still felt a burning sensation behind her eyes as she met their gaze.

"You know what we've done," she said, a statement more than a question. Of course they knew.

"We're just following your orders," Zhukov said.

"I can't order you to do this."

"You don't need to," Vasnev said. "Vasily Glazkov is your friend, so he's our friend too. We all help our friends."

"There'll be repercussions."

Vasnev shrugged. Budanov examined his fingernails.

"Right," Demidov said, sighing softly. "It's only an hour's detour. Our original target isn't going anywhere, and we'll finish our mission as soon as possible."

"That's if the Major doesn't send a jet to blow us from the sky," Zhukov said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but none of them dismissed the notion. They were on dangerous, unknown ground now, and no one knew exactly what the future might hold.

We're coming for you, Vasily, Demidov thought.

*   *   *

Anna will come for me, Vasily Glazkov thought. She'll hear about this, put her team together, and come to find out what happened.

He could see nothing around him in the darkness. But he could feel them there, sense them, and whenever they moved he could smell them – rotting meat, and grim intent.

If only I could warn her to stay away.

*   *   *

"Captain, you need to see this." The pilot sounded scared, and as Demidov pushed through into the cockpit she fully expected to find them facing off against two MI-35s. That would be the end of their brief mutiny.

But the airspace around them was clear, and she saw from Yelagin's shocked expression that this was something worse.

"What is it?" Demidov asked.

"Down there." The co-pilot pointed, and the pilot swung the helicopter in a gentle circle so they could all see.

There was a hole in the valley. Hundreds of feet across, so deep that it contained only blackness, it had swallowed trees and snow, ground and rocks. Two streams flowed into it, the waters tumbling in spreading sprays before being swallowed into the dark void. It was almost perfectly circular.

It looked so out of place that Demidov had to blink several times to ensure her eyes were not deceiving her.

"What the hell is that?" Yelagin said.

"How far's the scientific station?" Demidov asked, ignoring her.

"Just over a mile, north and over the valley ridge," the pilot said.

"Take us there."

She heard his sigh, but beneath that was a groan of fear from the co-pilot.

"Don't worry," Demidov said. "We can take care of ourselves." She knew that was true. She commanded the biggest bad-asses the Russian army could produce, and they'd seen each other through many treacherous and violent situations. They had all killed people. Sometimes the people they killed were unarmed, more often than not it was a case of kill or be killed.

They could definitely look after themselves.

But none of them had ever seen anything like this.

"Get ready," she said back in the cabin. The others were all huddled at the cabin windows, looking down at the strange sight retreating behind them. "We're going in."

*   *   *

Where the hell are you, Vasily?

Demidov stood in the main recreational space of the research base and stared at the half-drunk cup of coffee that sat on the edge of a table. Somebody’d walked away from that cup. Maybe the coffee was shit, or maybe they’d been in a hurry.

“Captain?”

She turned to see Corporal Zhukov filling the doorway. His face told the story, but she asked anyway.

“Any sign?”

“Nothing,” he confirmed. “All three of them. Budanov and Yelagin are checking logs to see if there’s any record of what drew them out of here, but there’s no question they’re gone. Vasnev found nothing in the lab to give us any clue.”

“They went to the hole,” Demidov said, thinking of Vasily Glazkov. Not her husband, but he might as well have been. Would be, someday, if he hadn’t fallen into that fucking hole.

“Would they all have gone?” Zhukov said. “That doesn’t seem logical.”

“Scientists. Every discovery’s an adventure. They know better, and protocol demands certain procedures, but it’s easy to get carried away when something new presents itself. Like ravens seeing something shiny.”

Zhukov shifted his massive frame, his shadow withdrawing from the room. “I take it we’re going out there.”

It wasn’t a question. He didn’t have to ask, and she didn’t have to tell him.

*   *   *

Vasnev moaned about the cold every step of the way. To be fair, it was cold enough to kill, given time. So cold that the snow refused to fall, despite the gray sky stretching out for eternity overhead. It was as if the sun had never existed at all.

“My balls have crawled up inside my body for warmth,” Vasnev whined.

“You’re confused,” Yelagin muttered. “They never dropped to begin with.”

Demidov tried to ignore them. The wind slashed across the hard-packed snow and the bare rock and cut right down to the bone. They had heavy jackets on, thick uniforms, balaclavas and gloves. Their mission had been meant to take place an hour’s chopper flight from here, where it would still have been damned cold, but they’d never have been this exposed for this long.

“This is idiotic,” Vasnev groaned. “They kept this from us for a reason. They’ve got to be sending a team. And you know damn well the pilots have probably already called it in… probably reported us the second we set off. We should just wait for someone else to arrive, someone with better gear—“

Budanov slapped the back of his head. Vasnev whipped around to glare at him, and for the first time Demidov worried real violence might flare amongst them. They’d had their share of hostilities over the years – any team does, given time – but this moment had venom. It had teeth.

“If we wait,” Budanov sneered, “do you really think they’ll let us help look for Vasily and his science friends? We’ll be hauled out of here, original mission scrubbed and this one along with it. We’ll be slammed into a room and made to wait while they decide on our punishment, and meanwhile someone else will be looking for Vasily and we won’t know how long they’ll take or how much effort they’ll go to.”

Demidov stared at him. They were about the most words she’d ever heard Budanov say at any one time. His ugly face had twisted into something even uglier, but his eyes glinted with fierce loyalty, and she wanted to hug him. Instead, she trudged onward as if nothing had happened.

Vasnev mumbled something else as they all started walking again. Demidov did not turn when she heard the sound of a rifle being racked, but she knew it had to be Zhukov. The Mountain.

“Don’t think I won’t shoot you just for the quiet,” Zhukov said.

Vasnev kept silent for a whole four minutes after that. It was a brief but blessed miracle.

They reached the ridge above the valley and took a breather, staring down at the hole. The sky gave no hint as to the time, not up here in the frozen fuck-you end of the world, a place the world knew people had once been sent when they’d screwed up worse than anyone. Yet Vasily had been so excited to come here with his two research partners, to live in a prefabricated base smaller than a Soviet-era city apartment and freeze his ass off, all to prove what the world refused to believe. Yes, the planetary climate was changing. But Siberia was still cold enough to kill you.

They slid and climbed and scrambled their way down into the valley. Demidov checked her radio. “Wolf to Eagle. You still reading me?”

A crackle of static on her comms, but then she heard the pilot’s voice. “Eagle here. Still tracking.”

“You might need to make a pick up in the valley later.”

“At this point, why not?” the pilot said. Just as she’d expected. He might have called in their diversion from the mission already, but until someone came to shut them down, Eagle wasn’t going to abandon Wolf. Not a chance.

They started across the hard-packed snow toward the hole. Even from a distance, the darkness of it yawned, as if it had a gravity all its own, drawing them in.

“I’m going to be moaning along with Vasnev in a moment,” Yelagin said. “I don’t know I’ve ever been this cold.” Her teeth chattered.

“Kristina, you’re Spetsnaz,” Demidov said curtly. But they both knew she meant something else. It wasn’t about their training, their elite status, their special operations. It was about being a woman in a field dominated by testosterone-fueled men who waved their guns around like they were showing off their cocks. They had to be tougher, she and Yelagin did. Especially Demidov, the woman running the show.

“I’ll bear your disappointment,” Yelagin said. “My nipples are going to snap off like icicles.”

That got a laugh, breaking the tension, and suddenly Demidov felt grateful to her. Their closeness had started to fray a little, but now they were a team again.

“Captain,” Vasnev said cautiously, lagging behind.

“I swear I will fucking shoot you,” Budanov reminded him.

Then Corporal Zhukov echoed Vasnev. “Captain.”

His voice gave her pause and made her turn. Vasnev had knelt in the snow. Zhukov stood over him, face as gray as the Siberian sky.

Vasnev looked up. “We’ve been moving parallel to some markings I couldn’t make out, like someone dragged branches through here to obscure animal tracks.”

“You didn’t mention the tracks themselves,” Zhukov said.

“Bear,” Vasnev said. “And I saw some wolf tracks, too, up on the ridge. Same weird markings there, brushing the snow. But something happened right here, on this spot.”

Demidov didn’t like the hesitation in his voice. It sounded a bit like fear. Vasnev might have been a malingerer and a moaner, but he’d never been a coward.

“What ‘something?’”

Zhukov answered for him. “The bear tracks stop. Whatever made those brush marks, it picked up the bear. Carried it off.”

Vasnev stood, pointed at the hole. “It goes that way.”

*   *   *

Demidov stood at the edge of the hole, a few feet back, not trusting the rim to hold her up. Sinkholes had appeared in many places in the area but she didn’t think any of those on record had ever been this big. The hole seemed carved down into the permafrost and the rock and earth below. No telling how deep it went without doing a sounding. They had nothing to gauge the depth except two long coils of rope they’d found in the science team’s base. That seemed unlikely to help them.

“Do you not just want to shout down, see if you get a response?” Kristina Yelagin said, standing at her shoulder.

Budanov snickered. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Yelagin shot him a death stare, but he ignored her, wrapped up in his own efforts. He had taken out the comm unit attached to his belt and begun searching through channels for any kind of beacon or signal. On each frequency, he’d broadcast the same message. “Research Unit one-one-three, please come in. Research Unit one-one-three, do you read me?” A few seconds, then again. With no answer, he’d move on.

They were getting nowhere. Vasnev had stopped whinging, but the cold had gotten down into Demidov’s bones. Come here, Anna, I’ll warm you, Vasily would have said. And she’d have let him. As she had so many times before. Where are you, my darling? The loving part of her felt lost, but Demidov had spent a lifetime training to charge forward when anyone else would flee.

Zhukov glanced around, nervous and on guard. He’d been more unsettled than any of them, and that concerned Demidov. If the Mountain worried, they all should.

“I don’t hear a thing but the wind.” Zhukov shifted, boots crunching snow. “Don’t see a thing. Not so much as a bird.”

“Enough,” Demidov said. “Private Yelagin, get those ropes out. There were a few pitons with them.”

“We don’t have enough climbing gear for all of us,” Yelagin said. “Shall I radio Eagle, have them bring more equipment from the base?”

Demidov wanted to tell her to follow orders. Do what she was fucking told. The woman made sense, but the problem was that it would delay their descent, and a delay would be costly if Eagle had really radioed the situation back to command.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Meanwhile, get those ropes out and—“

“Captain,” Zhukov said.

“Fuck me, what the hell is that?” Vasnev whispered.

Demidov narrowed her eyes. Her balaclava had slipped a bit and she tugged it away from her eyes. The others had begun swearing, lifting their weapons, taking aim. Demidov blinked to clear her vision, thinking somehow in spite of her team’s reactions she must just be seeing something. Spots in her eyes. The things moving across the valley toward them couldn’t possibly be real.

But they were moving nearer, coming into focus, and in moments she could no longer doubt. They weren’t spots in her eyes or her imagination. They moved like some strange combination of tumbleweed and sea anemone, their flesh such a pale nothing hue that they blended almost too well against the snowy ground. Had they only stopped and kept still, they’d have been almost invisible at a distance. But they weren’t stopping.

“Holy shit,” someone said. Demidov thought she recognized her own voice. Maybe she’d said it.

They weren’t stopping at all. They came from all directions, perhaps ten or twelve in all, rolling or slithering or some combination thereof, and they did not come without burden. They seemed nothing but a mass of tendrils, but each of them dragged something else behind them – something more familiar. Animals, some struggling and some limp, some broken, some bleeding. A musk deer, some squirrels, a leopard. One of the things had wrapped itself around a wolf. The beast could not extricate itself but it continued to fight, clawing, attempting to escape. It snarled and howled, as if trapped between the sister urges to fight and to scream in sorrow.

“Captain,” Zhukov said, his voice gone cold. That was when the Mountain turned most dangerous. The deader his voice, the more she knew he must be feeling. The Mountain didn’t like to be made to feel. “Give me an order please, Captain.”

In the distance, Demidov saw something big and brown in the midst of a squalling twist of those white tendrils. Three or four of the things had surrounded a moose – a fucking moose – and were dragging it back toward the hole. A knot of dread twisted in her gut as it finally hit Demidov. Stupid, she thought. So goddamn stupid. Should have seen it instantly, should have understood. If they could drag down a moose, a trio of curious, unarmed scientists would be no problem at all.

Feeling sick and jittery and wanting to roar out her fear for her mate, Demidov clicked off the safety on her Kalashnikov AK-12.

“Weapons free. Don’t let these things get anywhere near us.”

“Weapons free,” Zhukov confirmed.

Instinctively they spread into a defensive circle, edging thirty yards away from the hole and using trees and rocks as cover. Demidov glanced around at her squad, already knowing what she'd see – professionalism, preparedness, calm in the face of these strange, unknown odds. Her senses were alert and alight, sharpened on the fear she felt for Vasily.

Whatever the hell these things were—

"Incoming, my eleven," Yelagin said.

The creature carrying the wolf had diverted from its route towards the hole and now moved towards them. The wolf still whined and howled, snapping at tendrils that seemed to arc easily away from its teeth. The creature seemed almost unaware of its burden.

It paused twenty meters away, half-hidden behind a tree.

Almost as if it was looking at them.

"Another this side," Zhukov said. "They're paused, as if—"

The creature holding the wolf slipped past the tree and came towards them across the snow, leaping rocks, compressing beneath a fallen tree and dragging the wolf through the narrow gap.

Demidov's finger caressed the trigger, and she experienced a moment of doubt.

Then Vasnev opened fire. He shot the struggling, crying wolf from sixty yards out. The wolf’s blood spattered the snow and bits of fur and flesh scattered across the stark whiteness. The tumbleweed creature twitched and whipped backward, bullets tearing at its tendrils as it dropped the dead wolf. But then it drew itself up and began to slide toward them once more, skimming the surface of the snow, moving quicker as it came on.

“It’s not… the bullets aren’t…” Vasnev couldn’t get the words out.

“Don’t just stand there!” Yelagin moved up next to him and unleashed a barrage from her AK-12, took the tumbler mid-center, and blew it apart. It splashed across the snow a dozen steps from them, insides steaming as they sank into a drift. “Keep shooting till it’s dead.”

“Center mass!” Demidov said. “Blow them to hell.”

Hunkered down behind a rock she braced her AK-12 against her shoulder and zeroed in on the thing dragging the musk deer. Then she opened up. Bullets ripped it up, stitching the dead deer and scattering the tumbler's twisted, pale tendrils across the snow. Several of them slapped against a tree and remained there, held in place by the sticky goo that must have been its blood. The fear that had coiled into her heart calmed itself. They could be stopped. They could be killed.

The feel of the recoil, the stench of gunpowder, the reports smashing into her ears were all familiar to her, and she kept her calm amid the chaos. They all did. That was why they made a good team, and why they had never faced a situation they could not handle.

Not ever.

Budanov and Zhukov were on her immediate right and they were both better marksmen. They twitched their weapons left and right, letting off short bursts and then adjusting their aim, anticipating the creatures' movements. All around them, bullets impacted trees and showers of snow drifted down. Visibility was reduced. The creatures took advantage and rushed them, but the soldiers chose their targets and kept firing.

"Ammo!" Zhukov shouted, and the others covered his field of fire as he reloaded.

"How many?" Yelagin shouted.

"Don't know," Demidov replied. She saw movement ahead of her, a pale shape slinking from cover behind a rock, and she concentrated a burst of fire. The shape thrashed and spun, tendrils or tentacles whipping up a snowstorm. One more burst and it grew still. "One less."

For a few more long seconds, the hills all around them threw back brutal gunfire echoes. And then it was done.

Demidov's eardrums throbbed in the silent aftermath. She breathed in, let it out, finger still on the trigger.

"Clear," she breathed, and the others repeated the word in turn. She stood slowly from behind her covering rock and stood in the center of their defensive circle, turning slowly to survey the scene. It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but the area around them had taken on the appearance of a bloody battlefield.

Trees were scarred and splintered from the gunfire. The animals being carried by the tumblers were all dead, their demise signed across the snow in blood, bodies steaming, one or two still twitching their last. The other creatures – Whatever the fuck they are, Demidov thought – also lay dead, tendrils splayed across the snow's crispy surface and, here and there, melting down into it where their sickly pale blood had been spilled.

Hot-blooded, she thought. Hot enough to melt snow. But what the fuck has blood that color?

"Holy shit," Vasnev said. "What just happened?"

"Something from down there," Zhukov said. "Subterranean. Pale skin, no eyes..."

“What do we do, Captain?” Budanov said. “You want me to call this in?”

“Call it in,” she agreed. “But I’m not waiting. We all know Vasily and the others must be down there. Somebody’s got to stay up here and wait, but I’m—“

Zhukov and Yelagin called out that there was movement, the two of them shouting almost in the same voice. Demidov swore and lifted her weapon again, scanning the landscape all around. Between them and the sheer drop into that vast hole she saw motion down close to the ground, a slithering undulation, perfectly camouflaged but moving in.

"How many?" she asked.

"Can't tell," Zhukov said. "They're moving differently."

"Almost like they're under the snow," Yelagin said.

"Watch your ammo!" she shouted, then they opened fire again.

Snow flicked up and bullets ricocheted from scattered rocks. One creature erupted from a deep snowdrift and came apart beneath a sustained burst of fire, innards spattered down, those thin, tendril limbs whipping through the air.

Demidov's weapon clicked on an empty magazine. She ejected the empty, reached inside her jacket to grab another, smashed it into place and raised the AK-12 again—

—just as Budanov screamed to her right.

She turned just in time to see his head jerked hard to one side, tendrils across his face, skin stretching where they touched, tugged by some adhesive on those tendrils, or by octopus-like suckers. Even as she brought her gun to bear, blood sprayed from Budanov's mouth. He fell to the ground and the tumbler flowed onto his back, tendrils wrapping tight around his neck and skull.

"No!" Zhukov shouted, as he and the others opened fire. Their onslaught blew the creature apart. The thick white paste, its blood, splashed down across Budanov's back, mixing with his own in a sickly pink hue.

"Form up!" Demidov shouted. "Close in! We've got to get back to the base."

"Up that hill?" Yelagin asked. And she was right. They'd descended into the valley down a steep slope, almost climbing at times. To retreat up there with these things on their tail would be suicide.

They had to hold out down here.

"Mark your targets!" she said. The matter of ammunition was already worrying her. They'd come equipped for a simple in-and-out, an extraction that might not even have involved a firefight. As such they'd come light, bringing only the bare minimum of spare ammunition. Four mags each, if that, and she was already on her second. Three more shots and—

She ejected, reloaded, marked a new target and fired.

The chaos of battle had always remained outside for Demidov. Inside, her mind worked quick and calm, always able to place an enemy and work out the various strategies and logistics that would enable their success.

Now, everything was different. This was like no fight she'd ever fought, and already she could see its terrible, eventual conclusion.

"Grenade!" Yelagin said, lobbing a grenade and ducking down. The detonation was dulled by the deep snow, the gray sky made momentarily light by sprayed snow and pale body parts.

More came. More and more, and as she loaded her final magazine, Zhukov was taken down.

Three of them wrapped around the big man's legs, throat and right arm, and a wave of tentacles ripped the weapon from his hands. Demidov twisted around and took aim, but she was thinking the same as the others – Do I pull the trigger? They could not fire without hitting Zhukov.

The decision was snatched from them. Tendrils punched in through Zhukov’s eyes, he screamed, a creature leapt onto his back and plunged its limbs around and into his open mouth. His throat bulged with the pressures inside, and as he fell he was already dead.

Demidov felt a surge of unreality wash over her. Zhukov had saved her life several times, and years ago before Vasily, the two of them had enjoyed a brief, passionate affair. It had ended quickly, because involvement like that would have put their squad in jeopardy. But the affection for each other had remained.

"No," she whispered, and she started shooting. Her bullets ripped through the fallen man and the thing on his back, tearing them both apart.

"Too many!" Vasnev shouted, turning as his machine-gun ran out of ammo, swinging it like a club, falling beneath a couple of tumblers as they surged from the snow.

Yelagin dashed to Demidov's side and turned back to back with her captain, and both of them continued firing for as long as they could.

When Demidov's weapon ran out she drew her sidearm with her left hand. But too late.

Yelagin was plucked from behind her and thrown against a tree, several of the pale, grotesque creatures surging across her and driving her down into the snow.

By then Demidov understood.

They weren’t coming from across the valley anymore. A fresh wave had come up from the sinkhole. Dozens of them.

As they crawled over her, wrapped around her throat, tore the useless Kalashnikov from her hands, she raised her pistol. Too late. Her legs were tugged out from under her. Tendrils covered her mouth, pulled her arms wide, and she thought they might just rip her apart, that she’d be drawn and quartered by these impossible things, these tumbleweeds.

But whatever they intended for her, it wasn't instant death.

She felt herself sliding through the snow as they dragged her back toward the hole. They were warm where they touched her, and they smelled something like cut grass on a summer day. It was a curious, jarring scent. She tried to raise her head to see what was happening and whether she was alone. Am I the only one left alive? she wondered. But the tumblers were strong, and for the first time she sensed something in them other than animalistic fury.

There was intelligence. They kept her head back so that she couldn't see, and when she struggled she felt a slick, warm tentacle drape itself across her eyes, then pull tight.

Seconds later she felt the world drop from beneath her. She gasped in a breath and prepared for the fall, but she felt herself jerked up and down as the creatures descended into the hole. They must have been using their strange limbs to grab onto the sheer sides. Maybe they stuck like flies, or crawled like spiders.

Coolness became cold. She didn't notice the gentle kiss of weak daylight until it vanished entirely. The thing carrying her must have needed all its other limbs to descend, and her eyes were uncovered again. She could look up and see the circle of pale grey sky vanishing above. Around her, a strange luminescence seemed to accompany their descent. To begin with she thought it came from the walls, and that perhaps there was strange algae growing there, issuing a pale light through some chemical process. But then she saw a tumbler's limbs working before her as they rapidly descended into the hole, and they glowed.

A procession of terrors crossed her mind. Poisonous! Acidic! Radioactive! But she suspected she would be long-dead before any of those potential hazards caused her harm.

She caught a glimpse of Yelagin being carried by other things further along the sheer rocky wall, and then she heard Vasnev screaming. Three of them were still alive, but Budanov and Zhukov were dead. Perhaps soon she would have reason to envy them.

*   *   *

Amanda Hart was screaming.

Quiet, Glazkov wanted to say. Stupid American, keep silent. Can’t you hear? He liked Hart, had no real issue with Americans in general, but they had a tendency toward hysterics. Now was not the time for hysterics. In the dim glow of the creatures’ luminescence he could see Hart hanging from the ceiling like a forgotten marionette, but of course that was an illusion. Her limbs were not dangling, they were restricted. She screamed his name – Vasily, Vasily, Vasily – until he wished his mother had chosen another for him at birth.

Yes, Hans Brune might be dead. Given the way his ears had leaked after his skull had struck the wall, he pretty much had to be dead.

But we’re alive, Glazkov wanted to say. We’re alive.

His eyes blurred. It might have been tears obscuring his vision, or it might’ve been the blows he himself had taken to the head. He blinked and tried to focus. Glazkov hung upside down, so it might have been the head-rush contributing to his blurry vision.

No, he thought, looking at Hart. That’s not it.

She cried out his name again.

His vision wasn’t blurry after all. There were things moving on her face and body – things much like those that had carried them down into the hole, but so much smaller. Tiny things, like spiny creatures he might’ve found at the ocean bottom, but they were not underwater now. There must have been hundreds of them on her, perhaps thousands of the little things, moving around her with the industry of an anthill or a beehive, all of them producing that sickly glow. They moved with purpose, as Hart screamed.

As loudly as he could manage, Glazkov shushed her. Screaming wouldn’t help anyone.

It occurred to him that it was strange, how calm he was. So strange.

But then he felt a little tug on his right forearm and he tried to crane his neck ever so slightly to get a glimpse of it, to see what might have caused that tug, and he saw that they were all over him as well. The tiny ones. Babies, he thought. But something told him that despite the size differential, the tiny ones were not the babies of the larger ones. Not at all. No assumptions ought to be made. Particularly not when the tiny ones were so busy, so full of intent.

He felt that tug again and cocked his head, managed a glimpse. They were there, skittering all over him, but now he understood something else.

He understood why Hart kept screaming.

They weren’t just all over him, those little ones. They were inside him, too. Under the skin. Moving, and busy. So very busy.

Glazkov blinked, and for the first time he understood one other thing. Perhaps the most important thing. They weren’t just moving inside him.

They were also speaking to him.

*   *   *

Budanov’s whole world was pain and cold. He could hardly see. His head throbbed, his neck hurt, and his skull felt like something was tied around it so tightly that the slightest movement would cause it to burst. He'd spill his brains across the frozen ground. At least the pain would be gone.

No, Budanov thought. No, I won't let that happen. He never had given up in anything, and he wasn't about to start now.

He tried moving his limbs. They seemed to shift without any significant pain. Nothing broken. He rolled onto his right hand side and felt a heavy weight slip from his back, wet and still warm. He ran his hand up his front to his neck, checking for wounds. Nothing split open. He spat blood, and a tooth came out, too. His lip was split, and he'd bitten his tongue.

"Fuck," he whispered. Good. I can still talk.

Everything was silent.

Still lying on his side, he scanned his immediate surroundings until he saw his gun. It was down by his feet. He leaned down, head swimming, pulsing, and snagged the weapon with one finger. Straightening, hugging the rifle to his chest and checking that it was undamaged, he felt more in control.

He feared that everyone else was dead. His last memory was of one of those things coming at him, tendrils spread wide like a squid about to attack. He'd felt the impact of its warm, wet body upon him, then the sickly sensation of the limbs tightening around his neck and head... and then nothing.

He glanced behind him and saw the torn ruin of the creature, limbs split, body holed by bullets. A stinking fluid had leaked and melted into the snow.

Budanov sat up slowly and looked around.

Zhukov was to his right, dead. There was so much blood. Budanov's heart stuttered, then he calmed himself and brought his weapon to bear. His head swam. He'd known Zhukov for almost ten years, and they'd fought well together.

"Sorry, brother," he whispered. The words seemed too loud, as if a whisper could echo across the landscape.

He realized how silent everything was. How still. Groaning, biting his lip to prevent dizziness spilling him to the ground, Budanov stood and looked around. He staggered a few paces from the mess of Zhukov's body and leaned against a tree.

Nothing moved or spoke, growled or sang. The whole valley was deathly silent, and he wondered whether he was actually dead and this was what came after – desolation and loneliness.

Then he heard something in the distance. A buzzing, far away, so faint that he thought it might be inside his head. He tilted his head left and right, trying to triangulate the sound, but it came from everywhere.

There were many of those alien creatures lying dead all around, and trees and rocks bore scarred testament to the strength of the firefight he'd missed. But other than Zhukov's corpse, there was no sign of his comrades.

Except...

Drag marks in the snow.

"Oh, no," Budanov breathed. They'd seen the animals being gathered by the tumblers and hauled towards the hole, before those things had switched their attention to the Spetsnaz unit.

He checked his weapon, switched magazines for a full one, wiped blood from his face, and started toward the hole. He would not leave his people, not while there was even the smallest chance they were still alive.

The buzzing grew louder. Close to the edge of the abyss he frowned and hunkered, still stunned by its size but now terrified by what might be down there. He turned left and right, trying to pinpoint the sound, but did not identify it until moments before the first helicopter swept into view.

The big Mi24 attack aircraft and troop carrier appeared above the ridge line across the valley, closely followed by two KA-52s in escort formation. Help had arrived, and he hadn't even had a chance to call it in.

Their helicopter pilots must have reported the forced change of destination the moment his unit left the aircraft back at the scientific station. Budanov didn't know how long had passed – he guessed little more than an hour – but that was plenty of time for this new unit to be scrambled and sent their way.

He knew how much trouble they were all in for disobeying orders and scrapping an important mission, but right then he didn't care. Something amazing and terrible had happened here. But for now his main concern, his only concern, was for the surviving members of his unit.

Budanov popped a flare and waved it back and forth several times, then tossed it onto a pile of rocks close by. He was ten meters from the hole's edge.

As the three aircraft circled the valley and hovered for a while above the massive hole in its floor, Budanov edged closer. He kept his weapon ready, convinced that at any moment one of those tentacled things would surge up from the depths and come at him.

If it does I'll blow it apart.

But nothing came. He reached the edge, leaned over and looked down, and saw only darkness in that intimidating pit. The walls seemed sheer, and there was no sign of life. He thought of lighting another flare and dropping it over the edge... but he was afraid of what he'd see.

"Hold tight," he said, but there was no one to hear his words.

As the helicopters swung around and came in to land in a clearing three hundred meters away, Budanov jogged toward them, ignoring his aches and wounds. He wondered how long it would take to make them believe.

*   *   *

Their descent into the pit seemed to take forever.

Vasnev's screaming faded to a whimper, and Yelagin might well have been dead. Demidov tried to keep tabs on them both, alerted to where they were by the strange, shimmering luminescence emanating from the tumblers bearing them. Their bodies glowed, reminding Demidov of deep sea creatures – just as compelling, equally mysterious and alien. She couldn't help seeing beauty in their flowing movements, even though the tumbler held her with painfully tight tentacles clasped around her stomach, left arm and both legs. It was pointless struggling or attempting to escape, but as they descended deeper and deeper, she had time to plan.

She could not simply submit to whatever was to come. Vasily and his companions were likely dead, but while there was even the slightest chance they were still alive, Demidov and the remainder of her unit had to fight.

She had a knife in her boot and a grenade still hanging from her belt.

"Oh, my God," Yelagin said from over to her left. "Look down."

Demidov was glad to hear her friend's voice, but when she twisted and followed her advice, cold fear slithered through her veins. Down beneath them, far down, a faint glow was growing in size as they continued their descent. To begin with it might have been just one more tumbler, but as they drew closer she could see many separate points of illumination. It wasn't one. It was hundreds.

"Yelagin," Demidov said. "Vasnev. We need to get away."

"Captain, there are tunnels in the walls," Yelagin said.

"You're sure?"

"I just passed one. The glow of this thing lit it, just for a second. I don't know how far it went but..."

"But that's enough," Demidov said. "Vasnev? You alive?"

"I can't..." Vasnev said. "I can't believe..."

"You don't have to believe," Demidov said. "Do you still have your knife?"

A grunt that might have been an affirmative.

"We can't let them get us down there," Demidov said, wondering all the time what these things heard of their voices, what they thought, and whether there was any way they might comprehend. She guessed not. Hoped not. They were something no one had ever seen or heard of before, how in the hell could they know Russian? "If they get us all the way down, we're finished. Look down, scan the rock face, and when you see—"

"There!" Yelagin said. "Just below us. A ledge."

"Right," Demidov said. She'd seen it. A narrow ledge like a slash across the wall, similar to many they might already have been carried past. But this one was where they would make their stand.

As the creature carrying her flowed down the wall, limbs reaching and grasping, sticking and moving, Demidov slid her hand down her hip and thigh, bending slightly, to reach the knife in her boot.

This is when it stops me, she thought. It'll know what I'm doing, sense the violence, and one wrench of those limbs will tear me in half.

But the creature seemed unaware of the weapon now grasped in Demidov's hand. The ledge was close; they were running out of time. Without trying to make out whether Yelagin and Vasnev were ready, she slashed at the tentacles pulled tight across her throat.

The creature squealed. It sounded like a baby in pain, but Demidov was committed now. She cut again, then grasped the thing's body with her left hand – soft, fleshy, wet – and stabbed with her right. She felt the blade penetrate deep into the thing's hide and the squeal turned into an agonized scream. Working the blade hard to the left and right, she gutted the beast.

From a little further away she heard other screams. She hoped they weren't human.

Demidov fought, slashed, thrashed, cutting limbs and seeing them drop away into the darkness like exclamations of pain. A gush of warm fluid pulsed across her throat and face. She tried to close her mouth but wasn't fast enough. She tasted the dying thing, its rank spice, its hot sour blood, and as it dropped her and she fell, she puked into the darkness.

She slammed onto the ledge and the breath was knocked from her. Spitting, wiping a mess of gore and puke from her face, she rolled back against the wall and looked up.

Glowing like a ghost from the gore covering her, Yelagin was climbing down the rock face just a couple of meters above. She dropped and crouched beside Demidov.

"Captain!"

"I'm fine. Vasnev?"

"Vasnev fell. I saw him go, still fighting the thing that had him."

Demidov rolled again until she could look down... and wished she hadn't. She guessed they were fifty meters above the hole's base, and it was pulsing with the glowing things, all of them shoving forward to congregate around one place at the foot of the sheer side. Vasnev was plain to see, splayed across rock, broken, splashed with luminous gore. If the fall hadn't killed him, they soon would.

"We should go," Yelagin said.

"Go where?"

"A cavern. Just past the end of the ledge, I think we can make it. I saw it as I watched Vasnev fall."

Demidov stood, the two remaining soldiers holding onto each other to protect themselves from the dark, the fall, and the terrible glowing, monstrous things that lived in the depths. They moved carefully along the ledge, and just where it petered out was a crack in the rock wall. Standing before it, a waft of surprisingly warm air breathed out at them, as if this whole place were a living thing.

"What the hell was that?" Yelagin whispered.

"Doesn't matter," Demidov said. She had already heard the sounds from below, and a quick glance confirmed her fears. The things were climbing again. Coming for them, ready to avenge their dead. "We've got no choice."

Yelagin tucked her pistol into her belt and climbed away from the ledge toward the crack. Demidov followed. She had never been great with heights. Inside an aircraft or tall building was fine, but if she was on the outside, then the great drop below always seemed to lure her with the promise of an endless, painful fall. Knowing what was coming for her from below only made matters worse.

"Here," Yelagin said. She was braced in the crack, back against one side and feet against the other, and reaching for Demidov with her left hand. Demidov grabbed her gratefully, scrambled, and soon they were inside.

It opened into more of a tunnel, relatively flat and leading directly away from the great hole. The wet, stinking remnants of the things they had killed still provided a low luminescence on their clothing and hair, and Demidov hoped the effect would last. They both carried flares, but they would burn harsh and quick. She couldn't imagine anything worse than being trapped down here in smothering, total darkness.

She tugged the grenade from her belt.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Yelagin asked.

“What choice do we have? They’re coming!”

Yelagin drew her sidearm again and put it into Demidov’s hand. “With respect, Captain, you blow the mouth of this tunnel, you could kill us quicker than those things out there. You’ll trap us in here, if you don’t bring the ceiling down on us. Hold them off as long as you can. I’ll see if the tunnel leads to something other than a dead end.”

Demidov nodded, switched the gun to her right hand and the grenade to her left. The bullets wouldn’t last very long.

She heard Yelagin move away behind her, using the luminescence from the tumblers’ blood to see. As the footfalls faded, fine tendrils whipped up over the ledge, and the first tumbler spilled into the mouth of the tunnel. Demidov took aim, dead center, and pulled the trigger.

*   *   *

"We're to place you under arrest and take you back to base," the Lieutenant said. He hadn't given Budanov his name. He hadn't even seemed keen to give the private any medical aid, but his medic had come forward and started tending Budanov's wounds anyway. While she bathed and dressed, another man – a civilian – took careful photographs of the injuries. Two others had disappeared into the snowy woodlands, each of them guarded by a heavily-armed soldier.

Budanov had warned them, but they didn't seem to believe a thing he said. All but the civilians, who looked terrified and excited at the same time. More fucking scientists, Budanov thought. That's why we're here in the first place.

"But my captain and the rest of my unit might still be down there," he said. "The things took them down, and perhaps—"

"Your fault," the lieutenant said. He seemed eager to move, shifting from foot to foot and scanning the snowscape. One of the men had thrown Budanov a thick coat, and he was eager for the medic to finish so that he could cover himself. All he wanted now was somewhere warm.

Demidov and the others aren't warm, he thought. They're down there. Cold, afraid. Maybe dead. But I have to know for sure.

"Can't you at least look?" he asked. "Get one of the KA-52s to hover over the hole, shine a light down?"

"We're not staying long enough for that," the lieutenant said. He was a tall, brash man, young for his rank, but Budanov sensed a good military mind behind his iciness. He knew what he was doing.

"You were coming here anyway," Budanov said. "Before you heard from our pilots. Isn't that right?"

"Not for long," the lieutenant said again, staring him in the eye for the first time. "Just long enough for these white-coats to get what they want, then we're getting the fuck out. You're lucky we're taking you with us. Your pilots left an hour ago when they heard."

"Heard what?"

The lieutenant glanced aside. Frowned. One of his soldiers ran across and stood close, muttering something into his ear.

"Everyone, back to the chopper!" the lieutenant shouted.

"But we're—" one of the scientists said. He was hunched closer to the hole, examining something hidden in the snow. One of them, Budanov thought, and he wondered whether it was one he'd shot himself.

"Do as I fucking say!" the lieutenant said. He looked rattled.

"What is it?" Budanov asked. Bullets were his only answer.

The KA-52 that had been circling the site dropped low over the hole and opened up with its big cannons, tracer rounds flashing into the darkness and impacting the wall. The explosions were so powerful that Budanov felt their vibrations through the solid ground, and snow drifted down from trees as if startled awake.

"But we don't know—" one of the civilians shouted.

"We do know," Budanov said. He stood, and just for a moment he fought every instinct that was telling him to flee.

I can't just run, he thought. I have to help. They'd do the same for me.

He turned his back on the helicopter and sprinted into the trees. No one called him back; either they didn't see him going, or they didn't really care. That lieutenant had been scared, and he'd had more on his mind than capturing an AWOL soldier.

Skirting around where Zhukov's body had been marked with a red flag, he saw a heavy white rucksack, dropped by one of the civilians. Coiled around its handles was a thin nylon climbing rope. He ripped it open, and inside were various devices and sample jars, and a radio.

As the cacophony of gunfire from the KA-52 ceased, the radio hissed into life.

"...leaving in three minutes!" It was the lieutenant's voice. "Ground Cleanse commencing eight minutes after that. You do not want to be here when the MiGs arrive."

Oh Jesus, they're going to blast the hole to hell!

Budanov crouched and ran closer to the wound in the land, tied the rope around a sturdy tree, and wondered just what the fuck he was doing as he threw the coiled mass over the edge and started to abseil into the darkness.

He descended nearly a hundred feet before he paused on a ledge, taking advantage of the glow from far below. From his pack he drew a couple of pitons and hammered one into the rock face as quickly as possible. Tying it off, he set his heels at the corner of the ledge and prepared to drop deeper. The seconds were ticking by in his head. How long since he’d heard the transmission? How many minutes remaining before MIGs started bombing the shit out of this hole in the frozen heart of the world?

The smell of methane lingered and he wondered if he was being slowly poisoned to death. Funny way to go, with bombs on the way.

To hell with it, he thought, and kicked off the ledge, shooting downward at reckless speed.

As he swung toward the wall again, boots shoving off for another rapid descent, he heard gunshots echoing up to him from below. He kicked off again, glanced down into the darkness… only it wasn’t truly dark at all. Far below, a pale white glow rippled and undulated like a strange ocean. Closer, on the opposite wall, the same glow shifted and crawled and slid along the rock, and now he saw them on his side as well. Slowing his descent, Budanov's breath caught in his throat.

He hung on the rope and saw the glowing, many tendriled-creatures coming for him, racing up the rock wall of the hole. He shot a single glance skyward, calculated how long it would take him to reach the top from here, and realized he would be dead soon. In reality, Budanov had known this from the moment he had snatched the coils of rope and run for the methane-cored hole, but now he truly understood what he had done.

Down was his only chance.

“Captain!” he screamed. “Kristina! Vasnev!”

Budanov kicked away from the wall and let the rope slide through his hands, nearly in free-fall. He rocketed downward, and the tumblers raced up at him. All of his choices had been made, now. From this point onward, there were only consequences.

*   *   *

Demidov slid backward, the jagged rock floor of the tunnel snagging at her pants. The blood of two tumblers cast a ghostly pale illumination in the tunnel mouth. The pistol was warm in her hand as she waited, heart pounding. One of the tumblers she’d killed had fallen backward off the ledge but the other lay twitching just a few feet from the soles of her boots. She dug her heel into the rock and shoved backward again, gaining a few more inches of distance from the dead thing and the ledge beyond it.

It hissed as it bled. That might’ve been the sound of it dying or just the noise of its warm blood staining the cool rock floor of the tunnel, like the ticking of a car engine after it’s been shut down. She whispered small prayers, her voice echoing in that cramped space, and she listened for Yelagin’s return. How would they get back to the surface? If they kept themselves alive long enough, help might come, but what about Vasily and his science team? The hard little bitch she thought of as her conscience told her the man she loved had to be dead, but Demidov wouldn’t listen. She told herself Vasily had to be alive.

Though maybe it would have been better if she could imagine him dead. If she could imagine he no longer needed her, that she could simply surrender to fate, give herself over to the death that even now crawled toward her.

The dead tumbler twitched and Demidov jerked backward, taking aim. She blinked, staring as she realized it was not the dead thing that moved but a new arrival. Behind the cooling, dimming corpse, another tumbler had crept over the ledge and slithered toward her, camouflaged behind its dead brother. They were getting sneaky now, and that terrified her more than anything.

They weren’t just cruel, they were clever.

“I see you,” she whispered.

It froze, as if it understood.

Demidov lifted the gun, still clutching the grenade in her left hand. The tumbler whipped to the right, raced along the wall and then onto the ceiling, clinging to the bare rock. Tendrils whipped toward her face and Demidov back-pedaled hard, sliding backward along the tunnel as she pulled the trigger. Bullets pinged and cracked and ricocheted off the walls, sending shards of rock flying. Two caught the tumbler at its core, splashing luminescent blood across the tunnel floor. Tendrils snagged her ankles from above, others tangled in her hair, and she screamed as one of them curled around her left hand – where she held the grenade.

Should have pulled the pin. Should have just thrown it. Should have—

She shot it again, center mass. Three more bullets and the gun clicked empty.

The tumbler dangled from the ceiling, its tendrils still sticking to the rock overhead. Demidov tried to catch her breath, to calm her thundering heart. Setting the grenade into the cloth nest of the crotch of her pants, she patted her pockets and checked her belt. Still had her knife, but she needed ammunition… and found it. One magazine. She ejected the spent one and jammed the fresh magazine home.

Something moved out on the ledge, slithering, rolling.

Demidov didn’t even look up at it. She knew. They weren’t coming one a time anymore.

Gun still in her right hand, she snatched up the grenade again, pulled the pin with her teeth and held on tightly. The second she let it go, the countdown would begin.

Taking a breath, she looked up.

The tumbler dangling from the ceiling dropped to the floor of the tunnel, dead, just as the others rushed in. She saw two, then realized there were three, maybe even four, their glowing tendrils churning together and filling the tunnel mouth. Demidov fired half a dozen shots, bullets punching through the roiling mass, but she knew her time had come.

She dropped the grenade, turned, and bolted to her feet.

Bent over, she hurtled down the tunnel, firing blindly back the way she’d come. The countdown ticked by in her head as she ran. In the dimming light offered by the blood soaked into her clothing, she saw the tunnel turning and followed it around a corner. The ceiling dropped and the walls closed in and she feared that she'd found a dead end, except there was no sign of—

“Kristina!” she screamed. “Take cover, if you’re here! Take—“

The grenade blew, the sound funneling toward her, pounding her eardrums as the blast threw her forward. She crashed to the floor, skidding along rough stone as bits of the ceiling showered down onto her, dust and rock chips. A crack splintered across the stone overhead and she stared up at it, lying there bruised and bloody, and waited for it to fall.

Nothing.

She took a dust-laden breath and realized she was alive. She'd dropped the gun when the grenade blew her off her feet. She looked around, ears pounding, but in that near darkness the weapon was lost.

She heard footfalls coming her way, reached for her knife, realized that the tumblers had no feet. The narrow beam of Yelagin’s flashlight appeared, along with the remaining glow of the tumblers’ blood on the woman’s uniform.

“You’re alive!” Yelagin said, more in relief than surprise. She didn’t want to be alone, and Demidov didn’t blame her.

“Seems we both are,” Demidov said, sitting up and brushing dust off her clothes. “For all the good it will do us. We’ll starve to death in here, if we don’t suffocate first.”

Yelagin knelt beside her. “We may die yet,” she said, “but it won’t be in this tunnel.”

Demidov frowned, glancing at her, refusing to hope.

“Come on,” Yelagin said, helping her to stand. “There’s a way out.”

“A way up?” Demidov asked.

Yelagin would not meet her gaze. “A way out,” she repeated. “That’s all I can promise for now.”

A fresh spark of hope ignited inside Demidov and once again she allowed herself to think of Vasily. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he was still alive.

All she and Yelagin had were knives, but for the moment they were still alive. They would fight to stay that way.

*   *   *

The tunnel sloped downward. Demidov’s ears were still ringing, all sounds muffled thanks to her proximity to the grenade’s explosion. Her head pounded but she took deep breaths and kept her arms outstretched, tracing her fingers along the tunnels walls as she tried to keep her wits about her. There were ridges and striations along the rock that were quite different from what she’d been able to make out on the side of the massive hole. If that sinkhole had been bored up from below by an enormous methane explosion, as Vasily and his team believed, then this side tunnel had been created by some other means.

Something had carved it out.

Several minutes passed in relative silence, with Demidov following Yelagin, the two women doing their best not to slip. The twists in the tunnel often led to a sudden steep section, and a wrong step might have led to a broken neck.

The luminescent blood they’d been splashed with faded with each passing minute, and soon Yelagin’s flashlight was their primary source of illumination. The air moved gently around them, not so much a breeze as a kind of subterranean respiration, the tunnels breathing, evidence there were openings somewhere ahead and below.

Noises came to them, quiet whispers of motion followed by what sounded like thousands of tons of rock and earth shifting, but they remained very much alone in the tunnel. Demidov exhaled in relief when the tunnel flattened out and she found she could stand fully upright. Yelagin picked up their pace, and soon they were hustling along in a quick jog. The thumping of her heart, the familiar cadence of their steps, lent Demidov calm and confidence that allowed her to gather her thoughts. Find the source of the air flow, she told herself. See if we can climb. Track down the tumblers and try to ascertain the status of the science team – dead or alive?

“There’s a glow—“ Yelagin started to say.

Then she swore, stumbled, and hurled herself forward in the tunnel. Demidov pulled back, reaching for her knife, ready for a fight. Her backpedaling saved her. Just in front of her, Yelagin scrabbled her hands to get a grip to keep from falling into a hole in the tunnel floor, an opening that seemed to drop away into nothing. Air flowed steadily up from the hole.

“Kristina!” Demidov called, glancing around, trying to figure out how she could help.

Yelagin had already managed to drag one leg up, prop her knee on the edge of the abyss, and now she hauled herself to safety on the other side of the five-foot gap. She’d seen the glow, but had been moving too fast to stop, so instead she’d jumped. And almost not made it at all.

They stared at each other across the gap, neither of them wanting to be left alone. Yelagin used her torch to search the edges of the hole, and it looked to Demidov as if she would be able to get around it – if she was extremely careful – without falling to her death. She lay flat on her belly and dragged herself to the edge to stare down into the depths, drawn by the soft glow that emanated from within. On the other side, Yelagin did the same.

Demidov went numb.

It was Yelagin who spoke first. “Is that...? Is it a kind of... city, do you think?”

Far below, perhaps hundreds of feet, were loops and whorls of stone, a kind of labyrinth of strange tracks and bowls and twisting towers. From those strange spires of rock hung innumerable tendriled things, either asleep or simply static, dreaming their subterranean dreams or contemplating the labyrinth of their underground world, and perhaps the new world they had discovered above them.

“Oh, my God,” Demidov whispered.

“Captain,” Yelagin said quietly.

Demidov looked up and saw that Private Yelagin had risen to her knees. Now the woman took to her feet, braced herself against the wall, and reached out across the gap. The message did not require words – get up, don’t look, don’t think, and let’s get the hell out of here. Demidov ought to have been the one in command, but in that moment she was quite happy to let Yelagin guide her.

She glanced one more time at the sprawling, glowing city-nest below and then she stood, never wanting to see it again. Taking a deep breath, she put one foot on the bit of stone jutting out from one side of the hole, and then she shook her head.

“No,” she told Yelagin. “Back up.”

“Captain…”

“Back up, Private.”

Yelagin withdrew her hand, hesitated a moment, and then backed away, giving her plenty of room to make the leap. Demidov got a running start and flung herself across the gap. She landed on the ball of her left foot, arms flailing, and then stumbled straight into Yelagin, who caught her with open arms.

For a moment they stood like that, then Demidov took a single breath and nodded. “Lead the way.”

They followed the beam of Yelagin’s light, passing several places where the tunnel branched off in various directions, until they found one that sloped up. Demidov paused to feel the flow of air and then gestured for Yelagin to continue upward. They’d been moving for only a minute or two, Demidov staring over Yelagin’s shoulder, when she realized she could see more details of the tunnel ahead than ought to have been possible. Her breath caught in her throat and she reached out, grabbing a fistful of Yelagin’s jacket.

“Stop,” she hissed into the other woman’s ear. “Quietly.”

For long seconds they stood in the tunnel, just listening. Demidov felt her heart thumping hard in her chest as she stared ahead. Sensing the trouble, Yelagin clicked off her flashlight, confirming what Demidov had feared. Not only did the tunnel ahead gleam with the weird photoluminescence of the tumblers, but the glow was becoming steadily brighter. They could hear the slither of tendrils against rock.

Part of Demidov wanted to just forge ahead. But she remembered all too well the glimpse she’d had of the tumblers killing Zhukov, and she thought perhaps they ought to retreat, find a side tunnel, and wait for this wave of creatures to pass them by.

Demidov took Yelagin’s arm and turned to retrace their steps.

The same glow lit the tunnel behind them.

“No,” Yelagin said quietly.

Demidov slipped out her knife. They had no other weapons and nowhere to run. A numb resignation spread through her, but her fingers opened and closed on the hilt of the knife, ready to fight no matter the odds.

The tumblers sprawled and rolled and slunk along the tunnel, arriving first from one direction and then the other. Some slipped along the ceiling or walls, filling the tube of the tunnel with their undulating tendrils and their unearthly glow until it looked like some kind of undersea nightmare.

“Captain,” Yelagin whispered. “Look at the little ones.”

Demidov had seen them, miniature tumblers about the size of her thumb, maybe even smaller. They clung to the others and moved swiftly amongst them. The little ones seemed to cleave more to the ceiling, creating a kind of mossy mat of shifting, impossible life. The tumblers flowed in until the only bare rock was the small circle where Demidov and Yelagin stood.

And then the smothering carpet of creatures parted and a pair of dark silhouettes emerged, like ghosts against the creatures' strange light.

Demidov could not breathe. For a moment, she could not speak, and then she managed only to rasp out a single word.

“Vasily?”

As Yelagin swore, frozen in shock, Demidov lowered her knife. Vasily Glazkov – her lover and best friend – came to a halt just a few feet away, with Amanda Hart behind him. The small tumblers clung to their clothes and flesh. Hart’s face seemed to bulge around her left eye, as if something shifted beneath the skin, near the orbit. Demidov wanted to look at Vasily, but that bulbous pulsing thing in Hart’s face made her stare.

“Hello, Anna,” Vasily said. His voice seemed different, somehow both muffled and echoing. The tunnel turned it into a dozen voices. He looked sad, and sounded sadder.

"Vasily, you're..." She didn't know what he was.

"It's such a shame," he said. "So many dead."

"We're all that's left," she said. But when he next spoke, she thought perhaps Vasily wasn't talking about the soldiers who had died.

“You must understand that they are no different from us.”

“What?” Yelagin said, shaking her head in confusion. “They’re nothing but different from us.”

Vasily did not so much as glance at her. He focused on Demidov. “There's beauty here. A whole world of wonder. When the shaft opened above them, they went up to explore, just as we came down. They're studying us, beginning to learn about our world. Already they have touched us deeply. Amanda suffered a terrible injury and they have repaired her, strengthened her.”

Things moved beneath the skin of Hart’s neck, and something twitched under her scalp, her hair waving on its own. Demidov stared at Vasily, gorge rising in her throat, hoping she would not see the thing she feared more than anything. Was that his cheek bulging, just a bit? Where his temple pulsed, was that merely blood rushing through a vein or did something else curl and stretch his skin?

“Who's speaking now?” she asked.

Vasily frowned. “Anna, my love, you must listen. There's so much we can learn.”

She could not find her voice, did not dare ask who Vasily meant by we.

“Dr Glazkov,” Yelagin said, shifting nervously as the small tumblers skittered above her head. “Whatever there is to learn, we'll find time for that. But some of our team has died and I don’t see Professor Brune with you. Captain Demidov and I have to report in. You know this. Can you get us to the surface? Whatever these things are, whatever you’ve discovered, our superiors will want to know. We need to—“

“Stop, Kristina,” Demidov said.

Yelagin flinched, stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“This isn’t Vasily talking," Demidov said. "Not anymore.”

Vasily smiled. Tiny tendrils emerged from the corners of his mouth, like cracks across his lips. “The truth is the truth, regardless of who speaks it.”

Demidov raised her knife.

They swept over her.

Yelagin screamed and they both fought, but there were simply too many of the creatures, binding them, twisting them like puppets.

Dragging them down, deeper than ever before.

*   *   *

It made her think of what drowning must be like. Tendrils gripped and caressed her, surging forward, one creature passing her to another like the ebb and flow of ocean currents. Sometimes tendrils covered her eyes and other times she could see, but the eerie phosphorescence of their limbs – so bright and so near – cast the subterranean labyrinth into deeper shadow. It was difficult to make out anything but crenellations in the wall or the silhouettes of Vasily and Hart. The sea of tumblers brought her up on a wave and then dragged her under again, carrying her onward. Demidov caught a glimpse of Yelagin, and felt some measure of relief knowing that whatever might happen now, they were together.

She tried not to think about Vasily, tried to focus just on her own beating heart and the desperate gasping of her lungs. Had it been Vasily speaking, lit up with the epiphanies of discovery? Or had these things been masquerading as her man, recruiting for their cause, attempting to find the proper mouthpiece through which to communicate with the hostiles they’d encounter aboveground?

The image of the things twisting beneath the skin of Hart’s face made her want to scream. Only her focus on surviving gave her the strength to remain silent. Every moment she still lived was another moment in which she might figure out how to stay alive.

The ocean of tumblers surged in one last wave, dumped her on an uneven stone floor, then withdrew. She blinked, trying to get her bearings. Glancing upward, she saw they had brought her to the bottom of the original vast sinkhole. Demidov stared up the shaft, the gray daylight a small circle far overhead, just as beautiful and unreachable as the full moon on a winter’s night.

Not unreachable, she told herself. You could climb it if you had to.

But she’d never make it. For fifty feet in every direction, the glowing tumblers shifted and churned, rolling on top of one another, piled as high as her shoulders. Demidov didn’t know what they wanted of her, but she had no doubt she was their prisoner. The tumblers parted to allow Vasily and Hart to approach her once more.

“Anna,” Vasily began. “They need an emissary. There is so much—“

“Where's Kristina?” Demidov demanded. “Private Yelagin. Where is she?”

With a ripple, the ocean of tumblers disgorged Yelagin onto the ground beside Demidov, choking and spitting, tears staining her face. Demidov took her arm, helped her to stand. In the weird phosphorescence she looked like a ghost.

Yelagin whipped around to face her, madness in her eyes. “I saw Budanov! He’s down here with us!”

“Budanov is dead.”

“No!” Yelagin shook her head. “I swear to you, I saw him clearly, just a few feet away.” She swept her arm toward the mass of writhing tumblers. “He’s in there somewhere. They’ve got him!”

Demidov stared at Vasily, or whatever sentience spoke through him. “Give him to me.”

Vasily and Hart exchanged a silent look. Things shifted beneath Hart’s skin, bulging from her left cheek. A tiny bunch of tendrils sprouted from her ear for a moment, before drawing back in like the legs of a hermit crab.

“He is injured,” Vasily said. “They can help him. Heal him.”

Demidov heard the hesitation in his voice, the momentary lag between thought and speech, and she knew this wasn’t Vasily speaking. Not really. Not by choice.

“Give him to me,” she demanded, “and I’ll carry your message to the surface.”

The things pulling Hart’s strings used her face to smile.

Vasily nodded once and the mass of tumblers churned. Like some hideous birth, Budanov spilled from their pulsing mass. One of his arms had been shattered and twisted behind him at an impossible angle. Broken bone jutted from his lower leg, torn right through the fabric of his uniform. His face had been bloodied and gashed, but it was his eyes that drew Demidov’s focus. The fear in those eyes.

“Private—“ she began.

“No, listen!” Budanov said, lying on the stone floor, full of madness and lunatic desperation as he glared up at Demidov and Yelagin. “There’s an airstrike coming! Any minute now… Fuck, any second now! They’re going to—“

Demidov stared up at that pale circle so high above.

She could hear them now – the MiGs arriving – the familiar moaning whistle of their approach. They had seconds. A terrible sadness gripped her, a sorrow she had never known. She looked at Vasily, feeling a hole opening up inside her where the rest of their lives ought to have been. He gazed back at her, mirroring her grief. Then she saw the twitch beneath his right eye.

“All the things we could have taught them,” he said, and she wasn't sure whether it was her Vasily talking about them, or them talking about everyone else.

The scream of bombs falling. The roar of an explosion high above – a miss. A shower of rock cracking off the walls of the shaft.

The sea of tumblers closed around Demidov and she shouted, reaching for Yelagin. They covered her, lifted her, hurtled her along as the MiGs roared and she felt the first explosion, the impact, the flash of searing heat as the tumblers rocketed her into their tunnels. They burned, and her skin burned along with them, and then she felt nothing at all.

*   *   *

Just a pinch, at first. That’s all it was.

Then a scrape.

Demidov flinched, surprised that she was still alive, but in pain. Searing pain, scraping pain that made her moan and wince and whisper to God, in whom she had never believed.

Her eyes fluttered open and for a moment all the pain faded, just a little. The city around her – city was the only word – could not have been real, and yet she was certain it was no dream. For a moment she let her head loll from side to side, gazing at the beauty and wonder of its whorls and curves and waves, and the strange spires that looked more like trees, towering things whose trunks and branches were hung with thousands of tendriled creatures, all glowing with that pale, ghostly light. She and Yelagin had glimpsed it from far above, but now she was here in the midst of it. She was in their home.

Another scrape and the pain roared back in.

Groaning, Demidov looked down and saw them on her naked skin, a hundred of the tiny things, their tendrils caressing and scrubbing her raw, burned flesh.

“No!” she cried, trying to shake them off and then whimpering with the agony of movement, lying still as her thoughts caught fire with the horror of their touch.

She remembered the bombing, the blast that scoured the tunnel even as they rushed her away.

“They saved your life,” a voice said.

Demidov recognized the voice without turning toward him. She steeled herself, because she knew that when she let herself see Vasily it would look like him, but it wouldn’t be him. He surprised her by not speaking again.

Swallowing hard, feeling the gently painful ministrations of the tumblers, she looked to her right and saw him standing nearby, watching over her. They clung to his clothes and skin and hair. When he spoke again, she might have glimpsed one inside his mouth, but it might have been a trick of the light.

“Yelagin?” she asked. “Budanov?”

“I’m sorry.”

Demidov sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Why save me?”

Vasily’s reply came from just beside her. “I told you. They need an emissary.”

She opened her eyes and he was right there, kneeling by her head, studying her with kindly, almost parental concern.

“There are other shafts. Other holes. They’ve been opening up all over this area. Some will be destroyed, as this one was. But not all.”

Her burnt skin throbbed, but she could feel that the stroking of those tendrils had begun to soothe her. Slowly, she sat up.

Demidov exhaled. “Vasily…”

He ignored her, forging ahead. “They'll share some of their gifts with you,” he said. “Teach you wonderful things, including how it is possible for them to heal the damage to your flesh—“

“Vasily?”

“—and then you will carry their message to the surface.”

“Vasily!”

Blinking as if coming awake, he looked at her. Vasily had stubble on his face and his dark hair was an unruly mess, just as it always had been. For that moment, he looked so much like himself.

“What is it, Anna?” he asked, eyes narrowing, as if daring her to ask the question.

She almost didn’t. Just getting the words out cost her everything.

“Who am I speaking to?” she said.

Vasily did not look away, but neither did he give her an answer. Several seconds passed before he continued to describe the mission the tumblers intended for her to undertake.

Demidov tasted the salt of her tears as they slid down her scorched cheeks and touched her lips. She hung her head, Vasily's words turning into nothing but a low drone.

Her right arm had not been burnt. That was something, at least. She stared at the smooth, unmarked flesh.

A shape moved beneath her skin.

Cargo

B. Michael Radburn

The ship seemed to breathe, its steel hull groaning with every breath, every pitch and yaw heaving the deck beneath Corporal Gary Bronson’s feet. His stomach wasn’t exactly right just yet, but was a far cry from the constant puking he’d endured for the first three days at sea. For now, the fresh air on the June sea breeze kept him settled. He took his Zippo lighter from his pocket; rubbed his thumb across the inscription:

77th Infantry – Guam – July 1944

That was a year ago. He licked his dry lips. Strange, but whenever he looked at the engraving he could taste blood.

Bronson flicked the Zippo on and off in quiet contemplation. He was army, not Marine, and sure as Hell not navy, so he still wasn’t sure how he got this assignment guarding a cargo bay on a Cruiser heading to Okinawa. Hell, he didn’t even know what was inside. And what’s more, the USS Portland was crossing the Pacific without an escort. That was either sloppy, or the sign of a ship that wanted to keep a low profile. Sure the Japs were all but done, but there were still plenty of stray Nip subs out there looking for prey. Bronson shook his head at the thought, slipped his lighter back in his pocket, and looked out across the ocean’s swell, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He had an unopen pack of Lucky Strikes in his pocket, but his stomach remained too unsettled to smoke.

A hatch behind him opened with a rusty squeal, and Private First Class Gill Jefferies stepped out. Bronson knew Jefferies from the Mariana Island campaign, another small-town grunt finding his sea legs.

“Hey, you got a smoke, Corp?”

Bronson handed him his pack. “Keep ‘em,” he said.

Jefferies opened them, lit a cigarette, and leaned on the railing beside him. “Thanks,” he said slipping the pack in his breast pocket. “It’s your picket, Corp.”

They were pulling four-hour shifts and sharing the same windowless berth below the water line. “Already?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

Bronson smiled, hitched his carbine’s sling over his shoulder and headed to the hatch. “You figure out what we’re guarding down there yet?”

Jefferies looked pleased, his gaze darting each way along the gangway before he spoke. “I think I do, Corp.”

“Oh?” Bronson paused in the hatchway.

“Well,” Jefferies said in a whisper. “I just heard a rumor from the cook that Uncle Sam has invented a bomb that can level an entire city. I bet that’s what we’re hauling to the airbase at Okinawa.” He tapped his nose. “Very hush, hush.”

Bronson smiled. “And so Uncle Sam decided you and I would be the best guards to keep this war-winning secret?”

“Think about it, Corp. That’s why we’re sneaking around out here on our lonesome without an escort. And as for you and me… Well no offence, Corp, but we’re the lowest common denominator in this man’s army. If the Japs got wind that a secret Cruiser full of Rangers is sneaking around their islands, we’d be dead in the water already.”

Bronson’s smile faded at the thought of all those whitecoated scientists coming and going down in cargo bay 3. And then there was Major Stanley, the only brassed-up uniform with a pass into the place. No ship’s crew – not even the Portland’s Captain – had clearance. Bronson shrugged. “A single bomb, huh?”

*   *   *

Bronson didn’t much like it below. It was smothering. He was cut from Iowa stock and used to cornfield horizons. Below the waterline the sea sometimes slapped at the sides. The sound wasn’t natural to an army man, and the sooner he returned topside the better. He stood at-ease by the cargo hatch, rifle resting on his boot ready to snap to attention should Major Stanley or any of the whitecoats show up. He listened for the approaching clang of boots, leaned forward and tried the latch handle, but the hatch was locked.

“You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal,” was his brief from Stanley, “ensure this door stays locked!”

But… what would he do if he found it unlocked? Take a peek? Go inside? Or remain at his station and lock it as ordered? One fuckin’ job! He thought of Jefferies’s super bomb, tried to get his head around something that could take out a city in one blow. Bullshit.
Ain’t possible. Probably nothing in there but… but what? He nudged the latch again, then heard heavy footfalls approaching and sprang to attention.

It was Major Stanley, his narrow eyes unblinking, and a permanent sneer etched into that tanned, weathered face beneath his cap. Bronson saluted. “Major Stanley,” he said in a firm voice.

“I know my goddamned name, Corporal,” the man spat in his gravelly voice without so much as a glance. He pressed the intercom by the hatch. “Doctor Klein? It’s Stanley, let me in.”

The hatch sprang open, and a whitecoat with round, black-rimmed glasses let the major in. There was nothing to like about Klein. Wiry thin and tall, stooped from a lifetime of masking his height, he had stringy black hair greased down over his balding top. Word was he was snatched from the Nazi’s pool of scientists when Berlin fell. Maybe one of Hitler’s bomb makers.

Klein looked at Bronson for a moment, held his stare, eyes – coal-black – showing no emotion, no feeling. What has he seen, Bronson wondered, to stop from feeling? The hatch closed, and Bronson heard their murmured voices disappear on the other side. Then… a faint click from the latch. He glanced down to see the hatch swing back a half inch or so. The lock hadn’t engaged.

You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal!

Bronson grasped the handle and was about to nudge it closed, aware the lock would engage, only accessible from the other side or by security key from this side. That’s when he noticed just how cold the steel was. The Portland was in the Pacific. It was always hot here. So why the cold storage?

“To Hell with it,” he whispered, and eased the hatch open.

He moved his carbine’s sling over his shoulder and leant inside, the cool air bracing his face. Stanley and the Kraut were gone. Bronson looked around. This was nothing like any other part of the ship. He stepped inside, edged the hatch closed, and listened for any sign of the major or Klein. It appeared to be another hallway running adjacent to the one on the outside. There were muffled voices, but distant; dim inside except for a pale green light coming from a window to his left. Above him was a honeycombed catwalk he could see through to the bulkhead above. Empty. Bronson stepped cautiously in front of the window; thick glass held back a body of water. It was some kind of water tank. Huge. A thermometer beside the glass read 36 degrees Fahrenheit. He peered inside, could see something small, fish maybe – wrigglers he would have called them in his fishing days. They swam in wavering schools deep in the tank.

The catwalk began to tremor above him – two whitecoats carrying something heavy between them and walking this way. He couldn’t risk running back to the exit; that would take him right under them.

“Shit!” he hissed, glancing around, escape paramount.  Over there! Another door beyond the tank. He ran, opened it, and entered. It closed behind him with a soft thud. The darkness embraced him; the cold wrapping around him like icy fingers. He stepped warily away from the door until his back pressed against the opposite wall… and he waited. The smell was familiar, and took him a moment to relate. Then he remembered his after-school job cleaning old man Beattie’s butcher shop. His heart slowed with his breathing, and when it was clear no one was following, he reached inside his pocket for his Zippo. The frigid air hurt his throat to breathe. He flicked the lighter; the flint sparked, but no flame. He tried again. The same. Shook the fluid inside, and this time it worked… and he wished it hadn’t.

Eyes, frozen, had taken on a marble stare. Cradled in their gray flesh, they appeared fixed in time, perhaps in the moment of their death, like a washed out photograph of their mortality – perhaps even recognizing Bronson’s own as they stared into his. He shared this frigid charnel house with a host of dead hung naked from hooks around him. Bronson pressed himself harder against the wall, his frosted breath almost blowing out the lighter’s flame, his khaki shirt freezing to the steel wall. The fabric peeled away as he stepped aside, desperate to shun those staring eyes. He shifted the Zippo from face to face – all Japanese, no doubt battlefield fodder by the bullet holes and torn flesh that marred their bodies.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. I can’t stay here!

He stumbled forward, nudging a hanging corps in its torso, pressing stale air from its hollow lungs into his own face. He wanted to puke. It smelt like battlefield gut-shot… and you never forget that smell as long as you live. He threw himself against the door, and for a moment thought it was locked. No! No! No! He’d dropped the Zippo with a clang, its flame extinguished. Now that he knew what was in here, the darkness seemed tenfold. Another blind heave and the door seal relented with a crack. It swung open as he spilled out into the hall. Bronson drew in the fresh air, rested against the far wall, and watched as the freezer door eased itself closed again.

There was a repetitive clanging from atop the catwalk. Whatever those whitecoats were doing, it had masked the sound of his busting out. He clutched his carbine to his chest and moved under the walkway, pressing himself close to the wall as he slipped beneath them. The clanging carried on, and when he passed the tank window it seemed the wrigglers were attracted by the sound. He watched the schools swivel and swirl in grey clouds toward him. A lone wriggler swam closer to the glass, no more than the size of his thumb. It was a crab, but not like anything he’d ever before seen. For its size, the claws were huge, and its shell, serrated along its spine, was a strange steely black. Bronson paused, tilted his head. Is it looking at me? He then heard the substantial splash from above…

… and the frozen eyes of  one of the dead Nip soldiers was looking at him again, the body submerging on the other side of the glass. Bronson’s breath caught, startled, as water splashed over the edge and ran down his side of the glass, distorting the image. “Feeding time,” said one of the whitecoats above. The other chuckled, then they moved away down the catwalk.

Bronson breathed a slow, steadying sigh. He looked at the corpse, met its dead stare, and for a moment he thought it was… dancing.

The ravenous crabs swarmed over it – through it – tearing it apart into a pale cloud of fibrous flesh and splintered bone.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

Then, from the flesh-cloud, one of the crabs slammed against the window, its oversized claws scissoring at the glass. Bronson stepped away, swore it was looking right at him. He turned to the exit, saw that the whitecoats were gone, then made his break. The hatch opened easily. He stepped outside, back at his post, then pulled the hatch closed, testing the latch handle three times to ensure it was locked.

“I’m done,” he whispered, then checked it one last time to be sure.

*   *   *

It was an hour before Major Stanley came out.

Bronson snapped to attention. “Major Stanley,” he said firmly and waited for the Major’s usual gruff wisecrack, but it never came. Instead, Stanley stood opposite, his eyes a little less harsh than usual, bordering on human.

“You served with the seventy-seventh in Guam, didn’t you, Corporal?”

Bronson’s jaw clenched. Perhaps due to pride; perhaps due to the landscape of dead GIs he remembered from that battle. “Yes, Sir.”

“You’ve seen some things in your time, huh soldier?”

He was about to answer when the major held up the Zippo Bronson had dropped in the meat room on the other side. The 77th Infantry – Guam – July 1944 inscription just eight inches from his eyes.

“We need to talk, Bronson.”

*   *   *

Not a word was spoken until the door to Major Stanley’s quarters closed behind them. Stanley turned and Bronson halted to attention.

The major took off his cap, placed it on his desk, and then sat on the edge. “At ease, Corporal,” he said with a dismissive wave.

It was unnerving. Stanley looked at Bronson without speaking for a long time. There was no sign of the steely stare or rock-jawed barking of abuse.

He tossed the Zippo to Bronson, who caught it. “You want to tell me what you saw in there?”

As Bronson adopted the at-ease position, he considered lying to the major, but the weight of truth in his lighter made that futile. “I’m not sure what I saw, sir.”

Stanley sighed, took a cigarette from the box on his desk and lit it. “You’ve put me in a difficult situation, Corporal. One I could probably have you shot for.”

“Shot?” The word squeezed up through Bronson’s throat.

“Relax.” Stanley stood from the desk and walked toward a film projector set up before a row of chairs in the center of the room. “We’re about twenty-four hours from disclosing the Portland’s mission to her captain and crew anyway. HQ prepared a film for my briefing.” He turned on the projector. “To dodge that bullet I need you to keep your mouth shut until then.” He pointed at the screen on the wall as grainy images of white-coated scientists filtered through a stream of Stanley’s cigarette smoke. Except for the clickety-clack of 8-millimeter film that spooled through the reels, the film was silent.

“I can do that, sir,” Bronson said.

Major Stanley spoke as the corresponding pictures filled the small screen.

“We call them Shintos, the Japanese god of water. They are a hybrid created by our Nazi friends, something they were working on for Adolph before he opted out of the war. They’re basically a Japanese Spider Crab injected with the fetal cells of the carnivorous Coconut Crab. They were experimenting with a range of species, but the crustaceans seemed the most responsive. The Nazis radiated their bloodstream to strengthen their dominant blood cells and bred them to what you saw down in the hull. The radiation seemed to be the kicker, the mutation it created being way beyond our expectation. The Shinto’s are extremely deadly and strangely intelligent in their interaction with each other. Particularly in the way they hunt their prey.” Stanley smiled; it was predatory. “The things are ordered and calculating. They have one overwhelming motivation… to feed.” The man glanced at Bronson to gauge his reaction as the pictures flickered across the screen. “Your thoughts, Corporal?”

“What are you gonna do with them?” He forgot protocol and stepped closer to the screen. “I mean they’re so small.”

The flickering light reflected in both their eyes as they watched the feeding demo on screen.

“We condition their nourishment habits with the Jap carcasses curtesy of Uncle Sam’s island hopping campaign across the Pacific,” said Stanley. “And they’ve acquired quite a taste for it. This shipment of Shintos is bound for Okinawa where they’ll be packed into a custom airborne delivery system and dropped off the coast of Tokyo from a B29.”

“Seems like a lot of effort to kill a few beachgoers, sir.”

“Watch the film, Corporal.”

The progressive images were the stuff of nightmares. Worse under Stanley’s matter-of-fact voice.

“Ohhh, shit,” muttered Bronson when he recognized their potential.

“Worst case of crabs this man’s army will ever see,” said Stanley, his grin cold. “You see, the low forty-degree temperature of the tank keeps them in the pigmy stage. Forty degrees and they’ll fit in your hand. That man-size one you see on the screen was transferred to a tank just ten degrees warmer.”

The film showed one standing on its back four legs, claws raised as it circled a Jap corps, still in uniform, propped up on a metal frame. When the black-armored creature struck, both flesh and steel yielded like butter.

“H-how…” stammered Bronson. “How big do they grow?”

Stanley walked to the projector and turned it off, and Bronson felt an immediate sense of relief.

“Well, that’s the question. We just don’t know,” said Stanley. He gestured toward the screen. “That specimen from the fifty-degree tank grew that size in a matter of minutes. The waters off Japan right now are seventy-four degrees. We believe they will grow quite large. Kick those Nips where it hurts.”

“Kick them?” said Bronson. “It’ll wipe them off the map.”

Stanley smiled. “Better still.”

The deck shifted beneath them in a violent lunge. A metal roar pierced Bronson’s eardrums as he met the steel wall and the lights flickered out.

*   *   *

The wash of sounds was a dull cacophony through the ringing in Bronson’s ears as the red lights of the general quarters flared on and the battle stations siren sounded. Bronson found his rifle and stood, sensing a slight list to the portside. Major Stanley was in the corner and Bronson knew by the angle of his neck the man was dead.

The port-deck hatch took some effort to open against the warped bulkhead, and as he stumbled outside he was met by a blanket of gray smoke and a rush of clambering sailors. One of the seamen nudged him as he passed. Bronson staggered through the smoke to the railing.  A submarine surfaced a half mile out, close enough to see the red rising sun insignia on the conning tower.

“Shit,” spat Bronson. He clutched the railing, knuckles white, as the Portland listed another inch or two toward the surface.

The sub’s crew had scaled topside now, manning its deck gun, traversing its barrel slowly toward the Portland. Bronson was lost, his CO dead, his one fucking job seeming irrelevant under the circumstances. He aimed his carbine at the sub, realizing how futile an act it was when the Portland’s 6-inch bow gun boomed and a pillar of seawater rose five yards short of the submarine. It boomed again, short again, and Bronson realized the heavy list denied the main guns enough elevation for the short distance.

Bronson lowered his rifle, and with it, all hope. This is gonna be a turkey shoot for the Nips.

The sub’s deck gun flashed, and a heartbeat later the Portland’s bridge exploded, showering the area in metal and glass. A hot chard gashed his cheek and he could smell burning flesh. The radar tower leaned heavily toward Bronson, metal screaming as it tore from its base. He leapt at the open hatch as the twisted tower smashed amidst the cries of the ship’s crew. The deck vibrated violently beneath him. He rolled onto his back, patted his cheek and stared at the blood on his fingers. It appeared black in the red light, and made him think of the blood-stained Jap carcasses in the meat locker; made him think of those Shinto wrigglers looking for their next feed. If the ship was doomed, then so too were those things in cargo bay 3.

Bronson shifted with the heat of the fires behind the bulkhead at his back and suddenly imagined the tank’s thermometer rising as it incubated those wrigglers. How big do these things get? He stood and braced himself as the Portland rolled another few inches. That’s the kicker… we don’t know.

Bronson shook off the ringing in his ears. The Iowa cornfields never seemed so far away, and if those things escaped to the warmer waters, neither him, the Portland’s crew nor those Japs would ever see home again. “You’ve got one fucking job, Corporal,” he whispered. Those things needed to be locked below – needed to go down with the ship – before he could take his chances out in the Pacific.

The ship’s 6-inchers had stopped firing, but the .50 caliber machine guns were working overtime, shuddering the walls around him. The tide of men scurrying from below was thinning. Bronson was easing down a stairwell when another Jap shell hit amidship, rocking him to the floor. He counted the decks as he descended, recognizing his old post below the waterline. The ship was listing badly now, and he imagined all that ocean pressing at the hull.

… one fucking job…

He reached for the latch. Let it be locked. No sooner had he grasped the latch, than Doctor Klein’s voice pleaded from the intercom.

“Let us out!”

Bronson frowned, tried the latch.

“Is anyone there?” Klein cried through the static, his accent suddenly heavy. “For the love of God, you must let us out!”

Bronson pressed the intercom’s Speak button, paused ready to say… what? Klein pounded on the hatch. It could only be opened from his side or with the security key, so something was wrong. Bronson lifted his finger and stepped away. The hatch was probably jammed – not a bad thing under the circumstances. Klein’s voice cried louder, his broken English slipping into a guttural German as he became more agitated then… the banging and the screaming stopped. Bronson stepped closer to listen. There came a metallic drumming, then a loud axe-like clang sounded on the other side and Bronson jumped back, raising his rifle. Did the hatch move? He watched the hairline gap press a fraction wider, then close again.

The hatch held.

“Good enough,” said Bronson and ran to the nearest exit, realizing he was running uphill now.

When he broke into the daylight, the most assaulting force to his senses was the silence. No guns, no sirens, no engine, just a groaning ship, her bow plunging into the foaming sea. Two tenders and a scattering of rigid life rafts were rowing away from the ship, a handful of stragglers jumping from the railing and swimming toward the rafts. Bronson watched the deck slipping into the water. He stepped away, climbed, looking for a discarded life jacket. He used the railing to help with the ascent. An open sponson marked Vests was empty. If he had to jump without one, so be it. He could dump the carbine, boots and webbing, take his chances, but chance remained in the gunsights of the Japs right now.

The gun’s thunder echoed across the surface. Its shell hit at the waterline, exploded in a fireball, and threw him off his feet. The concussion pressed at his eardrums, deck splinters tore at his uniform as he slid toward the oil-fired surface. His carbine’s sling slipped down his arm as he lunged out, grabbed the railing, his shoulders straining with the force. He cried out in pain, could feel the heat, chocking on black smoke, when the tearing roar of protesting steel vibrated through the ship.

The Portland was ripping in half under its own weight.

Bronson closed his eyes and held his breath as he rode the stern section down. It collapsed into the sea, drawing water into its exposed belly. He was showered with seawater, the fires hissing into submission as the ragged hulk settled with a sway on her keel. His eyes flickered open, saltwater stinging, the sinking bow a blur as it disappeared into the sucking sea before him. Bronson exhaled and allowed his taught muscles to relax. Then the sound. Familiar enough to tie his stomach in a knot. A metallic drumming, like a cluster of steel legs striking metal.

No…

It was the same sound he heard down in the cargo bay.

He used his rifle to stumble to his feet and ran to the hull’s jagged edge. Below, surging through the wreckage was a legion of Shintos, some eight feet tall, their pincer claws cutting their way forward as they spilled into the warm Sea of Japan. Bronson steadied himself, cocked his carbine, and took aim. The rifle cracked – he winced – the recoil marring his already damaged shoulder. The bullet ricocheted off one of the Shinto’s armored back plates. The creature stopped, braced itself with its claw against a steaming pipe, and stared up at him. The eyes were like glistening black pearls peering so deeply into Bronson’s own that he felt certain it recognized the fear there.

He backed away, could hear the hammering of its spidery legs climbing the tangled metal, saw its claw arch over the verge like an axe to pierce the timber deck and lift itself over the edge. Bronson blinked nervously, tripped and fell onto his back. The Shinto had grown even larger under the sun’s heat, standing ten feet tall on its hind four legs. Bronson raised his rifle, fired another round into its exposed belly plate, heard the ricochet ping a moment before the same bullet splintered the timber next to his head. The creature raised its claws, paused ready to impale him to the deck. Layers of shell parted at its snout to reveal a wet pit of serrated plates, an ear piercing shriek raining down on him.

Bronson screamed back.

As futile as it seemed, he frantically worked the bolt action rifle and emptied the clip, hoping to find a soft spot between the armor. He stopped, exhausted, the last depression of the trigger delivering an empty click. It was the sound of death. Bronson rolled his head toward the sea, spent – it was over. He would imagine the endless horizon was that of an Iowa cornfield and pray the end would be quick…

… but there were no Jap submarines in Iowa cornfields.

Bronson saw the deck gun flash with a boom as the Shinto’s claw arched down toward him. Just inches to spare, and the creature exploded, showering him in crabmeat and brine.

He lurched away with a burst of adrenalin, stood, legs shaking so bad they barely held him. Something shifted inside the ship with a metallic groan and the stern rolled a yard or so portside before settling again. He dropped his riffle and it slid over the edge into the sea. Bronson clutched the railing, watched as the sub’s crew scrambled to reload, aiming at the crippled Portland. They had meant to sink her, and Bronson with it. “Fuck it,” he whispered as he wiped crab residue from his face. He raised his face to the warm sun, closed his eyes, and waited.

He could hear the ocean seething, and waited…

… could feel the ship moving under him, and waited…

… could sense the shadow cast cold over him and… opened his eyes.

Rising like an island behind the sub was one of the creatures. It towered over the scene, seawater falling in rivers from its armored body. Standing on the sea floor, half its torso exposed, its black eyes surveyed the submarine before it. If those whitecoats ever wondered how big their babies could grow, the answer stood there before him. It was a colossus.

Bronson could hear the Jap crew shouting orders, turning the deck gun toward the eclipsing monster. But too late. The Shinto’s claw lifted the craft like a toy, its other cutting its pointed bow section in two. The boat exploded in a flash of high explosives and fuel, no doubt having struck the torpedo racks, the searing heat reaching across the surface to Bronson’s exposed face. Metal and burnt bodies rained into the Pacific as a churning black cloud obscured the scene. Bronson hoped the force was enough to kill the beast, but as the breeze dispersed the smoke, the Shinto stood unscathed.

It raised its claws in triumph. Its nightmare mouth parted, its shriek shattering the air itself. Bronson had to press his hands to his ears.

Then, there was a great and terrible silence.

The Portland’s adrift survivors had grown quiet; the ocean itself gone quiet as Bronson lifted his hands from his ears. Then he heard it. A reply from the depths. A similar, dampened cry vibrating through tons of water. He peered over the edge, could make out the throng of large shapes swimming beneath the Portland’s keel. They were heading east, toward Japan.

Bronson stared up at the leviathan before him, peering into its soulless eyes – an eerie darkness that peered back at him. The creature surged forward, and the Portland rose on the swelling wall of water pressed ahead of it. Bronson closed his eyes. Death was better met in darkness. One thought played on his mind in that final moment. The Japanese are gonna wish it was just a super bomb we were delivering.

Vermin

Richard Lee Byers

A wail made Adalric spin around. Stefan and Pierre were dragging a Muslim woman from her house. A little boy started after them, and she shrilled at him to go back inside. The jabber prompted Pierre to slap her, and Adalric scowled. The blow seemed unnecessarily brutish even if she was an enemy of Christ.

His hauberk clinking, the young knight strode toward the two foragers and their captive. “What are you doing?” he demanded of Stefan. It was easier than asking Pierre. Adalric’s recently acquired French was better than his recently acquired Turkish, but not a great deal better.

Setting forth from Bavaria, he’d somehow ended up in nominal charge of a small band of pilgrims who, though often wayward and undisciplined, at least all spoke the same German as himself. But the Turks had annihilated the majority of Little Peter’s followers almost as soon as they arrived in Anatolia, and the surviving ‘Tafurs’ – penniless men – had clumped together as circumstance allowed. They had little choice. None of the great lords leading the Crusade cared to welcome men generally regarded as rabble into their own companies. Though they were happy to dispatch them on dangerous errands through unfamiliar territory.

His square face peeling with sunburn, Stefan had the grace to look momentarily sheepish. Scrawny with a rotten-smelling mouth missing several teeth, Pierre glowered at the interruption but left it at that. It was questionable whether the Frenchman truly respected Adalric’s authority, but he had sense enough to be wary of proper weapons and armor and a man trained to use them.

“She has money hidden away,” Stefan said. “Look at her.”

The woman’s dress did have more embroidery than seemed common in this dusty desert village. But it didn’t matter. “We’re here for food,” Adalric said; provisions for the Christian army starving beneath the walls of Antioch. “We need to collect it and get away.”

“This won’t take long,” Stefan said.

“She won’t even understand what you’re asking her.”

Stefan leered. “Oh, I’ll make her—“

A horn blatted through the morning air. No one had taught the bugler to blow proper signals, but the repeated blasts conveyed urgency. The Tafurs looked wildly about as if they imagined the villagers they’d been robbing were rising up against them, but that wasn’t the problem. The sentry atop the tower was watching the approaches to the town, not what was happening inside it.

“Back to the fortress!’ Adalric shouted. Some men ran. Others flung themselves onto the half-loaded wagons as the drivers shouted and snapped the reins to set the mules in motion.

Forgotten in the confusion, one cart remained. Adalric scrambled onto the bench. Emboldened by the Christians’ hasty departure, a villager in a brown robe threw a stone, and it clinked against his mail.

As, bumping up and down, his conveyance rumbled and clattered through the streets, Adalric tried to count the Tafurs riding in the other wagons or pounding along on foot. Some were missing. Though he’d attempted to keep them close, the better to control them, a few had plainly sneaked off to loot unsupervised. It was only what he’d expected, but damn them anyway!

The bugle kept blaring, though with longer pauses between notes. The sentry was getting winded. Finally the man himself came into view atop a keep that was unimpressive to anyone who’d seen the castles of the Rhine, Constantinople, or Antioch for that matter, but was nonetheless the tallest structure in the village, poking above the sandstone wall surrounding it.

Adalric raced through the gate and, left to his own inexperienced devices, might have driven his mules broadside into someone else’s cart. Fortunately, the animals had sense enough to balk on their own and brought their wagon to a jolting halt while their teamster was still fumbling with the reins. A crate bounced out the back and smashed open.

Rising from the bench, Adalric looked up at the sentry. “What’s wrong?” he shouted.

The trumpeter tried to answer but was so out of breath as to be inaudible to anyone at the foot of his perch. Realizing as much, he pointed with one jabbing hand and flailed the bugle back and forth with the other. The brass horn flashed in the sun.

“Close the gate!” Adalric bellowed.

The cheeks above his long straw-colored beard scarred by the pox, Faramund turned in his commander’s direction. A man-at-arms by trade, he was one of the Tafurs Adalric actually trusted. “By my count,” he called, “we still have people outside.”

“By mine, too,” Adalric answered. “But I think we’re running out of time.”

They dashed to the gate and began the process of securing it. Just as they slid the massive bar squeaking through the brackets, hooves pounded outside.

Adalric hurried up the stairs leading to the wall-walk. Keeping low, he peeked over the parapet.

Mounted archers rode around and around the fortress that had likely been their own just a day before. They numbered at least fifty, more than his band of ill-equipped peasants could hope to best in open combat.

If the Turks had only stayed away until afternoon, the foragers might have gotten away clean. Curse the luck! Curse—

Adalric took a breath. It was no use railing against misfortune. Or wondering why God rained adversity on those who fought in His name while lavishing every advantage on the miserable heathens who contended against them, although, to say the least, it wasn’t what Little Peter’s sermons had led him to expect. The Tafurs would simply have to cope with the situation as it was.

Perhaps it wasn’t all bad. The foragers couldn’t defeat the Turks on a battlefield, but they might be able to withstand a siege. The modest size of their stronghold would actually help. It didn’t have longer walls than a small force could defend.

Still making sure to keep his head down, Adalric considered the orders he needed to give. Meanwhile, a Tafur straggler with a dead chicken dangling from his band blundered into the open space surrounding the fortress. At once, an archer twisted in the saddle, nocked, drew, and loosed. The Tafur pitched forward with the shaft in his chest.

*   *   *

In the darkness, the fort was like a gray fist with an upraised finger. Standing where a narrow, rutted street gave way to the ring of clear space surrounding the stronghold, Zeki squinted at it, striving vainly to spot some weakness that had hitherto eluded him.

His sergeants had urged him to stay behind cover even after dark, but he wasn’t worried. The last three days had shown that all the expert archers were on his side, which made it all the more galling that he had thus far failed to dislodge the wretched infidels from their stolen refuge.

Behind him, someone coughed. Zeki turned and then hesitated when he beheld, not the subordinate he might have expected to interrupt his ruminations, but a stranger.

The newcomer was stooped, perhaps not a hunchback but on the verge, with long arms and big hands. He wore a striped aba, the sleeveless coat of a Bedouin, and a kufeya held in place with an igal of camel wool. The headwear shadowed a dark-eyed saturnine countenance with a grizzled mustache and beard so bushy as to essentially conceal the mouth.

“You need to stay back,” Zeki said, trying not to sound brusque. There was no reason to take out his ill humor on fellow Muslims. “My men and I have commandeered the area until such time as we storm the citadel and destroy the Franks.”

Perhaps the stranger grinned. The hair covering his lips made it impossible to be sure. “How is that going?” he asked.

“That’s a matter for soldiers,” Zeki snapped, no longer caring if he was rude.

The Bedouin raised one of those big, long-fingered hands. “Forgive me, Captain. I don’t mean to pry. It’s simply that, like every good man, I yearn for the day when the Faithful will drive these savages into the sea.”

“I appreciate that—“

“So I offer what help I can, which is more than you might suppose. My name is Ibrahim, and, appearances to the contrary, I’m an educated man. In my youth, I studied in Dar al-Ilm, the great library of Tripoli. You see me clad as a nomad because I now travel seeking wisdom unrecorded in any of its hundred thousand books.”

Zeki cocked his head. “I don’t entirely understand.”

Ibrahim spread his hands. “Perhaps we could explore the subject more fully indoors? The night grows cold.”

Well, why not? It was indeed getting chilly, and Zeki wasn’t accomplishing anything as he was. Perhaps the stranger had stumbled across a manual on siege-craft wading through his hundred thousand volumes and could provide some sound advice. Stranger things had happened.

Zeki led the self-proclaimed scholar into the house in which he’d taken up residence for the view the windows afforded of the citadel. The woman who lived there served them humus and raki, the latter white from being mixed with cold water, and then she, her husband, and their three children left their guests to their deliberations.

Ibrahim sipped the lion’s milk and sighed. “Delicious. And now, Captain, would you care to tell me how a capable soldier like yourself comes to find himself barred from his own stronghold?”

Zeki’s cheeks grew warm. It was the last story he wanted to tell… or then again, perhaps it wasn’t. Everyone else in the village knew it already, and maybe it would be a relief to unburden himself.

“Well,” he began, “I’m like you. I want to help rid our country of the Franks.”

“While playing a hero’s part in the jihad?”

Zeki’s face grew warmer still. “I wouldn’t put it like that, exactly.”

“Please understand, I’m not criticizing. A soldier is supposed to want to fight the enemy.”

“I agree. But my father doubted my ability–”Zeki pushed away the thought that events had proved his father right–“and he serves the Governor and is highly placed enough that Yaghi-Siyan actually knows him. When it became clear the invaders meant to march on Antioch, he prevailed on our lord to station me here, in theory removed from any danger.”

“That must have been frustrating.”

“It was.” Zeki sipped his anise-flavored drink. “And when I received word the Franks had foraging parties ranging far from the city, I was eager to find and destroy one. But I’m not an idiot, however it looks! Yes, I took most of my men on patrol, but I didn’t leave the fortress unattended.”

“So what happened?” Ibrahim asked.

Zeki took another drink. “As near as I can make out, the Franks must have observed the village without being spotted in their turn. They figured out there were only a few soldiers left in the fortress, and that night they sent horsemen wearing turbans galloping up to the gate. In the dark, a person could mistake them for riders returning from the search, and one of them spoke our language and pleaded to be let in. Somebody obliged, and the infidels killed him and his comrades, too. Then, in the morning, they began stealing what they came for, beating and otherwise mistreating people while they were about it, even though no one was resisting. Until their sentry sighted my patrol returning, and, knowing their wagons couldn’t outdistance our pursuit, they retreated back into the stronghold. Now they’re inside, and I’m outside.” He sighed. “Farcical, is it not?”

“Embarrassing, certainly. Until you dislodge them.”

“I’m trying. But the Franks’ commander knows something about resisting a siege. More than I know about mounting one, if the truth be told. My training focused on maneuvering mounted archers on the battlefield.” He took a breath. “But I will get back inside. I may not know much about sieges, but I’ve seen the engines an attacking force brings against a stronghold. The village carpenter couldn’t manage a tower on wheels, but I’ve got him working on a battering ram with a roof to shield the men swinging it back and forth.”

“I trust he knows how to contrive an apparatus that can punch through the heavy reinforced wood of the gate and withstand burning oil.”

Once again, Zeki was uncertain if the wanderer was mocking him. “Do you know how?”

Ibrahim shook his head, his bushy beard swishing across the front of his aba and the brown cotton tob beneath. “I’m not a siege engineer, either. But I can offer assistance if you’re willing to accept it.”

Zeki frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I told you I seek wisdom in the trackless spaces of the world. It is there one hears the jinn and afrit whispering in the wind.”

“You’re talking about sorcery?”

“I understand if that perturbs you.”

“Do you? The Prophet said magic is one of the seven noxious things.”

“Certainly, it is knowledge that weighs on the mind. But if a man uses it in the service of Allah, it is not a sin.”

Zeki snorted. “I doubt my imam would agree.”

“It is your decision, of course, but I implore you to consider carefully. Is it not your duty to retake the fortress as expeditiously as possible? Don’t those who suffered abuse deserve to see the infidels punished?”

Ibrahim didn’t add, Don’t you want to avenge your humiliation? But the thought hung in the air between them.

“Consider, too,” the scholar said, “that if working magic is a sin, it will be my sin, not yours.”

Running his finger around the rim of his cup, Zeki considered. He didn’t want to be the sort of sophist who rationalized his way past the clear intent of the teachings of the Quran. But he also didn’t want word of the current fiasco to reach his superiors – or worse, his father – before he managed to put matters right.

Besides, though sorcerers existed – they must, for wise men said they did – they were plainly rare. Zeki had never in his life encountered the genuine article, whereas he had witnessed countless mountebanks performing on street corners and in bazaars. In all likelihood, Ibrahim was simply one of the latter seeking a reward for ineffectual posturing. If so, it could do no harm to watch the show.

“What exactly would you do?” Zeki asked.

“Have you taken any prisoners?” Ibrahim replied.

“Well… yes. A few Franks wandered off from their fellows and failed to get back to the fortress before my riders caught up to them. We took three alive for questioning – I speak a little of their language – but they didn’t say much that was helpful.”

“That’s all right,” Ibrahim said, rising. “They’ll help us now. Please, take me to them.”

The only proper manacles and cells were back inside the fortress. The Turks had made do by tying the infidels hand and foot, dumping them on the earthen floor of a derelict house, and setting a guard to mind them. The soldier came to attention when Zeki and Ibrahim entered. The Franks eyed them with a mix of apprehension and defiance.

Ibrahim looked over the three, then focused his attention on the sweaty, shivering man whose bandaged thigh was bloody where an arrow had pierced him. “I’ll have this one,” the sorcerer said. “It will be merciful. Otherwise, the festering in his wound will kill him slowly.”

“Do you mean—“

“Surely it lies within your authority to execute an infidel who committed outrages against the innocent, and if I’m merely carrying out the order, then everything is as it should be.”

With no more preamble than that, Ibrahim turned toward the prisoners and chanted in a language Zeki had never heard before, if, in fact, it was speech at all. Some of the syllables were less the tones of human language than clicks, buzzes, and hisses, as if the stranger were imitating a menagerie of vermin. Meanwhile his body bobbed up and down, first straightening and raising his hands to the extent his crooked back would allow, then bowing so low their sweeping gestures nearly brushed the floor.

Gradually, the oil lamp dimmed, and the gloom thickened and rippled, suggesting shapes the eye couldn’t quite define but were repulsive nonetheless. A cold wind moaned, carrying the stink of something fetid. Zeki somehow knew that if he opened the door, he’d find the same wind was not blowing outside.

The guard caught his captain’s eye. Then he touched the shagreen-wrapped hilt of his scimitar.

His mouth dry, Zeki almost nodded. But he didn’t because so far, Ibrahim was only doing what he’d promised: raising a power the officer hoped could be directed to destroy the enemy and avert his impending disgrace. He shook his head instead.

Writhing, struggling to worm their way backward despite their bonds, the Franks cried out to their Savior, Virgin, and saints as the magic unfolded. Then they started begging Zeki for mercy.

He wasn’t sure why they humbled themselves to him at that precise moment. As far as he could tell, no new uncanny phenomenon had appeared. Then it occurred to him that they could see Ibrahim’s face and he couldn’t.

The sorcerer stooped over the prisoner with the wounded leg. Zeki couldn’t see what he did next; saw only his bowed head and broad, curved back. The Frank screamed, thrashed, and bucked to the extent he was able. It appeared to Zeki that something in addition to the man’s bonds was holding the infidel in place.

His shrieks and struggling subsided after a few moments. Ibrahim rose and turned around. The sorcerer’s hands were wet and red, and the Frank’s corpse had holes stabbed or torn in its chest. Zeki couldn’t make out the exact nature of the wounds through the soaked, shredded clothing and had a squeamish suspicion he didn’t want to.

“Come,” Ibrahim said. “I should use the power quickly, before any of it slips from my grasp.”

The foul wind dying behind him, the surviving prisoners cursing and weeping, the sorcerer then passed back out of the door. Zeki gave the guard the no-doubt inadequate reassurance of a clap on the shoulder and followed.

Ibrahim only went far enough to place himself in the center of the street. Then he murmured the start of another incantation. Though recited in the same ugly mockery of language as its predecessor, the new one differed in that it possessed meter and rhyme. Or perhaps Zeki was simply learning to pick out those features from the clicking and croaking.

As the sorcerer declaimed, little forms came scuttling to converge on his position. For a moment, Zeki imagined the darkness itself was stirring as it had before. Then he discerned that the shapes were scorpions drawn from their haunts in the village and possibly the desert beyond.

Ibrahim reached down, and some of the creatures crawled onto his bloody hands. Zeki winced to imagine them nipping, stinging, and scurrying up under the sorcerer’s sleeves. Although apparently they didn’t.

Still reciting, Ibrahim lifted his fingers to his beard. Some of the scorpions hopped off to cling and burrow amid the tufts of hair.

Meanwhile, more arrived to form a seething pool that washed over his sandaled feet. Until he pointed in the direction of the fortress, whereupon the creatures scuttled in that direction. The ones crawling on the magus’s body jumped down to join the procession.

Ibrahim slumped like a man who’d been working hard. “They shouldn’t have any trouble slipping under the gate,” he said. “With luck, the Franks might not even notice their arrival.”

Now that the worst was presumably over, Zeki tried to steady himself and focus on practicalities. “Your vermin may make the infidels miserable, and that’s good. But I doubt this will prove a decisive blow.”

Ibrahim chuckled. “Patience, Captain. We’re just getting started.”

*   *   *

Crouching, Adalric surveyed the clear space around the fortress. Someone in the village had spent the day hammering and for all he knew had been constructing new scaling ladders. If so, the enemy might be organizing even now to make another run at the redoubt in the hope that darkness would help them accomplish what they’d failed to achieve in the light.

A while ago, Adalric’s vigilance had faltered. First, dread seized him as if he’d glimpsed something horrible abroad in the night even though, of course, he hadn’t. Then fear gave way to dizziness, and though nothing about its appearance changed, he felt the black sky open like a sinkhole. Knowing the impulse was insane, he nonetheless clung to a merlon lest he fall upward.

The fit had passed quickly. He hoped it had just been a manifestation of weariness and not the first symptom of some looming fever. His little band of fools and reprobates needed his leadership if they were to hold out.

Hold out. He sighed. He’d deemed himself clever when he’d devised his scheme to neutralize the garrison, then plunder the village with impunity. Yet now the Tafurs found themselves trapped, quite possibly for months, until either Prince Bohemond and his fellow commanders somehow took Antioch and had men to spare to search for missing foragers or Turkish reinforcements arrived in the village in sufficient numbers to negate the defensive advantage that fortress walls afforded.

Well, that was the nature of sieges, and there was no use lamenting it. At least, between the provisions the Turks had laid up in the keep and the additional food the Christians had extorted from the town, the occupiers had sufficient to last them for a while. They didn’t have a well of their own – the only one Adalric had spotted was down in the marketplace – but there was a cistern more than half full of water. Hunger and thirst wouldn’t drive them to surrender anytime soon.

Down in the courtyard, someone gave a choked little cry.

As Adalric spun around, he was certain he was going to see that the Turks had somehow gotten inside the walls. But the enclosed space appeared empty. At first glance, he couldn’t even see the man who’d made the noise. Perhaps no one had. After all, his senses weren’t entirely trustworthy tonight.

Then he noticed the sentry on the far side of the wall was looking across at him waiting for orders. That meant the other Tafur had heard the sound, too.

Adalric raised his hand, signaling the man to stay where he was and continue keeping watch. Then, still keeping low and holding his kite-shaped shield for maximum protection, he darted toward the steps leading downward.

The shield jerked as an arrow thudded into its leather covering. He wondered if the damnable Turks could see in the dark like owls.

He wished he could. At first, scrambling down the steps, for at instant nearly losing his balance, he still couldn’t see whoever had cried out. But as he reached the bottom, he spied a fallen man jerking and shaking.

As he hurried forward, the stricken Tafur came into clearer view. It was Pierre. His breeches were open and wet, his manhood exposed. Evidently he’d come outdoors to piss.

Mostly concealed by his shuddering body, something was moving on the far side of it. A small dog, perhaps, a cat, or conceivably even an enormous rat. Then, its eight legs scrabbling for purchase, pincers clicking, sting curled over its back, it clambered onto Pierre’s belly, and Adalric discerned it was none of those. Rather, it was the largest scorpion he’d ever seen. He gawked at it, and then it charged him.

He retreated. Long legs should have opened the distance faster than short ones could take it up again, but that was only barely so. Still, he managed to snatch his broad-bladed sword from its scabbard.

He cut, the low stroke whizzing mere inches above the ground. The scorpion hopped backward, and the attack fell short. Then the two combatants hovered out of range of one another. Adalric was considering how best to dispose of his adversary, and perhaps, in its fashion, the creature was doing the same.

But when the knight caught the faintest of rustling sounds at his back, he knew he’d guessed wrongly. In reality, the one scorpion had done its best to hold his attention while its twin crept up behind him.

Adalric spun and cut. The sword struck off a pincer and tumbled the onrushing scorpion across the ground. He pivoted, struck a second time, and once again the first arachnid dodged the slash. But at least he balked it and kept it from closing to striking distance.

He wrenched himself back around, cut down at the second scorpion just as it was righting itself, and all but split it in two. It hung on the blade for a moment before dropping away when he whirled once more.

The first scorpion was gone. Gasping, Adalric peered this way and that but couldn’t tell in which direction it had fled.

Still watching for it, he inspected the fallen Pierre. The Frenchmen was still breathing, albeit, gurgling, slobbering wheezes through swollen lips. His attacker’s sting had punched through his worn-out shoe to pierce the flesh inside.

Adalric was no more a physician than anyone else in his ragged company, and he wouldn’t have been eager to perform the chore at hand even if he had been. But it was his responsibility. He bellowed for help, strained to pull off the shoe – the foot within was swollen like Pierre’s lips – and started sucking out the venom.

*   *   *

Zeki took another gulp of raki. He knew he was drinking too much. But though the magic had ended some time before – the shadows had stopped shifting, and the swarm of scorpions had scuttled off toward the fortress – he couldn’t seem to leave the alcoholic beverage alone. He wasn’t even bothering to mix it with water anymore.

Seated across from him, little more than a silhouette in the red glow of the dying embers in the hearth, Ibrahim chuckled.

“What?” Zeki asked.

“Now,” said the sorcerer, “the campaign has truly begun. I suggest you double the number of archers keeping watch and impress upon your entire company the importance of being ready to fight at a moment’s notice.”

“Why?”

“From this point forward, conditions within the stronghold will deteriorate. Deserters may seek to slip away. The entire pack of infidels might even burst forth in a desperate attempt to escape. Whoever emerges, you’ll want to ensure that the act is suicidal.”

*   *   *

As the sky outside the narrow window brightened, Adalric took stock of himself. Discounting the frazzled feeling attributable to worry and fatigue, he didn’t seem to be ill. He’d heard of men who’d sucked poison from another’s wound only to fall sick themselves because they swallowed some or it entered their blood through sores in their mouths or broken teeth, but apparently that misfortune hadn’t befallen him.

So far, Pierre was still alive. Adalric hoped he’d recover but had no idea what if anything else he could do to help him. His task now was to keep the same fate from befalling anyone else.

Except for Pierre and the sentries on the walls, his men stood assembled in the hall of the keep with their miscellany of scavenged weapons. There was even one peasant still making do with the hayfork he’d carried away from home when Little Peter’s exhortations fired his pious zeal. The scorpion Adalric had killed lay atop a table for their inspection.

He waved his hand at it. “That one won’t give us any more trouble, but there’s another. We need to find and kill it.” He repeated the same message in his halting French.

“But what is it?” Stefan called.

“You see what it is,” Adalric replied. “A scorpion.”

“It seems… unnatural.”

It seemed that way to Adalric as well. But he didn’t know, and it would be counterproductive to say anything that would unsettle the men worse than they were already. “Nonsense. It’s a bigger scorpion than any we’ve seen before, but remember, we’re newcomers in these lands.”

A Frenchman asked a question. Adalric labored to decipher the meaning: “What if there’s more than one left?”

“That’s unlikely. Surely the Turkish garrison didn’t live side by side with a whole swarm of the creatures.”

A German raised his battle-axe to attract his captain’s attention. “What—“

“Enough!” Adalric rapped. “Our quarry may be big for a scorpion, but it’s still little compared to a man, and I easily killed its fellow. It was only able to sting Pierre because it took him by surprise, and we’re going to watch one another’s backs so it can’t sneak up on any of us. Now stop whining and split into two groups!”

Muttering, the men obeyed, predictably dividing into a German search party and a French one. Since Faramund spoke only German, it fell to Adalric to lead the latter. He judged that it was likewise his responsibility to search the darkest, most claustrophobic part of the fortress to prove he meant it when he claimed there was nothing to fear.

Accordingly, he led his group to the steep, narrow steps descending into the blackness of the dungeon. With a twinge of reluctance, he set aside his kite shield, the better to manage a lantern. Then he headed down, and his companions followed.

When he reached the bottom, the lantern’s yellow glow washed over three common scorpions eating the carcass of a rat, their jagged, segmented mouthparts scissoring. Short from head to tail, longer, and longest, the trio plainly represented different breeds of their odious kind, but they appeared content to share the meal, and Adalric wondered if, like the two arachnids he’d fought in the courtyard, they’d worked together to bring down their prey.

Evidently deciding that if they were hunting scorpions, they were hunting scorpions, four of the Frenchmen shoved past Adalric to assail the vermin. He winced as wild swings and stabs clashed weapons on the floor, no doubt dulling them.

A Tafur screamed, dropped his mace, and swiped at his greasy black hair. His hands dislodged a pale little scorpion, but instead of tumbling to the floor, it dropped down the back of his tunic. By the time his comrades got the garment yanked up and the creature brushed away and crushed, he had half a dozen swelling bumps on his torso to match the one in his scalp.

The Frenchman whimpered. Adalric took his head between his hands and looked him in the eyes. “I know it’s painful,” he said, “but a normal scorpion can’t kill a man. You’re going to be all right.”

“It wasn’t one of the ones eating the rat,” the Tafur replied in a high, breathy voice. “It jumped on me from the ceiling or the wall. Why did it do that?”

“The commotion frightened it,” Adalric said. “Go upstairs and rest.” He raised his voice: “The rest of you, search the cells!”

The hunt soon rousted out several more common scorpions, prompting him to wonder just how many the fortress harbored altogether. Up until now, he’d seen his refuge as small, but he was starting to appreciate just how many dark corners and hidden recesses it contained. There could be scores—

He scowled to chase such fears away. Small pests weren’t the problem. The one big scorpion was, and surely it couldn’t evade them for long. They’d catch it before the morning was through and, rid of the distraction, refocus on the real menace: the Turks beyond the walls.

As it turned out, the big scorpion wasn’t hiding in the dungeon. Leaving Faramund’s party to search the aboveground portions of the keep, Adalric led his men to the stable.

The outbuilding smelled of grain and leather. The company’s several riding horses and the mules that drew the wagons stood in the stalls. One of the latter heehawed a greeting or perhaps a demand for breakfast.

Adalric directed the search of the stable with the same cautious thoroughness as before, and when it revealed more common scorpions, the men assailed them viciously. Then horses whinnied, and donkeys brayed. The Tafurs looked frantically about.

The surviving enormous scorpion was advancing from the far end of the building where it had evidently hidden during the night. Or at least Adalric assumed this was the same creature, but if so, it had grown in just the few hours since their previous encounter. The arachnid that had eluded him had been, at most, the size of a small dog. Claws and stinger poised, mouthparts gnashing, multiple pairs of round black eyes staring, this one was as big as a boarhound.

Tafurs cried out and crossed themselves. Someone threw a hand-axe that glanced off the scorpion’s segmented shell, leaving a scratch but nothing more.

“Spread out!” Adalric said. “Attack from all sides!” Peering over the top of his shield, he stepped forward to meet the creature head on. Someone had to.

His advance provoked the scorpion into scuttling faster. But before it could close, it listed drunkenly to the left, and then the legs on that side of its body buckled beneath it. It heaved itself up again, attempted to walk, and then all eight legs gave way.

With a roar, the Tafurs charged. It sought to fend them off, but clumsily, as if its pincers and sting had grown too heavy for it. Its shell crunched as weapons smashed and stabbed through to the flesh beneath.

When it was certain the scorpion was dead, some men cheered. Others fell to their knees to give thanks to God. The noise drew Faramund and his Germans.

Faramund gave Adalric a nod. “Nicely done.”

Adalric moved close enough to reply without the men overhearing. He didn’t want them to feel he was belittling their victory. “It wasn’t difficult. The scorpion was sick.”

Faramund shrugged. “The important thing is, this particular problem is over.”

“Right,” Adalric said. Even though the taut, edgy feeling inside him had yet to go away.

*   *   *

The pole hung on the horizontal slung from several ropes. Zeki gave it an experimental push and found that even a single man could easily swing it in its cradle. That confirmed what his eyes had already told him.

“It’s too light to break open the gate,” he said.

The carpenter spread his hands. “My lord, it’s the heaviest pole I had to work with.”

Zeki indicated the peaked roof built atop the ram. “And this doesn’t stick out far enough. An enemy on the wall could still hit one of the men underneath.”

“Captain, if you had specified exactly… shall I begin again?”

“If you can’t make a proper ram, what good would it do?” Zeki took a breath. “I apologize. I know you did the best you could.” He handed the villager a little drawstring bag of clinking silver dirhems and walked back outside where the bright heat of the day was giving way to twilight.

Ibrahim was waiting for him. “I infer from your expression,” the sorcerer said, “that the carpenter failed to produce a serviceable device.”

Zeki sighed. “As you predicted.”

“If you recall, I also explained it doesn’t matter if your troops can’t get inside. Our strategy is to force the infidels out.”

Our strategy. Zeki resented the implication they were now co-commanders. Especially since the more repulsive aspects of last night’s conjuration had heightened his suspicion the wanderer’s magic was something a pious, sensible man should shun.

Yet Ibrahim truly had worked a marvel even if aspects of it were unsavory, and it was now plainer than ever that Zeki needed a marvel to avoid becoming a laughingstock in Antioch. So he buried his distaste beneath a smile and said, “I’ll ask you what you asked me when first we met: how is that going?”

The hair covering the scholar’s mouth stirred. For an instant, Zeki imagined leftover scorpions crawling around in there. But Ibrahim’s next words suggested he’d prefaced them with a sigh forceful enough to puff out his mustache.

“Not as well as I might have hoped,” the sorcerer said. “The Franks went on a scorpion hunt. They didn’t find all the creatures I sent to plague them, but they killed some.”

Zeki nodded. “At least you have some left. Enough to still make a nuisance of themselves, I hope.”

“Yes, but the situation is more complicated than that. I watch through the scorpions’ eyes and compel them to do my bidding. That taps my strength. I made two of the creatures grow to enormous size, and that takes even more power. Indeed, the giants need recurring infusions of magic simply to enable them to walk, let alone threaten the Franks. Nature didn’t intend their frames to support the weight enlargement imposes on them.”

Zeki frowned. “Are you telling me you ran out of strength?”

“To my sorrow, yes, and at a key moment. One of the giants stood a fair chance of killing the infidel captain before his followers slew it in its turn. Instead, it collapsed, and the Franks overwhelmed the poor thing with little more trouble than farmers slaughtering a goat.”

“Then your effort has run its course?” Zeki wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved.

The tufts of hair under the sorcerer’s nose stirred again, this time as he laughed. “Hasbinallah, no! Please forgive me if I worried you. I was merely trying to explain that I require new vitality to continue.”

Zeki swallowed. “Does that mean you want to kill one of the remaining prisoners?”

“Both, I think. Perhaps then I won’t run short of power again.”

“I… don’t know if I should allow that.”

Ibrahim’s cocked his head. “Why not? You were being just, were you not, when you condemned the first infidel to death? Aren’t the other two guilty of the same crimes?”

“You told me the first one was going to die anyway.”

“Painfully, and it seemed merciful to spare him. But as a soldier, surely you would agree that war does not always afford us the luxury of kindness.”

Ibrahim hesitated. Last night’s ritual had reeked of the unholy, but it hadn’t hurt anyone on his side, and if allowing it was a sin, well, it was a sin he’d committed already. Perhaps a victory on behalf of Islam would balance the scales.

“Very well,” he said. “Execute the prisoners.” Execute seemed a more righteous word than murder. Or sacrifice. “Work your magic one more time.”

*   *   *

Adalric roused with a start to find himself beside one of the wagons parked outside the stable. An instant before, or so it seemed to him, he’d been near the doorway into the keep. Evidently he’d crossed the courtyard sleepwalking or in a stupor approximating sleep.

He scowled and knuckled a gritty eye. If he was going to doze off, he might as well seek his bed and sleep properly. God knew he needed it, and surely the trouble with scorpions was done. Both big ones were dead, and dozens of the common sort as well.

Yet he couldn’t rid himself of the suspicion that, just as strange perils had crawled from the darkness last night, they might arise tonight as well. If he didn’t want to alarm the men when they’d just calmed down and his imagination might simply be running wild, he needed to patrol the fortress himself. He gave his head a shake and headed back across the courtyard.

At the periphery of his vision and low to the ground, a shadow shifted. Or perhaps not. When he pivoted in that direction, nothing was moving anymore.

He suspected his eyes were playing tricks, but he needed a closer look to know for certain. He adjusted the strap that ran from his shield to loop around his neck, made sure his sword was loose in the scabbard, and stalked forward.

After two paces, he perceived he has advancing toward the cistern, a rectangular hole in the ground with a low brick ledge around it. A bucket on a rope sat ready to hand to draw the water forth.

Adalric still couldn’t see any further movement. But he squinted because something about the murky shapes before him was off. Was there a spot where the brick barrier humped up higher than it should?

He took another step. The bulge became a scorpion the size of a man’s head. It had been crouching motionless atop the ledge, but now the sting poised above the cistern began to flick. It was flinging venom into the water.

Underneath Adalric’s coif of mail, the hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end. He and his fellow Tafurs had rid the citadel of the enormous scorpions, yet here, inexplicably, was another deliberately poisoning the water supply. Surely no vermin would undertake such a thing unless guided by a man’s intellect… or a demon’s.

Whatever accounted for it, Adalric had to stop the contamination. He drew his sword, shouted for help, and advanced.

The arachnid neither fled nor assumed a defensive posture. It just kept on flicking. Was it so intent on the task that it hadn’t even noticed him? Or was it trying to hold his attention while another scorpion sneaked up on him like the creature last night?

He glanced behind him. Nothing was there but one of the sentries scurrying down from the battlements in answer to his call. Reassured, Adalric turned back toward the scorpion.

The sentry, a Frenchman, shouted something. It took Adalric an instant to translate it to “Watch out!” By then, the ground was grumbling, and dirt was sliding under his boots.

He whirled, and a scorpion the size of a donkey heaved itself from the burrow where it had hitherto lay hidden. One set of pincers hooked around his shield to seize him.

Appalled, he didn’t consciously shift the shield, but a lifetime of training, cutting at the pell and sparring with other men-at-arms with swords of wood or whalebone, did it for him. The action kept the claws from closing on his body.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the pincers from grasping the edge of the shield itself. The alder crunched and splintered, and the scorpion jerked on its prize, staggering him. He reeled and fell into a low space like a shallow grave, the burrow from which his foe had just emerged.

Legs splayed to straddle the pit, the scorpion tried to reach him with its unencumbered set of claws. With his shield immobilized and his sword all but useless in such close quarters, he dropped the blade, snatched the dagger from his belt, and met the groping claws with stabs. Each counterattack balked them, but only for a moment. Meanwhile, dirt spilled down the edges of the grave, blinding and choking him.

The scorpion grasped the shield with both pairs of pincers and tried to wrest it away. Adalric clung to the hand strap, switched back to his sword, and stabbed upward, shouting half in fury and half in terror with each thrust. His weapon jolted against the scorpion’s body. With the shield blocking his vision and dust blurring it, he couldn’t tell if any of his strokes penetrated the creature’s shell.

A piece of the shield crumbled in the arachnid’s grip, exposing more of Adalric to its attacks. He struck across his body at the pincers that now sought to close on his shoulder. They jerked back, but then the arachnid’s sting whipped down, pierced the shield, and stopped a finger length above his chest. It yanked free and struck again. The repeated blows clattered like hail on a roof and were steadily smashing the armor to pieces.

Though still fighting as fiercely as before, Adalric braced for the death stroke that was likely imminent. Then pincers and sting lifted away, and, legs skittering around the hole in which he lay, the scorpion changed its facing. Something, probably the sentry rushing to his aid, had distracted it.

Adalric gathered himself to take advantage, and then a smaller but still unnaturally large scorpion, likely the one that had been poisoning the cistern, hopped down by Adalric’s feet and seized one of his ankles in its claws. The pressure hurt. If not for the reinforced leather of his boot, it would surely have cut flesh and broken bone.

Adalric drew up his other foot and stamped. His heel slammed home just above the gnashing mouthparts and in the center of the four sets of black little eyes. Shell crunched, and though even in death, the creature still gripped him, the pressure abated.

He’d have to settle for that. He scrambled to his knees and thrust his sword at the remaining arachnid’s underside. The blade drove into the seam between two pieces of shell. The scorpion froze for an instant, then scuttled backward away from the pit, nearly jerking the hilt from his hand.

He hoped he’d hurt the creature badly. Grinning, he scrambled out of the burrow before the scorpion could straddle it anew, and his momentary elation turned to rage. A decapitated body sprawled on the ground, gore pooled around the stump of the neck, while the scorpion held the severed head in one set of claws. The sentry had indeed succeeded in saving his captain’s life, but at the cost of his own.

Adalric realized the bugle was blaring. The remaining sentry was sounding it. Responding to the call, Tafurs charged out of the keep, then faltered when they beheld the scene before them.

“It’s wounded!” Adalric bellowed. “Flank it and kill it!” He ran at the scorpion, partly to encourage them, partly because he hated it. His strides shook the carcass of the smaller arachnid loose from his ankle.

The scorpion dropped the sentry’s head. Its pincers snatched and, not trusting the scant remains of his shield to block the attack, Adalric dodged. The claws clacked shut on empty air, and he cut at the place where they swelled from the limb behind them. The sword didn’t shear them off entirely, but when he drew it back, they dangled uselessly.

A moment later, Faramund lunged, chopped with his battle-axe, and maimed one of the scorpion’s legs. Another man rammed a spear into its side.

We’re killing it, Adalric thought. Then something clanked on his helmet and knocked it askew. It wasn’t the scorpion. Its sting and remaining set of claws were busy assailing other foes. He cast about; arrows were whistling down from overhead.

The Turkish bowmen could arc shafts over the fortress walls. But how did they know to loose at this particular time and at this particular section of the courtyard?

Only newly risen from his sickbed, Pierre gasped as an arrow pierced into his shoulder. Other men cried out in consternation.

“The Turks are shooting blind!” Adalric shouted! “We’ll be all right, but we have to kill the scorpion!” He cut at the head and hacked off one of the mouthparts. An instant later, an arrow plunged down and punctured one of the rearmost eyes. The vermin flailed its claws.

“Kill it!” Faramund roared. He struck a second blow with his axe.

Heartened, other Tafurs resumed attacking, and after a few moments, the scorpion fell. The segmented tail was the last part to stop moving, flipping back and forth in diminishing arcs.

“Now get under cover!” Adalric cried.

Once inside the keep, he checked on everyone’s condition. Fearsome though it had been, the huge scorpion had only killed the sentry, while the shower of arrows had only found Pierre, who appeared likely to recover.

“We were lucky,” Faramund said.

Perhaps so. But Adalric didn’t feel lucky, and he wondered just how enormous the next freakish scorpion would be.

*   *   *

Ibrahim stared at nothing, presumably looking through the eyes of one of the vermin in the fortress. Zeki wondered if a man could simply walk up to the sorcerer and kill him while he was in his trance.

Then he glimpsed a tiny scorpion crawling on Ibrahim’s foot. Zeki suspected it was playing watchdog. That didn’t mean it could read a man’s thoughts, but he still felt a ridiculous impulse to somehow convey to it that he’d merely been speculating and didn’t intend its master any harm. Then the sorcerer turned in his direction.

“How did we do?” Zeki asked.

“Not as well as I expected,” Ibrahim replied. “We got some venom into the cistern, but the scorpions only killed a single Frank. The archers hit another, but in all likelihood, not fatally.”

“That’s not good enough! Especially when we’re running short of arrows.”

“I promise you, Captain, in the end, it will all work out. If we simply continue applying pressure, the enemy will inevitably break.”

“Go on, then. Work more magic.”

“Tomorrow night. After I renew my power.”

Zeki frowned. “We’re out of prisoners.”

Ibrahim waved at the street behind them. “Walk with me, young sir. There’s no need for simple soldiers to overhear deliberations that might distress them.”

“Keep watch,” Zeki told one of the sergeants. Then, with a pang of trepidation, he followed Ibrahim into the dark.

“Like every village,” the wanderer said, “this one surely has one or two troublemakers as well as old, sick people who live in constant misery. If they fly off to Paradise as martyrs, won’t everyone be better off?”

“You can’t be serious!”

“You and your men need not take an active part. I can gather the harvest myself.”

“That’s not the issue! You’re talking about slaughtering our own people!”

“Only a handful, and as you and I have already agreed, in war a soldier must occasionally commit a small wrong to achieve a greater good.”

Zeki hesitated. “Even if that were true, how can you be sure the new deaths would give you enough power?”

The hairs around Ibrahim’s mouth stirred. “To explain,” he said, “I must take you deeper into my confidence than I originally intended or than may be comfortable for you to hear. But if you insist?”

“Yes.”

“As you wish, then. You likely assumed I’m simply taking the lives I reap and burning them like wood in a fire. But the truth is more complicated. The lives are offerings to something strong and old – think of it as a jinn if you like – and as I continue ingratiating myself, it grows increasingly generous in its turn. Once it fully accepts me as its imam… excuse me, vizier, cleaning out your fortress will be child’s play. Why, together, you and I will raise the siege of Antioch.”

“You sound like a blasphemer and mad as well.”

“Because I believe the Old One would favor me to that extent? You doubt because you haven’t seen the signs.” Ibrahim brushed his mustache and beard to the sides of his face to reveal the wet, protruding mouthparts twitching beneath.

Zeki cried out and snatched for the hilt of his scimitar. Then something pinched his calf. He looked down, and a black scorpion, long and skinny like a needle, scuttled up his leg.

“Please don’t slap at it,” Ibrahim said. “Magic has increased the virulence of its venom twentyfold.”

Heeding the warning, Zeki simply stood and trembled. Even when the scorpion writhed inside his clothing.

“It won’t hurt you,” Ibrahim said, “as long as you don’t attempt to betray our holy cause. So I implore you to forbear. Let me win us our victory, save you from disgrace, and make you the hero you yearn to be.”

*   *   *

Adalric surveyed the men assembled before him in the hall. Sleep, a meal, and daylight had steadied them, but fear still lurked in many a haggard face and perhaps even the stink of their unwashed bodies.

“We now know,” Adalric began, “that our situation is more desperate than we first supposed. The Turks are using witchcraft against us. We have to decide what to do about it.”

“Keep a guard on the cistern,” Faramund said. “The larder, too. Kill the giant scorpions whenever they turn up.”

“That’s one option,” Adalric said. “But for all we know, the water supply is already unsafe. Even if it isn’t, it seems likely the sorcerer, whoever he is, will work magic against us night after night, with the curses growling steadily stronger and the scorpions ever huger. I doubt we could hold out for long.”

“We might not have to,” Faramund said. “Bohemond’s men could show up to raise the siege tomorrow.”

“Because of the love the prince bears for King Tafur’s followers?”

Faramund snorted. “Fair enough. There’s not much chance of it, is there? But do we have another choice?”

Stefan pushed to the fore of the assembly. “Maybe,” he said, “it’s time to think about surrender.”

Some of his fellow Germans snarled, “Fuck that!” and “Coward!” But only some. A moment later, after the suggestion was translated for the Frenchmen’s benefit, perhaps half expressed similar sentiments in their own language.

Stefan bore his comrades’ scorn without flinching. “I don’t like the notion, either,” he said, “but how long can ordinary men last against witchcraft?”

“The warlock works his magic at night,” Adalric said. “That’s when the scorpions grow and do his bidding. If we make a move before sunset, he may not be able to harm us.”

Stefan sneered. “‘May not.’ That’s not reassuring coming from someone who’s been wrong about everything up to now. You said we’d raid the village and get away before the patrol returned. We didn’t. You claimed we’d be safe in the fort. We aren’t. When the first big scorpion appeared, you told us it was a natural creature. Now you admit you were mistaken about that, too.”

“I do admit it,” Adalric said. “Since we came here, I’ve been wrong more than once. In my defense, I can only say that in war, nothing is certain, and that I don’t see how anyone could have predicted the Turks would use witchcraft against us. They never did before, even at the massacre outside Civetot.”

He took a breath. “But it doesn’t matter if I’m shrewd or stupid. It matters that we came on this journey vowing to do the work of God. We assumed that meant killing the Turks who prey on pilgrims bound for Jerusalem, but we’ve found a greater evil even than that. We’ve come face to face with Satan himself. We can’t surrender to him. We have to defy him with our last breath.”

Faramund smiled a crooked smile. “Yes,” he said, “if only because, if we serve ourselves up to a devil worshipper, he’s likely to do even worse than make us renounce Jesus and slice off our foreskins. Better to fall in battle than be tortured to death on Hell’s altar.”

The Tafurs muttered back and forth. Then they drew themselves up straighter, and one of the Frenchmen called, “We’re with you, Sir Knight!” Either Adalric’s words had swayed his followers or their innate grit and faith were buttressing their resolve.

Stefan grimaced. “So be it, then. But if we won’t surrender and can’t stay in the fort, what do we do?”

“The only thing left,” Adalric said. “Throw open the gate and try to break through the Turks. Some of us will die, but with God’s help, some may survive to carry warning of the warlock back to Bohemond.”

Some in this instance meaning one or two, and only if God was finally inclined to provide His ragtag soldiers with a miracle.

*   *   *

The Turkish soldiers surrounded the fortress in groups of three or four wherever cover could be found. Though it was unlikely an infidel archer shooting from the battlements could hit a vulnerable foeman at this distance, it was nonetheless prudent to deny them the opportunity.

Zeki prowled from one position to the next inspecting the arrangements. He was sure the sergeants checked periodically to correct any deficiencies and did so with a keener eye than his own. But he wanted a distraction from the creature nestled between his shoulder blades.

He suspected from the occasional twinges and constant itching that the scorpion had hooked tiny claws at the end of its legs into his skin. Perhaps his back was bleeding, but if so, the rectangular iron plates of his lamellar armor, the padding underneath, and the tunic under that would hide the blood, and anyway, no one could help him even if it were visible.

He just had to endure the discomfort and, worse, his gnawing dread of the creature’s sting as best he could. If he could only bear up, all would be well. The Franks would surrender or perish, Ibrahim would relieve him of his hideous minder, and in due course the world would hail him as a hero.

Except, he thought as entered another house that afforded a view of the stronghold, it wasn’t that simple.

Ibrahim stood revealed as a monster in service to a greater monster. How, then, could Zeki believe anything he said about his intentions regarding the war in general or his unwilling collaborator’s ultimate fate in particular?

He couldn’t, and even were it otherwise, how could he allow the sorcerer to murder innocent people to achieve his ends? It was his duty to protect them!

If he didn’t at least try, then what would it matter what his superiors or even his own family thought of him? Forever after, he’d know he truly was the incompetent weakling he’d always feared being, a cringing dupe who could be controlled by vermin riding him like a horse.

“Captain?” Murat asked.

Startled, Zeki jumped. “Yes?”

“You walked in,” the burly, black-bearded sergeant said, “and then you didn’t say anything. Is something wrong?”

“No,” Zeki replied, “I was just thinking. What’s your appraisal of our situation?”

“Well,” Murat said, “nothing has changed since last night when we loosed those volleys of arrows. Honestly, sir, I advise against any more blind shooting whatever your friend the scholar recommends. We don’t have enough—“

Without warning – or at least he prayed the scorpion didn’t sense his intent – Zeki threw himself backward and slammed his shoulders into the wall.

An instant later, he felt a stab. The scorpion was still alive. The padding under his armor had protected it.

He pounded it again, and it responded with more stings. Zeki was surely a dead man now. All that remained to him was to make sure his killer didn’t survive, either.

He bashed it, and it scuttled onto the top of his shoulder. Apparently the repeated impacts had alarmed it at last. It scraped the side of his neck as its pincers and head emerged from under his layers of armor and garment.

Screaming, he grabbed it, ripped it all the way out, and dashed it to the floor. Then he stamped on it repeatedly, reducing it to scraps and slime before realizing that Murat and the other soldiers were gaping at him in astonishment.

“That… was a big one,” the sergeant said.

“It’s killed me,” Zeki gasped. Then he realized that, although the stings were burning and throbbing, he didn’t feel consciousness slipping away.

“Let’s take a look,” Murat said. He helped Zeki remove his armor and tunic and then inspected his back. “They’re going to hurt, that’s certain. But they don’t look any worse than other scorpion stings.”

Zeki surprised himself by laughing. “The son of a dog didn’t really make the venom deadly. He thought me coward enough that the mere threat would paralyze me.”

“Who, sir? Your so-called sorcerer?”

“Yes. Ibrahim put the scorpion on me. How much do you understand about him?”

Murat hesitated. “Again, if I’m to speak honestly, I know you put great stock in him. But some of the men claim to sense evil hanging over the village since he arrived. I just thought he was a lunatic or a fraud.”

“I wish you had been right,” Zeki said. “You were right in thinking I never should have trusted him. But he truly does command magic, and not for the glory of Allah whatever he claims. If we don’t stop him, he’ll do terrible things with it.”

The sergeant frowned. “If he is what you say, can we stop him?”

“I hope so. He mostly casts his spells at night. That suggests he’s weaker during the day. Perhaps we can even catch him sleeping.”

Murat grunted. “That sounds sensible. Do we arrest or kill him?”

“Kill.”

“Yes, sir, and how many men do you judge that will take?” Murat smiled wryly. “We do still have a fort full of infidels to deal with.”

Zeki’s instinct was to lead his entire force against Ibrahim, but he did need to keep the Franks contained, and if he suggested otherwise, Murat would think he was crazy. He might believe it anyway, but if so, he was willing to humor his poor deluded captain if it meant disposing of a troublemaker whose presence undermined morale.

“If there are only a few of us,” Zeki said, “we can sneak up on him more easily. Let’s say four of the men, you, and me.”

“You, sir? You’ve just gotten hurt.”

“I can stand it. It’s my fault Ibrahim gained a foothold here and my responsibility to deal with him.” He swallowed away an excess of saliva, perhaps another manifestation of the venom in his system. “Help me put my armor back on.”

Despite the cloth underneath, the weight of the lamellae plates chafed his stings and made them hurt worse. He tried not to let it show as Murat gathered and instructed the soldiers who would accompany them.

In due course, they set forth, and people who spied them hurried indoors. Apparently Zeki and his companions had a grim cast to their expressions, or at any rate, something about their mien conveyed they’d embarked on an ugly business.

When Ibrahim’s temporary lodgings came into view, everything was quiet. Zeki blinked away a momentary blurriness, likely another symptom of his poisoning, and he and his men prowled up to the little house.

He took a breath and threw open the door. No one was in the front room, and he and his soldiers spread out to search the rest of them. Moments later, the man who’d entered the kitchen cried out, and everyone scrambled in his direction.

Ibrahim wasn’t there, but the widow who’d been taking care of him was. She lay facedown in a pool of blood with two ragged wounds in her back and her head torn halfway off. Scorpions swarmed over the corpse partaking of the feast their master had left him. A soldier turned away and vomited.

Zeki’s jaw tightened with an anger directed in equal parts at the sorcerer and himself. “I should have gotten here sooner.”

Murat frowned. “You couldn’t know this was going to happen.”

“I knew Ibrahim links his mind to the minds of his servants. I should have guessed that when I killed the scorpion, he’d understand I was about to lead men against him and seek to gather the power to withstand us.”

“While the sun’s still up?”

“Evidently he can invoke his jinn in the daylight if he has to. We need to find him before this gets any worse.”

They strode back outside. Zeki considered the village with its low, huddled buildings and narrow tangled streets. Ibrahim could be hiding anywhere. He could even have fled into the desert. Zeki tried to decide how best to direct a search, and then, to the south, someone screamed.

The soldiers ran toward the sound, and as they rounded a bend, two more corpses – a man's and a little girl’s, each ripped like the widow’s, appeared. Behind them the door of another house stood ajar revealing the gloom within. A smear of blood led up to it and over the threshold as though Ibrahim had dragged yet another victim inside.

If so, perhaps he’d intended that unfortunate for a lengthier, more formal sacrifice – a ritual more pleasing to the Old One, in which case, the villager might still be alive. “We have to get in there now,” Zeki said.

He led his squad toward the front door. They were a few paces away when a scorpion the size of a horse lunged forth to meet them.

Ibrahim had alluded to enlarging scorpions, but the words hadn’t prepared Zeki for anything like this. He froze for what would likely have been his final moment except that the arachnid with its splayed limbs and upraised sting had difficult negotiating the cramped confines of the doorway. As it thrashed its way into the open, he broke through his shock and came on guard.

He blocked a sweeping sting attack with his shield and riposted with a scimitar cut that fell short. Meanwhile, claws clacked and men cried out to either side. He realized there had been more scorpions lying in wait along the sides of the house. But he couldn’t spare so much as a glance for them or the soldiers they were assailing lest his own foe dispatch him in that instant.

A soldier rushed past him on the left and struck at the arachnid that had come through the door. Until then, Zeki hadn’t realized he had a partner in his portion of the battle. The looming terror of the scorpion itself had consumed every iota of his attention.

The soldier’s blade clashed on shell. The scorpion pivoted, bringing its pincers to bear. Zeki lunged and cut at the creature’s flank, at the spot where the stub of a head fused with the body.

The scimitar sliced deep but not deep enough. The scorpion still caught Zeki’s ally in both sets of claws. The pressure snipped him to pieces and dropped them thumping to the ground.

Screaming, Zeki struck a second time. The arachnid fell, a moment too late. Its tail whipped in spasms, wasting its venom on the dirt.

Zeki cast about for someone he could help.

The brown scorpion on his right crouched over a pair of corpses.

The yellow one on the left lashed its sting up and over, spiking it right through Murat’s helmet into the top of his head.

The sergeant whimpered. His eyes rolled up and his knees buckled, dumping him on top of the man the arachnid had slain previously.

Zeki couldn’t fight the two surviving scorpions alone. Panting, sweating profusely – fear, the venom afflicting him, or a synergy of the two – he backed up. Seemingly in no hurry, the giant vermin moved to flank him. Perhaps they meant to toy with their prey. Or, more likely, the shadow framed in the doorway was holding them back.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Ibrahim said. Even speaking normally, his voice now hinted at the inhuman clicks and buzzes his sorcery required. “I truly would have made you a hero and rid our land of the infidels.”

Terror was supposed to dry a man’s mouth, but Zeki still needed to spit away more excess saliva before replying. “At what cost?”

“In your lifetime, relatively little. In a generation or two, the nature of your faith will change, and ultimately, strengthened by the devotion of multitudes, the Old One will return from exile.”

“All because of the help you provided? We don’t need it!”

“Possibly not, but someone, the Governor, the Sultan, or one of the Emirs, will want it and quickly come to depend on it. My influence can only grow from that point forward.”

“It will never happen. Your ambush killed the soldiers lying here, but I have fifty more.”

“Even if you could make it back to rally them, it wouldn’t matter. I explained that with every offering, my patron grows more generous, and even undertaken on the fly in the daylight, these last few proved remarkably efficacious. Let me show you.”

Ibrahim stepped farther into the doorway. He was indisputably a hunchback now. He’d discarded his kufeya, and his beard and, indeed, every hair on his misshapen head had fallen out. As a result, the wet, scissoring mouthparts, grown even more prominent, were entirely visible, as were the several pairs of round black eyes. Each set of bloody pincers was bigger than his skull.

Zeki flinched back a step.

“Now you understand what an ingrate you were.” Ibrahim waved the scorpions forward. “Kill him.”

The arachnids moved in. Zeki saw no way to evade both of them. He raised his scimitar.

Behind him, a door creaked open. “Here!” a bass voice called.

Zeki bolted for the house that offered survival. He lunged through the door, and a stout old villager with a mole at the corner of his mouth slammed it shut. The door clattered and jolted on its hinges as the scorpions struck at it. The tip of a claw punched through.

“Get out!” Zeki gasped. He dashed to the back of the house and swarmed out a window into an alley that was as yet mercifully free of pursuers.

If he kept ducking into houses to throw them off, he might just make it back to the troops surrounding the fortress after all.

*   *   *

Astride his roan stallion with the gate at his back, Adalric regarded his fellow Tafurs. The other five accomplished horsemen were likewise in the saddle. But most of the company were on foot, just as they’d tramped all the way from their homes in Christendom and as many if not all would die today.

“We’re ready,” he called. “When the gate opens, run. Don’t stop for anything unless you’re one of Faramund’s party. They have a special errand.” He turned to the rider on his left.

“Spying from the top of the keep,” Faramund said, “we spotted the paddock where the Turks are keeping their horses, and the shit-eating sons of bitches are cavalry to a man. If we interfere with their mounts, they may lose the will to chase us. Failing that, we might at least delay them long enough to give us a good head start. So my fellows and I will throw some spears, set a fire, chase the horses out of the pen, or something. Whatever looks feasible when we get there.”

“If anyone gets separated, Antioch is to the northwest.” Adalric pointed. “That way. May God be with us.” He took a fresh grip on the round shield he’d found in the citadel’s armory and nodded to the men charged with opening the gate.

They started to slide the bar back, and then voices clamored from outside. Some of the cries, he thought, were Turkish soldiers shouting orders although he failed to catch the gist. Others were people were wailing for help or wordless shrieks of terror.

The men opening the gate looked up at their commander to see if he would countermand his order. Faramund turned to him as well. “Did someone come to rescue us after all?”

“I don’t know,” Adalric replied.

He could dismount, ascend to the battlements, and look around in an effort to determine what has going on outside, but he begrudged the time it would take. His men were ready now. By the sound of it, the enemy was dismayed and distracted now. He shouldn’t let the moment slip away.

“We’re still going out!” he shouted. “But watch me when we do! If I change the plan, I’ll signal! Otherwise, do what I told you before!”

The men on the gate pulled it open as fast as its bulk would allow. Adalric kicked his stallion into motion. Shouting the names of Christ, the Virgin, and various saints, his fellow Tafurs rushed out behind him.

A few arrows flew at them. One whizzed through the space between Adalric’s horse’s neck and his own torso. But despite the cover of which they’d availed themselves, he could tell most of the Turks were turning away from the fortress. At least some were abandoning their positions and advancing into the village.

“They’re running away!” a Tafur cried.

“It’s a miracle!” another shouted.

It wasn’t. The Turks had turned to contend with an immediate threat. But that didn’t mean Adalric shouldn’t seize the opportunity that afforded. In all likelihood, it was another company of Crusaders attacking the Muslims, and if the Tafurs joined in, they and their allies could grind the enemy between them.

He brandished his lance over his head. He was about to sweep it forward to order a charge when a Turkish archer scrambled from behind a barricade constructed early in the siege and ran straight at his Tafur foes. He was more terrified of something at his back than he was of them.

An instant later, the something climbed over the barrier and scuttled in pursuit. It was a coppery scorpion with a thick body the size of one of the Tafurs’ now-abandoned wagons. Its pincers snapped shut on the archer’s head, and blood squirted out around the edges. The arachnid dropped the corpse with its pulverized skull and crouched over it with mouthparts gnashing.

Adalric’s stallion balked, and he would have reined it in if it hadn’t. His men likewise froze, their martial fire chilled like his own.

Faramund spurred up even with him. “The attackers aren’t Bohemond’s men!’ the man-at-arms declared, and Adalric resisted a mad impulse to laugh at the most unnecessary statement anyone had ever uttered. “The Turks’ witchcraft has turned against them!”

“Apparently so,” Adalric said, and then a little girl raced out into the open. No doubt she was running away from one enlarged scorpion, and when she discovered her flight had brought her into proximity with another, she froze. Abandoning the body of the man it had just killed, the boxy arachnid pivoted in her direction.

Adalric had to spur his horse three times, but then it charged. As the scorpion neared the little girl, he thrust his lance into its flank.

The creature wheeled in his direction. His steed danced backward in an effort to evade it, and he yanked the lance from the puncture it had made.

The scorpion’s sting whipped in a horizontal arc. He caught the stroke on his shield, but the bludgeoning force of it all but knocked him out of the saddle. As he struggled to recover his seat, pincers reached for him.

Faramund galloped in and plunged his lance into one of the round black eyes. An instant behind him, other Tafurs stabbed and swung their weapons. Someone managed a mortal blow, and the arachnid fell down thrashing.

Faramund turned to Adalric. “What were you thinking?”

Adalric hesitated because he wasn’t sure himself. During their time trapped in the fort, he’d come to hate the scorpions, but there was more to his fury than that. “She was a child.”

“We’ve seen scores of dead children since we set out and are apt to see plenty more. But anyway, you saved her. Now let’s get out of here and leave the scorpions and the Turks to one another.”

Feeling like a fool, Adalric said, “I don’t think we should.”

“What are you talking about? The Turks are the enemy! Muslims who resorted to witchcraft to try to kill us! Whatever befalls them now, they brought on themselves!”

“The soldiers, perhaps, but the scorpions are likely to kill the villagers, too.”

“Again, filthy Muslims! Our task is to fight for Christ!”

“If you’re fighting for our Lord, don’t you see the Devil in the scorpions? They’re more his servants more than any ordinary Turk could ever be!”

“Whatever they are, if you try to lead the men against them, they won’t follow. Not when they have the chance to escape with their lives.”

“If so, I won’t blame them.” Adalric turned toward the other Tafurs, many of whom had indeed hung back, staying clear of the most recent battle. “Brothers! Demons are killing women and children! I believe God intends us to put a stop to it! If you agree, help me! If you don’t, Faramund will lead you back into the desert!”

With that, Adalric trotted his horse toward the nearest street. After a moment, he glanced back. He was afraid to, fearful he’d see that no one at all had chosen to join him in his folly. But he needed to know what he had to work with.

The sight behind him made him weak with relief. Many Tafurs were fleeing, but a score were courageous or crazy enough to accompany him. Faramund cantered up to ride beside him.

“I thought,” Adalric said, “you were going to march the other half of the company to Antioch.”

“You pointed them in the right direction,” Faramund replied, “and I can’t have people saying you spat in Satan’s eye while I turned tail. Look there!”

As they negotiated a dogleg in the street, the scene ahead came into clearer view. Several Turks stood in a line shooting at another scorpion with a body the size of a cart, this one slate gray with a tail that switched from side to side. The front of the creature bristled with shafts that had seemingly done only superficial harm. A scissoring mouthpart snagged the fletched end of one such arrow and snapped it in two.

Adalric groped for the proper Turkish words. “Make way!”

Startled, the archers looked around. One drew, but the man next to him grabbed him, prevented him from loosing, and shoved him to the side. The rest of the Turks moved of their own volition, clearing a path up the center of the street.

Adalric spurred his steed into a gallop. Faramund and the other horsemen pounded after him. Presumably the Tafurs on foot were bringing up the rear.

The creature balked when it realized opponents were running at it. Perhaps, given the choice, it would even have fled, but if so, the same power that had grown it to monstrous size compelled it to stand fast. Pincers reached and, guiding his stallion with his knees, Adalric urged it to the right. The claws clashed shut off target.

His lance plunged into the spot where the arachnid’s stubby head emerged from its body, deep enough that it wouldn’t readily come out again. Hoping to recover it later, he let go and rode on down the creature’s flank.

Behind him, shrieks rang out, a man and horse screaming together. Adalric turned his stallion. The scorpion had grabbed a Tafur and his steed, thrown them to the ground, and was indiscriminately pinching both. The effect reminded Adalric of playing with clay as a child and pressing two lumps into one.

He drew his sword, rode forward, and cut at the arachnid’s rearmost leg. When he crippled that one, he moved on to the next.

The scorpion scuttled backward, maneuvering into a position from which its sting could threaten him. He caught the banging impact on his shield.

Then the giant faltered, shuddered, and flopped over on its side. Someone had slain it, or near enough. Several Tafurs kept hacking, hammering, and stabbing anyway.

Adalric pulled his lance out of the carcass and walked his horse back to the Turkish archers. “That – charging the scorpion – was brave,” said the man who’d kept his comrade from shooting. “I don’t know if I could have done it.”

Adalric grunted. “Thanks to you people, we’ve had some practice killing the things.”

The bowman spat. “Don’t blame us! Given a choice, we would never have tolerated a sorcerer. It was our captain!”

“Where is he now?”

The Turk waved his hand. “If he isn’t dead, somewhere in that direction. He was trying to lead the entire company against Ibrahim. He said that if we could kill him, the giant scorpions would lose their strength. But everything was confusion, the creatures attacking from every side, and we couldn’t stay together.”

“Stick with us.” Adalric turned to the Tafurs, a couple of whom were still doggedly assailing what was now manifestly a carcass. “Enough of that! Apparently, if we kill the warlock, this all stops! He was last seen in the southern part of the village, so that’s where we’re going! Form up!”

They pressed on. Bodies lay scattered about with scorpions, both the common sorts and big ones, feasting on them. Still, a number of the houses to either side were closed up tight, and Adalric hoped some of the villagers were still alive inside.

But if so, they surely couldn’t hide for long. Plainly, this Ibrahim’s sorcery had grown vastly more powerful, for the plenitude of oversized scorpions was staggering. It put Adalric in mind a dam bursting. If someone didn’t contain the flood of abominations, who knew how far it would spread?

Periodically, one or more of the arachnids attacked the Tafurs and their newfound allies. The Turks expended the last few arrows in their quivers on threats that appeared at a distance. Scrambling to envelop, the Crusaders fought the creatures that got in close. Conceivably grateful that their current adversaries were merely cat and dog-sized – not big as oxen or wagons – they did so ferociously.

Still, they faltered when they caught sight of the marketplace with the well in the center. Possessed of a black body and a sand-colored tail and limbs, the biggest scorpion yet had knocked down most of the stalls as it rampaged back and forth tearing people apart.

Now, though, it was restricting itself to a smaller area, the better to protect the even more hideous creature sheltering behind it from the Turkish soldiers struggling to get at him. Clad like a desert nomad in a striped sleeveless coat with a robe beneath, their target was a hunchback with enormous pincers in place of hands, a shifting, jutting puzzle of a mouth, and several pairs of round black eyes. Ibrahim, surely, so given over to magic that he’d come to resemble the vile servants he commanded.

Adalric hoped that if he and his men rushed onto the battlefield, they could swing around the scorpion before it had a chance to react. He spurred his horse onward, and the surviving members of his command streamed after him.

The giant creature shifted toward him, and he glimpsed his reflection in its eyes. It started forward, and some of the Turks who had engaged it scrambled to hold it back. Long as a sword, the scorpion’s sting flicked and stabbed one in the chest. As the Muslim staggered, venom swelled his body so the edges of his armor cut into his flesh. His bulging lips split lengthwise.

Adalric kept circling. Intent as he was on reaching Ibrahim, it took him several moments to distinguish a frantic voice from the general cacophony; realize it was calling to him, and then decipher the Turk’s imperfect French. The man was shouting, “Above you! Above you!”

Adalric looked up. A twin to the prodigious scorpion before him perched on a rooftop to his left. Just as he grasped what he was seeing, the creature hopped down among the Tafurs.

The jump smashed men beneath the scorpion’s double-clawed feet. Pincers snapped shut around the head of Adalric’s horse. The arachnid yanked the dead or dying stallion toward its mouth. Adalric kicked his feet out of the stirrups and threw himself clear.

He landed hard on his hands and knees. His hauberk rattled. He gasped in a breath and, planting the butt of his lance as if it were a staff, clambered to his feet. Meanwhile, the scorpion’s pincers snipped Pierre’s fighting arm off at the elbow. The Frenchman stared at the stump and spurting blood. He was still staring when the claws came back, clamped on his torso, and pulverized it.

Adalric charged. Even without the impetus of a running horse behind it, the lance punched deep into the scorpion’s body. Perhaps he’d found a thin spot in the shell. The arachnid wheeled in his direction, and Adalric retreated and drew his sword.

He never got a chance to use it. Pincers snapping, sting whipping, the scorpion attacked so relentlessly it was all he could to block with his shield and dodge. But while it was fixated on him, Faramund and others scored on it, and after several moments, the vermin fell convulsing.

Adalric pivoted and then cried out in elation. The Turks had killed the other scorpion, albeit at a heavy cost as the shredded bodies strewn before it attested.

Unprotected at last, Ibrahim still stood at the far end of the marketplace. Someone found a final arrow to loose, and it streaked at the sorcerer’s chest.

Ibrahim shifted one of his pairs of claws. The arrow struck the armored extremity and glanced away.

Then we’ll kill you with swords, Adalric thought, and as if that had prompted them, the Turks surged forward. Faramund and another mounted Tafur pounded past their leader. Adalric ran after them even though it was unlikely he’d get close enough to strike a blow before the sorcerer fell to the foes who would reach him first.

Ibrahim cried out in an inhuman rasp, and then his body expanded. For an instant, Adalric imagined he was witnessing some manner of witchy suicide and the attendant death throes, for his mind balked at the notion that any living thing could enlarge so violently without tearing itself apart.

But Ibrahim didn’t. Not when the lashing, lengthening tail and extra legs sprouting from his sides tore his garments to tatters; nor when, in a matter of moments, his body loomed as large as any of the houses surrounding the marketplace.

Entirely a scorpion now, with only the shape of the head hinting at the humanity he’d cast away, Ibrahim scuttled forward to kill the men who’d been rushing in to kill him. One pair of pincers snapped shut on two soldiers at once.

Faramund galloped past the claws, slashed at one of the colossal scorpion’s legs, ducked, and charged on underneath the body. Adalric judged it was a maneuver intended to flummox Ibrahim and keep him from striking back. But the transformed warlock scurried, spun around, and so put the man-at-arms within reach of his pincers. Ibrahim snatched rider and steed together, hoisted them into the air, and silenced their screams with a final squeeze.

The Turks quailed and, shouting, a young man who was apparently their commander ran forward to rally them. Short, skinny, and mild-looking, he was nothing like the mighty adversary Adalric had been imagining since the siege began. But something in his exhortations or simple willingness to stand in the forefront steadied his men.

Casting about, Adalric realized his own troops were in danger of breaking. He brandished his sword over his head. “We can kill it,” he bellowed, “just like we killed the others! Hit it when it’s looking elsewhere and defend when it turns in your direction!”

The Tafurs held and, insofar as their untrained desperation permitted, fought as Adalric had bade them, chopping at the scorpion’s legs as if they were felling trees. Their tactics might be prolonging the battle but weren’t accomplishing much more. Unfazed by any trivial hurts he might be suffering, Ibrahim reached again and again, claws cutting and pulping anyone he caught.

Perhaps the solution was to strike at a more vulnerable spot in the giant’s anatomy, but people were already swinging and jabbing at every portion within reach. Adalric ran to one of the houses bordering the marketplace, climbed onto the roof, and then discerned in the moments that had taken him, Ibrahim had scuttled farther away.

Adalric waved his sword and shouted the Turkish word for “captain.” The enemy commander looked up. “Push him back this way!”

The Turkish officer hesitated, but then he shouted, “Charge!” Scimitar extended, he ran at the titanic scorpion, and other men pounded after him.

Claws spread to punish their recklessness, but at the same time, reflexively perhaps, Ibrahim gave ground. His retreat carried him back toward Adalric’s perch, and the knight leaped.

He landed on the scorpion’s rounded back and immediately started to slip off. He twisted, threw himself down, and sat astride, his legs splayed by the creature’s bulk.

He then peered about to determine whether Ibrahim had noticed him. It appeared not. The monster arachnid was too busy killing the men on the ground.

Adalric had intended to make his way up the creature’s body to the head, but he now feared that if he tried, the violence of Ibrahim’s movements would buck him off. Praying that scorpions had vital, cleavable spines, he cut repeatedly.

Like his comrades attacking Ibrahim’s lower parts, he only inflicted shallow wounds. The arachnid’s natural armor was too hard and thick. Yet suddenly instinct screamed that he’d caused sufficient discomfort to draw his foe’s attention.

A glance assured him that Ibrahim’s pincers were incapable of reaching around to pluck a man from his back. He then looked behind him. The tail with its bulbous segments was swinging up, and he felt a surge of hope. Because scorpions sometimes stung themselves to death. Perhaps he could make that happen now!

Heart pounding, he waited until the sting plummeted at him. He dived forward, and shell crunched.

He’d expected his frantic evasion to toss him off Ibrahim’s back, but through luck more than agility, he stayed put. No doubt the scorpion would shake him off momentarily, when its death spasms began.

But they didn’t. His whole life, people had told Adalric scorpions could perish of their own venom, but evidently it wasn’t true. The sting whirled up for another stroke and, feeling defeated, cheated, he half wanted to let it pierce him and be done.

Then he noticed the ragged breach in the shell and the puncture beneath. Effectively poisoned or not, the wound was more severe than the petty cracking and chipping his own attacks had produced.

He wrenched himself around, scrambled forward, and managed to stay atop the scorpion yet again. He thrust his sword into Ibrahim’s wound and yanked it out. He wondered how many more times he could do so before the sting found him.

He stabbed three times in all. Then the scorpion’s back heaved and flung him into space. He slammed down with all his weight on one twisted foot. His ankle snapped, and he pitched forward onto the ground.

He rolled onto his back. To his amazement, Ibrahim was toppling. It seemed such a glory that he almost didn’t care if the creature crashed down on him. As appeared likely, for there was no time for a lame man to struggle to rise and hobble out of the way.

But he didn’t have to. The scorpion’s body thudded down behind him, and he lay safe amid the feebly kicking legs.

*   *   *

Zeki surveyed the surviving soldiers. There were more Turks left than Franks, and their superiority with regard to gear and deportment was apparent. Perhaps he could take the infidels prisoner or kill them. Arguably, it was his duty. But he doubted anyone had the stomach for such a confrontation, least of all himself.

The stings on his back throbbing, he walked over to the Franks’ leader. Though younger than expected, the knight was broad-shouldered, brawny, and capable-looking, the sort of officer who had often inspired Zeki’s envy. But he didn’t feel that way now. Perhaps he was too tired or numbed by the terrors he’d endured.

A man who knew about setting bones had wrapped the Christian’s ankle, and someone else had brought him a stool to sit on. Judging from his glower, those kindnesses hadn’t filled the knight with gratitude. “One of your archers told me,” he said in broken Turkish, “that you unleashed the sorcerer and brought all this down on our heads.”

Zeki resisted the urge to look away from the other commander’s flinty gaze. “I believed Ibrahim’s magic was a weapon like any other. When I understood otherwise, I tried to make amends.”

The Christian’s expression softened. Now he simply looked as exhausted as Zeki felt. “I suppose you did at that. What happens now?”

“Obviously, I can’t let you to strip the village of food. But we can have a truce. You and your men can go away.”

“Under the circumstances, that will do.” The infidel snorted. “It will be strange to go back to the war as if this nightmare never happened.”

“Well, we needn’t forget quite yet. Sup with us tonight and depart tomorrow.”

The Valley of Death

David Amendola

"What killed these Englishmen?"

Lieutenant Hartmann put his hands on his hips and asked the question as he squinted in the glare of the sun and looked at the four skeletons lying next to the heavily-laden truck.

"What do you mean?" asked Lieutenant Dietrich, a short, stern-looking man.

Hartmann pointed. "I don't see any bullets or shell fragments among their bones. No shell holes either. And their vehicle doesn't have any damage."

He nodded at the truck, a one-and-a-half ton Canadian Chevrolet painted in a camouflage pattern of pale blue and tan. It was rusted and covered with dust. Customized for the desert, it had been stripped of its windshield, doors, and roof and equipped with wide tires. It was armed with two Vickers machine guns, one mounted in the back and the other up front in the open cab.

Hartmann glanced around inside. "Plenty of food and water." He inspected the truck itself. "Fuel tank is half-full."

Dietrich shooed away flies. "I don't really care what they died of. We need to keep moving if we want to reach the escarpment by nightfall."

The glint of metal caught Hartmann's eye. Stooping, he picked up brass casings scattered in the dust. He inspected the dead men's weapons – Lee-Enfield rifles, Webley revolvers, a Thompson submachine gun. "They fired their guns, but it doesn't look like they got many shots off. They were caught by surprise."

Dietrich glanced at his watch.

Hartmann ignored his colleague's impatience, scratching the stubble on his chin. "These weren't regular soldiers. Look how they're dressed: Arab headcloths, shorts, sandals. And their equipment – sun compass, theodolite, air almanac. They're from the Long Range Desert Group. I've heard they sometimes sneak in here."

"Who are they?"

"An elite reconnaissance unit. But they usually operate in patrols of several vehicles, not just one. Wonder what they were doing here." Hartmann searched the truck and found codes, notebooks, and other documents. He was fluent in English so he skimmed through them.

"And?" asked Dietrich.

"Same as us apparently. A survey team." He blew dust off a map case, opened it, and studied the contents. "Here's a map they sketched. Looks like this crossing really does go all the way through the depression."

"And the English know about it."

Hartmann thought for a moment. "Their headquarters might not know. Their radio is broken. These fellows have been dead a long time and each is still wearing both identity disks. When an Englishman gets killed his comrades take the red one. Their own people likely don't know what happened to them."

Dietrich grunted skeptically.

Hartmann closed the map case. "Anyway, let's take what we can use and move on. This map shows a way up the escarpment and it doesn't appear to be mined or guarded."

"Then our mission is complete. We need to notify headquarters."

"We have to check it first. Once we're certain our panzers can use it we'll radio it in."

"Headquarters needs updates so they can plan ahead."

"We can't risk direction-finders pinpointing our location. We have to maintain radio silence as long as possible."

Dietrich's thin lips tightened in a suppressed frown, but he said nothing.

They were the same rank, but Hartmann was in command. Dietrich had been attached solely as an advisor because of his expertise as a combat engineer, an arrangement the ambitious young officer was less than happy about. A Party member, Hartmann sourly recalled, with some relative high-up in the Propaganda Ministry.

Hartmann was dressed for the brutal climate in a tropical uniform – shirt with rolled-up sleeves, trousers, and field cap, the original olive color of the fabric having long-since faded to khaki. His boots were worn brown leather. He wore no decorations or insignia on his shirt other than shoulder straps indicating rank and branch of service. Goggles, a white scarf, and binoculars hung from his neck. A canvas web belt supported a Walther P38 automatic in a flap holster and a canteen was suspended from a shoulder strap. Long exposure to the sun had tanned his fair skin brown and bleached his blond hair almost white.

Despite the heat Dietrich insisted on wearing a tunic over his shirt. Hartmann suspected it was so he could show off the Iron Cross pinned to his left breast pocket. Hartmann had one of these medals too, but did not feel the need to advertise it.

At his direction the dead and the truck were stripped of anything useful. Scavenging was standard procedure since supplies and equipment was chronically short.

"Herr Lieutenant, I think somebody was here before us," said a stocky private named Steiner. He pointed out various items untied from their lashings and scattered on the ground. Some had been opened and then cast aside haphazardly.

Hartmann nodded. "Whoever it was doesn't appear to have taken much though."

"Arabs?"

"Probably. They have no use for most of this stuff."

"Maybe they killed the Tommies."

"I doubt it. I've never heard of the Arabs attacking the English or us. They likely came by later, found these men dead, and took what they wanted."

Unfortunately most of the dead men's rations were inedible now, a disappointment since the LRDG received better food than the average British soldier. Dreams of oatmeal, bacon, and biscuits with margarine and jam, which would taste like the nectar of the gods after weeks of living off stale black bread and tinned beef, were cruelly dispelled.

Steiner let out a triumphant cry and hoisted up a real treasure – a stoneware jug of rum, standard issue to British special units to help ward off cold desert nights. He uncorked it, took a tentative swig, and happily proclaimed it potable.

Hartmann laughed and then discovered another bit of prized war booty: cigarettes. They were the much-maligned ‘V’ brand made in India, but men hungry for nicotine could not be picky. He kept a pack for himself and passed the rest around to the others so they could enjoy the brief luxury of a smoke while they unloaded the truck.

Afterwards he strode back to his own vehicle, a small 250/3 communications halftrack. He gingerly climbed inside through the rear door, careful not to touch the outside metal. It was so hot from the blistering sun one could literally fry an egg on it. The temperature was over forty degrees Centigrade. A canvas tarpaulin stretched over the frame antenna of the open-topped vehicle attempted to provide some semblance of shade.

Hartmann squeezed between a bench and the bulky radio equipment. Ensconced up front in the driver's seat was Steiner, peering through the open visor. To his right sat the radio operator, an older, spectacled corporal named Lippert. Hartmann stood in the back so he could keep watch as they drove.

Dietrich returned to a Volkswagen Type 82 automobile, a tropical version with large sand tires, driven by a private named Fuchs.

Everyone put on goggles and wrapped scarves over their mouths and noses to screen out dust. Then the patrol drove off, the Volkswagen rattling in the lead, the 250/3 rumbling behind with its tracks clattering and squeaking and blue exhaust spouting from its sides.

Both vehicles were painted yellow-brown, but patches of the original dark gray paint showed around markings. Each bore black-and-white German crosses and white tactical symbols indicating they belonged to the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion of the 21st Panzer Division. They were also emblazoned with the white palm tree and swastika of the Afrika Korps, the German contingent of Panzer Army Africa. Most of the army's units were Italian, but operational command was held by a German – Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

When Benito Mussolini invaded British-controlled Egypt in 1940, seeking to expand his overseas empire and link up his African colonies, the outnumbered British routed his bumbling army and chased it back into Libya. In response Adolf Hitler sent three divisions to bolster his faltering ally.

Now it was early summer 1942. Rommel's renewed offensive in late May had forced the British Eighth Army to retreat into Egypt and it was making a stand at the little railway station of El Alamein. If Rommel broke through, the Suez Canal would be within his grasp. The Egyptians chafed under British occupation and might welcome him. And beyond the Suez lay an even greater prize – the rich oil fields of the Middle East.

But El Alamein was an excellent defensive position. To the north lay the Mediterranean Sea. To the south the Sahara Desert abruptly dropped away into the Qattara Depression, a vast sinkhole of salt pans, salt mashes, and soft sand the size of Lake Ontario. It was considered impassable to tanks.

The distance between the coast and the depression narrowed to less than seventy kilometers here, a bottleneck allowing the British to shorten their lines and anchor their flanks. They were also just a hundred kilometers  from their supply base at Alexandria – and supplies and reinforcements were pouring in from all over the British Empire, and from America.

The supply lines of Panzer Army Africa stretched hundreds of kilometers all the way back to ports in Libya. Enemy aircraft and submarines took a terrible toll of supply convoys from Italy and what did make it through to Africa was harried by fighter-bombers all along the coast road to the front. Rommel's units were overextended, exhausted, and understrength.

Nevertheless, Rommel felt he could not halt. He had to maintain momentum and strike before the British could regroup. But the Qattara Depression prevented the Desert Fox from sweeping around the Eighth Army's southern flank, the strategy he had previously employed with such dazzling success.

Then an intriguing intelligence report arrived at his advanced headquarters. It summarized a legend told around campfires by Bedouins, the nomadic Arabs who had lived in this harsh land for millennia and knew it infinitely better than the European infidels who now fought over it with their big, noisy machines. Even these tough people shunned the Qattara Depression, which they referred to as the Valley of Death.

But supposedly the Bedouins knew about a secret crossing, a long-forgotten caravan route that sounded like it might be passable for tanks. When plotted on a map it came out behind the British lines. If true, a surprise pincer movement might be possible after all.

Rommel's chief of staff was skeptical, but the prospect was so tantalizing it had to be checked out. Aerial reconnaissance photographed a dim trail that did look promising, but a ground survey was required to determine its condition. Accordingly, a patrol was dispatched to investigate.

Hartmann and his men drove along a rough, narrow trail of hard rock salt meandering like a natural causeway through the empty expanse of brown and white salt marsh. The flat, cracked surface of the marshes, sparsely dotted with green clumps of hardy grass and shrubs, was deceptively solid looking. The crust concealed treacherous quagmires that could swallow a vehicle whole.

A lonesome wind whispered, but did nothing to relieve the heat. It only blew dust that worked its way into everything – engines, food, eyes, lungs.

The sun beat down like a hammer. So dry was it, perspiration evaporated immediately, but it felt like Hartmann’s eyeballs were going to boil away.

And there were the flies, the damnable flies, detestable and incessant. They were not just irritating pests, they spread disease too, as did the tropical climate and unsanitary living conditions. Dysentery, jaundice, and diphtheria crippled as many German troops as combat.

Hartmann had been in North Africa for a year and still could not get over how endlessly barren the desert was. Kilometer after kilometer of just nothing. A hard, unforgiving land seemingly made for war. No delicate landscapes soldiers could ravage and despoil; few civilians to get in the way of the bloody business of fighting. The perfect battlefield.

He hated it, while admitting there were worse places to be. He had heard the horrible rumors whispered about the war in Russia from his brother serving there. Prisoners starved or shot, Jews massacred. Unbelievable madness. At least in North Africa both sides respected the rules of war.

As far as his current mission was concerned, it seemed to be a success. Thus far the crossing had proved solid enough to support the heaviest German tanks.

The patrol abruptly slowed. Something was blocking the trail up ahead. As they drew closer Hartmann spotted two bodies rotting in the sun.

One was a Bedouin dressed in a flowing keffiyeh and long, dark thobe, a rifle and a dagger lying next to him. A bandolier of ammunition was buckled across his chest. Beside him sprawled the carcass of his camel. Both swarmed with black, buzzing clouds of flies; the soldiers grimaced and held their noses as the foul stench of decay wafted over.

Dietrich ordered Fuchs to get out and move them. Fuchs, gagging, put on gloves and dragged the Bedouin off to the side, but the camel weighed far too much for one man to move. A tow cable was hooked to the carcass and the halftrack hauled it far enough over so they could get the vehicles around it.

Hartmann stepped out for a closer look, braving the flies and the horrible smell. The Bedouin's rifle was a Lee-Enfield and it was empty, spent brass nearby. His dagger's curved blade was encrusted with what appeared to be dried yellow blood. Tucked into his belt was a Sykes-Fairbairn fighting knife, a weapon issued to British commando units.

Both bodies were deeply pierced by multiple puncture wounds.

"I think this is who looted the dead Englishmen before us," said Hartmann.

"Those don't look like bullet or shrapnel wounds," said Fuchs.

"No, they don't. More like deep stab wounds, like from a spear."

"Maybe he was murdered by another Arab."

Hartmann shook his head. "An Arab would steal the camel, not kill it. He'd also steal the weapons. Strange. I can't explain it." He sighed. "All right, let's move on."

Soon they passed ponds of brackish, stagnant saltwater fringed with reeds, still as a grave. To Hartmann it stank like death.

They halted at midday to refuel with jerrycans of gasoline and clean grit out of the engine air filters. It also gave them a chance to stretch legs and backs stiff and sore from jolting over the rough track.

They ate a quick meal too, putting nets over their faces to try and keep out the flies while they gobbled down their food. They chewed the rancid-tasting Italian beef without enthusiasm. The tins were stamped AM for Administrazione Militare (‘Military Administration’), but Italian soldiers sourly suggested it stood for Asinus Mussolini (‘Mussolini's Ass’) or Arabo Morte (‘Dead Arab’). German soldiers simply called it Alter Mann (‘Old Man’). They washed it down with warm water from their canteens, refilled from other jerrycans marked with a white cross.

Per Hartmann's strict orders, the men were careful to pick up their trash and did not leave empty tins or cigarette butts on the ground. Litter could give the enemy clues as to who had been here.

Noon was also one of the patrol's scheduled radio contact times so Lippert slipped on headphones and tuned into his assigned frequency to listen for any messages from Rommel's headquarters. Nothing. He also listened for enemy radio traffic, but the airwaves were quiet. Lippert switched off the radio and climbed out to see if the others needed help.

Steiner was securing empty jerrycans in a rack on the rear of the halftrack. He paused to gulp from his canteen. Wiping his lips on his sleeve, he waved a broad hand at the marsh vegetation. "Can't believe anything can grow in this godforsaken place."

Lippert squatted to take a closer look at some of the foliage next to the trail. He scowled as he examined it.

Hartmann was double-checking directions on the British map with his compass and noticed Lippert's interest. "Something wrong, Lippert?"

Lippert stood. "Nothing, Herr Lieutenant. Just that the plants aren't normal."

"In what way?"

"Many are showing fasciation."

"What's that?"

"A plant deformity caused by mutation."

Hartmann looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Were you a botanist in civilian life?"

"A biology teacher, Herr Lieutenant."

Hartman chuckled. "I see. So we have a professor in our ranks."

Lippert's gaze strayed across the pond. "Something's moving in the water. Looks like a big white snake or something. More than one."

Even as he spoke one of the snakes reared up above the surface of the water. It did not resemble a reptile at all, but looked more like a worm or maggot. Its segmented body trembled and suddenly split wide open. An insect head thrust out.

"What the hell is that?" asked Dietrich, recoiling at the sight.

They watched in horrified fascination as a huge insect dragged itself free of the pupa cuticle and slowly crawled onto the muddy bank on six thin, spindly legs.

"Look at the size of it!" said Steiner.

The body was half a meter long, as big as a large bird, with a brown exoskeleton covered in short, stiff hairs. Wide, opaque, veined wings attached to the thorax spanned nearly two meters, and its legs were even longer. A comparatively small head sprouted antennae, but its dominant feature was a pair of large, black compound eyes.

Hartmann unfastened the flap of his holster. "Keep your weapons handy."

"Metamorphosis," said Lippert. He shook his head in amazement. "This is impossible with our atmosphere."

"What do you mean?" asked Hartmann.

"Insects don't breathe like we do and their method of respiration limits their size. Giant insects existed three hundred million years ago – dragonflies the size of birds, for example, and centipedes over two meters long – but that's because oxygen levels were much higher than they are now. An insect this big simply could not survive today."

Steiner took a couple MP40 submachine guns off brackets inside the halftrack and loaded them. Keeping one for himself, he handed the other to Lippert.

Lippert rubbed the back of his neck. "It must have an adaptation that caused a different way of breathing to develop. Then if no natural predators are around gigantism might be possible."

"How could that happen?"

"Most mutations occur naturally and randomly, but they can also be caused by the environment. In this case it might be some sort of mineral contamination leaching into the water. Or sunlight since radiation can cause mutations too."

"What kind of bug is it?" asked Steiner, MP40 gripped tightly.

"A mosquito," said Lippert. He pointed at the proboscis, a long, wicked tube projecting from the insect's head like a stinger. "Look at those mandibles. That would cause a terrible bite."

Dietrich sighed and crossed his arms. "Gentlemen, we're not here for a nature lecture."

"Actually, Herr Lieutenant, I think this explains something," said Lippert.

"Enlighten us," said Hartmann.

"These could be what killed the Tommies and the Arab. Remember the puncture wounds on the Arab and his camel? A female mosquito can drink four times her weight in blood from her host so a monster like this could inflict significant blood loss. They can also transmit fatal diseases, but in this case the blood loss alone might be enough to kill. They only live for about a month though, so the ones that got the Tommies are likely long dead."

More pupae rose from the pond and cracked open like hideous eggs, mosquitos emerging.

"Can't they fly?" asked Steiner.

"They have to wait until their exoskeletons harden and their wings dry out," said Lippert.

"Then we'd better kill them now," said Hartmann.

"The noise will alert anyone in the area," said Dietrich.

"We'll have to take that chance. Steiner!"

"Yes, Herr Lieutenant?"

"Use the machine gun."

Steiner returned his MP40 to its bracket, then went and turned the halftrack ninety degrees so it faced the pond. He took his place at the MG34 machine gun swivel-mounted behind an armored shield, and peered down the sights with a steady eye. Gunfire shattered the stillness and echoed across the desert as he squeezed off single shots and short bursts with ruthless precision, 7.92 millimeter bullets slashing insects apart and spraying greenish-yellow blood. Empty steel cartridges tinkled on the floor and rolled around his feet.

Once all the adult mosquitos were destroyed he paused to load another ammunition belt and turned his attention to the pupae floating in the water, raking them with slugs. Then he chopped up larvae and clusters of translucent eggs. The acrid reek of cordite overpowered the stink of the marsh as the others watched the sickening slaughter. Finally Steiner ceased fire, swinging open the smoking machine gun to swap out the overheated barrel.

Hartmann surveyed the floating carnage. "You got them all. Let's move on."

The patrol rolled on. Hartmann continued scanning the terrain and at length spotted something in the shimmering distance. At first he dismissed it as a mirage, a trick of the heat waves, then realized he was not seeing things. It lay in another pond about two hundred meters from the trail, and he ordered a halt to investigate.

It was the wreck of an aircraft, a sprawling hulk of twisted metal, splintered wood, and torn fabric half-submerged in the water. The design was unusual – a biplane with two engines mounted in a push-pull configuration above the fuselage between the wings. The tail, which had four stabilizers, was painted in faded stripes of red, white, and green.

The fuselage had smashed open like an egg and the lower wing was broken off on one side. Rusty, odd-looking bombs still hung from external racks. Through his binoculars Hartmann discerned the remains of the two pilots, still slumped in their seats in the open cockpit, apparently killed on impact. An oily, yellowish liquid stained the water around the crash site.

He lowered his binoculars and consulted the British map. The LRDG had put the wreck down as a landmark without annotating any details about it.

Dietrich got out of his car and came over to the halftrack. "Why did we stop?"

Hartmann nodded at the aircraft.

Dietrich shrugged. "An old plane. Who cares?"

"You never know what might be of intelligence value." Hartmann raised his binoculars and resumed studying the wreck. "Looks like a Caproni Ca73, a civilian airliner the Italians converted into a light bomber and transport. They were taken out of service before the war."

"It's carrying bombs so it was on a combat mission."

"Could have been during the pacification campaign in Libya ten years ago. Egyptians were smuggling supplies to the rebels and that's why the Italians built that huge barbed wire fence along the frontier. But I never heard of them crossing the border to attack smugglers, certainly not this far inside Egypt."

"What's that yellow liquid in the water?"

"It's leaking from those old bombs." Hartmann lowered his binoculars and sniffed the air suspiciously. He caught a faint whiff of what smelled like garlic. "Mustard gas! The Italians bombed villages with it. Keep your masks handy!"

The soldiers rummaged for their gas mask carriers and gas cape pouches.

"If those bombs started leaking in-flight the pilots could have been exposed," said Dietrich. "That might explain how they got here. They could have been on a bombing mission in Libya, were blinded and disoriented by the gas, and then flew off course over the border."

The reeds were pale and sickly, stunted and twisted into grotesque shapes. "The plants here are more deformed than anywhere else," said Lippert. "This must be the source of the contamination. When sulfur mustard mixes with water it gradually dissolves into other chemicals, and the marsh water is loaded with minerals to begin with so God only knows what kind of toxic soup is in these ponds now."

"How could anything survive in that muck?" asked Steiner.

"No idea, but instead of killing the mosquitos it mutated them."

"Let's get away from here," said Hartmann. "It's not safe."

They drove off. In the distance towered the brooding, limestone cliffs of the Qattara Depression's northern escarpment – the end of the crossing. They were behind British lines, in enemy territory. Once the route up the escarpment was reconnoitered Hartmann would break radio silence to alert Rommel's headquarters.

The wind picked up. A dun wall of dust rose in the blue sky ahead. Soon it was upon them and they were engulfed by a howling sandstorm. Visibility dropped to nil in the yellowish-orange murk. The patrol slowed, but Fuchs drove off the trail into a salt pan. When he tried backing out, the rear wheels just spun helplessly, churning in the deep, sticky mud. Then the engine stalled.

The halftrack ground to a halt. Hartmann clambered out and rapped out brisk orders, having to raise his voice to be heard above the wind. The Volkswagen carried fascines and was light enough to be manhandled, but it was quicker and easier to just hook the tow cable to it. Hoffman motioned; Steiner slowly backed the halftrack up and pulled the car out.

"Drive more carefully, you idiot!" said Dietrich, eyes flashing with anger.

"Yes, Herr Lieutenant," said Fuchs.

"Gentlemen, we'd better stop until this blows over," said Hartmann.

The patrol hunkered down inside their vehicles to wait. The oppressive sun was blotted out, but it felt just as hot. They ate again and afterwards dangled their mess kits outside to let the sand blast them clean. Hartmann fretted with impatience as he tied down a corner of the flapping tarpaulin that had come loose. Sandstorms could last for days.

But this one ended after just a few hours. The wind died down and the sky cleared to an early evening.

When they tried switching on their engines the Volkswagen would not start.

"Now what's wrong?" asked Dietrich, sighing in exasperation.

"I don't know, Herr Lieutenant."

Fuchs got out and raised the rear hood to check the four-cylinder, air-cooled motor. He came back and rummaged for tools in the storage box behind the rear seat. "Looks like a clogged carburetor."

"Well, hurry up and fix it."

The yellow coal of the sun that glared down on them like the eye of an angry god, had finally, mercifully, begun to set, staining the cloudless sky a lurid orange. Soon the temperature would drop and the scorching desert would become bone-chilling cold.

Fuchs wiped grease off his hands with a rag, closed the hood, and got back inside the Volkswagen. This time the engine sputtered into life. "Ready to go, Herr Lieutenant."

There was faint droning sound in the air. Steiner pointed up. "Planes!" Black specks flew low towards them from the northeast.

"If they're Tommies we're sitting ducks," said Fuchs.

There was absolutely no natural cover, no time to try and hide their vehicles with camouflage netting, and if they drove away the dust they stirred up would only make them easier to spot. They were totally exposed.

Hartmann looked through his binoculars. A chill crept up his spine. "Those aren't planes. It's more of those giant mosquitos."

"Can't be!" said Steiner. "I killed them all!"

"The whole water table is probably contaminated," said Lippert. "They're probably breeding in other ponds too."

The patrol scrambled for weapons as the swarm dove down on them like grotesque Stukas, their loud drone filling the air.

Steiner jumped into the halftrack and swung the machine gun upwards. Green tracers streaked across the darkening sky as he opened fire. The insects swooped in low and the others tried shooting them down as well. Lippert, behind Steiner in the halftrack, opened up with an MP40. Fuchs and Dietrich knelt beside the Volkswagen and followed suit with an MP40 and a captured Thompson. Hartmann grabbed a captured Lee-Enfield rifle. The cacophony was deafening – the slow chatter of the submachine guns, the rapid deep roar of the MG34, and the sharp single barks of the rifle.

Bullets shredded wings, riddled exoskeletons, sheared off antennae and legs. Pieces of mosquitos fell like grisly rain. The machine gun's mount had a limited traverse, so Steiner could not swivel it far enough to aim at targets to his side or rear. Lippert covered his back, but then his MP40 jammed. As he struggled to clear it a mosquito landed on Steiner from behind.

Before it could bite Steiner reached around, seized one of its legs, and threw it on the floor with a curse. He stomped on its head with a big leather boot, smashing it with a sickening crunch and splattering yellow blood. But a second insect immediately jumped in its place. Gripping Steiner's broad shoulders with its legs, it speared him in the back with its proboscis, the razor-sharp mandibles slicing through his salt-streaked shirt deep into his flesh. An agonized gasp escaped his lips.

Lippert dropped his jammed weapon and began beating the insect with a steel helmet. Then a mosquito jumped onto Lippert’s back and stabbed him. He flailed away desperately, trying to throw the monster off as it sucked his blood. Both men collapsed writhing and screaming on the floor.

Dietrich batted a mosquito away with the butt of the now-empty Thompson, but two more flew in from either side. Fuchs emptied his magazine into one and then a pair dropped on him when he paused to reload. More attacked Dietrich as he clawed for his pistol. The men frantically struggled to fight them off, but they panicked and fled shrieking into the salt pan, immediately sinking up to their shins in the mud. Both were overwhelmed.

Hartmann's rifle was empty. He crawled under the Volkswagen and was temporarily ignored or missed by the mosquitos. They busied themselves gorging on his dying comrades, their cries and sobs mercifully subsiding as the insects' segmented abdomens bloated and flushed red with human blood.

He suppressed the urge to retch at the ghoulish sight. But now was his chance. The car's engine was still running.

He rolled out from underneath and scrambled inside. Questing antennae pricked up; bulbous eyes lifted from the gruesome banquet. The transmission grinded as he depressed the clutch pedal, shoved the car into gear, and sped away.

Four mosquitos flew after him.

The Volkswagen could reach eighty kilometers per hour on a paved road, but considerably less on a bumpy path like this. And if he drove too recklessly and accidentally veered off the trail he would immediately be stuck in the mud. He glanced in the side mirror, straining to see through the yellow plume of dust swirling in his wake, and swore.

They were gaining.

Steering one-handed, he fumbled for his Walther. He flicked off the safety and raked the pistol along his leg to push the slide back, feeding the first round into the chamber. He tossed it on the passenger seat beside him.

The insects caught up.

Hartmann shifted into high gear and floored the accelerator, the engine whining in protest. He gritted his teeth; he could not outrun them.

The celluloid door-windows had been detached for ventilation, so the car only had the front windshield and the convertible top. There was no way he could seal himself inside. Two proboscides punched through the canvas top, probing for him, one striking the back of his seat.

A mosquito thrust its head through the open passenger window to his right. Hartmann snatched up his pistol and rapid-fired four slugs into one of its eyes. The insect dropped away.

Another tried landing on the spare tire mounted on the front hood, but lost its footing as the car bounced along. It tumbled underneath and Hartmann heard a satisfying crunch, then another, as it was run over.

The base of the escarpment was just ahead. Salt marshes and salt pans yielded to scree and sand dunes. The trail curved towards a path zigzagging up the rugged cliff face soaring nearly three hundred meters high.

A mosquito flew up to the driver's side and Hartmann shot it with the remaining four rounds. Just one mosquito left. He clumsily tried reloading one-handed, first ejecting the empty magazine, then putting the Walther on the seat so he could pull out his only spare.

As he groped for it he rounded the bend and the car lost traction in the sand. The Volkswagen fishtailed, slid off the trail, and spun out at the base of the cliff. It crashed into a gray jumble of petrified wood, fossilized relics dating back to when lush forests had stood here thousands of years ago. Hartmann was hurled across the passenger seat and banged his head against the door.

Blood dripping from a cut above his eye, he looked for his pistol. It was gone, lost under the seat somewhere. The last mosquito landed on the rear of the car. Hartmann threw the car in gear and reversed sharply, crushing the insect against the rock face.

He let out a gusty sigh of relief as he shifted into first gear, but only moved forward a few meters before the engine stalled again. Repeated attempts at restarting failed. Hartmann jumped out and raised the dented, blood-spattered hood, switching on a light inside. He could not immediately see what was wrong and muttered a profanity. He was not a mechanic like Fuchs.

Hartmann spotted the black, oval mouth of a cave over by a gnarled, dead acacia tree. If he was stranded that could serve as temporary shelter tonight if necessary. He also noticed some bleaching gazelle bones scattered in the sand, most of them broken. That was odd.

A scuffling and shuffling sound came from within the cave and he glimpsed shadows of movement. Hoffmann's heart pounded. Something was in there – something big.

There might not be soldiers or minefields at this end of the crossing, but it was guarded nonetheless.

A huge yellowish-brown scorpion emerged, a monstrosity as long as a Nile crocodile with eight bowed, hairy legs and a pair of huge crab-like pincers. A long, segmented tail armed with a stinger arched menacingly over its back. Twelve black beady eyes stared at Hartmann.

The scorpion scuttled toward him, pincers outstretched. Its venom was likely lethal, but it would not need to sting him. The pincers looked powerful enough to tear him apart.

Leaning back inside the car, Hartmann groped desperately under his seat and finally retrieved his pistol. He snapped in the spare magazine, aimed, and fired. To his horror the bullet ricocheted off the hard, waxy carapace. He fired again and again, but the slugs would not penetrate.

Hartmann’s mind raced furiously. If it was bulletproof how could he kill it?

Holstering his pistol, he reached inside the car and grabbed a stick grenade. The scorpion's carapace was surely blast resistant too, but a different idea flashed in his mind, albeit a desperate one.

He unscrewed the cap on the grenade's hollow wooden handle, letting the cord dangle out. Grasping the ball at the end of the cord, he faced the scorpion, watching and waiting. He would only get one chance before he was ripped to pieces.

The scorpion suddenly rushed forward. Hartmann quickly backed up, but stumbled over a chunk of petrified wood and fell in the hot sand. Pincers lunged for him, mandibles opened. He yanked the ball to light the five-second fuse and flung the grenade into the arachnid's maw.

It detonated inside with a muffled boom.

The scorpion's charge faltered. It stopped, took a couple steps backward, then collapsed. Legs and tail twitched feebly for a few minutes until finally it laid still, bluish blood oozing from its mouth.

Hartmann clambered to his feet, brushing off sand, and warily approached the creature. It was dead.

He did not have a biology degree, but Hartmann knew scorpions did not live or breed in water. They did not even have to drink it. They obtained all the fluid they needed from their prey. How had this one mutated? Perhaps it had scavenged a contaminated mosquito.

And how had the British gotten past this monster? It was not mentioned on their map, so it had likely taken up residence after they had passed through. The horrible effects of the contamination were spreading through the insect population.

Then he heard that ominous, familiar drone. Black specks moved in a sky stained pink by the lingering twilight. His heart sank. Not over.

Hartmann grabbed a triple magazine pouch slung over a rack between the seats. It held extra magazines for Fuchs' submachine gun, which used the same 9-millimeter Parabellum ammunition as the Walther. He also found one of the Webley revolvers they had taken from the dead British soldiers. Hartmann spun the cylinder to confirm all six chambers were loaded, then tucked it in his waistband. Unfortunately he had no extra ammunition for it or for the empty Lee-Enfield.

However he did have the rifle's bayonet – a wicked-looking weapon with a grooved steel blade over forty centimeters long. Despite being largely useless in modern combat, armies stubbornly persisted in issuing such anachronisms. He drew it from the scabbard, snapped it on the end of the barrel, and slung the rifle over his shoulder.

The mosquitos circled in the distance and descended, probably attracted by the corpses of his comrades. That would give Hartmann a little time. He grabbed a greatcoat and a couple of blankets lying on the back seat.

Hartmann carried these to the cave. Gathering broken, thorny branches from the dead tree, he quickly piled them up in a semi-circle in front of the mouth of the cave and spread the garments over the desiccated wood.

He raced back to the car. It still carried two full jerrycans, one stowed in a recess under the dashboard and another lashed onto one of the rear fenders. Each held twenty liters of gasoline. He lugged the steel containers over and splashed their contents on the clothing and wood, thoroughly soaking them.

Then Hartmann sat inside the cave, working quickly and pausing only to light what he grimly knew would probably be his last cigarette.

Anguish over his slain comrades roiled inside him; weighed down with guilt, tormented by the feeling that as their leader he had somehow failed them. But he had to suppress these raw emotions for now. His mind had to be clear and sharp.

Night fell. A full moon had already risen, casting a pale, eerie gleam across the dark, desolate landscape. He extracted rounds from an MP40 magazine to reload his pistol magazines. The rifle he propped against the cave wall.

The swarm had taken to flight again. They headed straight for him now, homing in on him, their keen senses detecting fresh prey, fresh blood.

Hartmann's throat was parched; he swallowed the last drops from his canteen. Drawing in a deep lungful of smoke, he let it out with a long hiss. He was ready. Let the bastards come.

He stepped outside, Walther in hand. As his inhuman foes flew in he took a last puff and flicked the cigarette onto the greatcoat, the glowing tip spraying sparks. Bright, orange flames leaped high with a sudden whoosh as it caught fire and he flinched when the blast of heat hit his face. Black, oily smoke billowed up.

Hartmann doubted this would drive off the mosquitos, but all creatures feared fire and it might make them a little cautious at least. Delay the inevitable.

The insects circled outside the fire, buzzing angrily. Aiming carefully, he shot down three, reloaded, and brought down two more. One fell into the fire and Hartmann coughed at the reek as it crackled and burned.

The Walther was empty; he drew the Webley. The revolver bucked as he sent .38 slugs smashing through heads and abdomens, but as the fire burned low the mosquitos became more daring. They darted in, using their proboscides like lances. Hartmann dropped the pistol, snatched up the Lee-Enfield, and backed into the cave – he could not let them surround him.

Using the rifle like a pike he fended off those hovering at the entrance. He jabbed one in the eye with the bayonet and it retreated; he skewered another through the thorax and it dropped to the ground writhing in its death throes. A third he smashed against the wall of the cave with the rifle butt.

The rest withdrew and patiently waited for their chance to strike, staring at him with their soulless black eyes. It was only a matter of time. Hartmann could not keep them at bay forever. He would eventually tire and they would make their move. Finish him.

Their buzz was suddenly drowned out by the thunderous roar of heavy-weapons fire. A hurricane of bullets and shells cracked past, blasting mosquitos apart in explosions of yellow blood. The shooting continued until every insect was destroyed. Then silence. Ears ringing, Hartmann warily peered through the smoke of the dying fire.

Three heavily-armed trucks sat on the trail, etched against the moonlit sky. The bearded soldiers were white, but dressed in Arab headdresses, shorts, and sandals. When they glimpsed Hartmann in the feeble firelight the muzzle of a 20-millimeter Breda anti-aircraft gun swung down and pointed straight at him.

The savage euphoria of still being alive, the adrenalin rush of combat, was replaced by cold, sober realization. Hartmann had survived but his war was over. He bitterly threw his rifle down, raised his hands above his head, and stepped out to surrender.

One of the LRDG patrolmen strode up to Hartmann and roughly searched him, patting him down and turning out his pockets. He plucked out Hartmann's paybook and handed it to a captain.

The captain did not even glance at it. "Let's get the hell out of here before more of those bloody things show up."

Hartmann did not have to be told twice when ordered into one of the trucks. He could hear droning in the distance.

Venom

Michael McBride

OCTOBER 20th

NOW

Daru,Kailahun District, Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

9:18 am GMT

The thunder of helicopter blades summons him from the insensate darkness. The rotor wash hurls dirt against the Plexiglas shield covering his face. He opens his eyes. With the light comes the pain, forcing him to close them again. He has to warn them, though. Before it’s too late. For them. For all of them.

He screams and opens his eyes. The visor is cracked and spotted with blood. He can barely see the vague black shape of the Sikorsky MH-60G Pave Hawk settling through the cloud of dust. It takes all of his remaining strength to push himself to his hands and knees.

The camouflage Tyvek fabric of his isolation suit is torn and stained black with dried blood, whether his or someone else’s, he can’t recall. He attempts to wipe the blood from his shield, but only manages to smear the dust. The congealed droplets are on the inside.

The impelled dirt strikes his bare skin like needles. He tastes dust, inhales it into lungs that feel like paper sacks full of broken glass. Coughs it out with a fresh spatter of dark blood. Again he screams, and through sheer force of will struggles to his feet.

The wind shoves him backward. The dirt whipped up from the rutted road makes it impossible to see clearly. Dark shapes litter the ground around him, human silhouettes barely glimpsed through the dust. The fabric of their tattered suits flags from their inert forms. The ground surrounding them is spattered black.

“Don’t…”

The word is barbed and rips past his lips, although even he can’t hear it. He tastes blood in his mouth, feels it dribble down his chin and neck.

His only thought is for the men in the helicopter. It’s too late for him and the others. Their fates were sealed the moment they stepped from the plane. These men still had a chance, though.

The landing gear hits the ground and the rotor slows with a high-pitched whine. The cloud of dust expands outward, buffets the ramshackle buildings to either side, further scouring what little paint remains to the bare, gray wood.

He waves his arms over his head in an attempt to get their attention. Loses his balance. Collapses to the ground before he even realizes he’s falling.

“Don’t… get…”

He rolls onto his back and stares through the brown haze into the blazing sun. He wants nothing more than to feel its warm caress on his face as he once more descends into darkness. He thinks of the men in the chopper, of their faceless wives and children half a world away, and struggles to stand.

The ferocious wind has waned. He can see the indistinct outlines of the pilot and copilot through the dust settling upon the Pave Hawk’s windshield. He waves his arm over his head. Prays they’ll see him in time.

He hears the thunk of the lock on the helicopter’s sliding door disengage.

“Don’t get out!” he shouts.

His voice reverberates in the quiet that falls upon the still town. He looks from one side of the street to the other. Glass glimmers from the rusted tin awnings beneath the broken second-story windows, through which he detects the faintest shifting of shadows.

It’s already too late.

*   *   *

OCTOBER 18th

45 HOURS AGO

National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

7:27 am EST

12:27 pm GMT

“This video footage was sent to Doctors Without Borders by a Ugandan physician named Samuel Odongo,” Dr Maryann Reilly said. The inverted image of the computer monitor reflected from her glasses. As the Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, she was one of the most powerful people within the hierarchy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a role belied by the fact that she looked like a cross between an owl and a stork in a pantsuit. “It was routed through the State Department and the CDC on its way to us.”

“Where was it recorded?” Dr Alex Byrne asked. He was the chief pathologist of the Infectious Diseases Pathology Branch and in charge of outbreak investigations and surveillance. The primary role of the IDPB was determining the cause and process of pathogenesis – the origin and development of a new disease – by utilizing gross and microscopic examination, immunohistochemistry, and molecular evaluation. His responsibility was critical and time-sensitive. They needed to understand everything they possibly could about a potential outbreak if they hoped to have any chance of containing it.

“Sierra Leone. Six days ago.”

His mind raced as he watched the shaky footage. The quality was poor and suggested it was recorded on a cell phone. The voiceover was provided by a deep male voice and spoken in a language he neither recognized nor understood. Monkeys screeched in the background from the dense canopy of tropical trees surrounding a clearing, in the middle of which were several brown lumps with long fur.

The camera approached and zoomed in on one of the carcasses. Flies crawled on its face, into its nose, over its unblinking eyes. Its tongue protruded from its snout and its lips were drawn back from its bared canines. A mane of golden-brown fur grew from its forehead to its haunches.

“Papio papio,” the voice said, this time with a formal British accent. “The Guinea baboon.”

The camera moved from one animal to the next. They were all in the same condition. Based upon the level of desiccation, Byrne estimated they’d been dead for somewhere between 72 and 96 hours, although with the humidity in Western Africa, it could have been longer. The dead animals appeared skeletal, their fur brittle and their skin clinging to their bones.

“As you can clearly see, these primates appear malnourished and exhibit an advanced state of dehydration.” Odongo nudged the animal with his foot to demonstrate its underside. Its left flank peeled from the grass with a crackling sound. “There is no appreciable hypostasis, no postmortem pooling of blood in the tissues, as one would expect to find in any deceased mammal.”

“Are we working under the assumption that we’re dealing with a potentially mutated form of cholera?” Byrne asked. “That level of dehydration could easily have been caused by acute diarrhea.”

“Keep watching,” Reilly said. The expression on her face remained neutral, although she nervously clicked the nail of her middle finger with her thumb.

The monitor issued a burst of static as the doctor knelt beside the baboon. He rolled it onto its back with his gloved hand. Its legs were stiff and remained flexed at the joints.

“There is visible evidence of rigor mortis, proving conclusively that this animal has been deceased for less than twenty-four hours.”

“That can’t be right,” Byrne said. “Not unless it was exsanguinated prior to its death.”

“Shh.”

The camera wobbled. Something made a clattering sound. The hand appeared again, only this time holding a scalpel, which the doctor used to hack off fistfuls of the baboon’s mane until he cleared a patch of grayish-black skin on its throat. Its trachea and musculature protruded from its taut, brittle flesh. He cut a straight incision beside the animal’s windpipe and two more perpendicular to it, one at either end, and retracted the flaps. No blood welled to the surface, nor was there more than the faintest hint on the silver connective tissue.

“Is the animal’s skin intact?” Byrne asked. “What about the mucus membranes?”

The aperture of the camera zoomed in and out to focus on the incision.

“Those are questions I can’t answer.”

Odongo turned the scalpel over and used the blunt end to pry the carotid artery from behind the sternoclydomastoid muscle. It was shriveled and tortuous. He pinched it between his fingers, inverted the scalpel, and cut straight down its length to reveal the hollow lumen.

“There is no blood.” He let the animal roll back onto its side and slashed its belly open in a display of frustration. “Not one drop.”

“It’s a hemorrhagic virus,” Byrne said.

“We can’t afford to jump to any conclusions. The last thing we need is panic like we had with Ebola.”

Odongo turned the camera on himself. His dark skin was beaded with sweat and his eyes were so bloodshot it appeared as though he hadn’t slept in days. The screeching of the monkeys grew fevered. He glanced back at the trees, then into the lens once more. It shook so badly in his hands that he became a blur. He said something in the other language and another man took the camera from him, steadying the image.

“It is our concern that if this disease is viral, as I suspect, it could cross the barrier between species and trigger a spillover event.”

Reilly stopped the recording, closed the file, and launched another containing six thumbnail images. She clicked the first and it expanded to fill the whole screen.

“These satellite images were taken just over twenty-four hours ago.”

The first showed a town surrounded by tropical forest. The buildings and roads were too small to demonstrate any kind of detail and must have been included to establish scale. The subsequent images each zoomed in a little more until an area defined as one hundred square meters was visualized. The buildings were slightly grainy and their edges indistinct, but there was no mistaking the shapes of the bodies lying in the streets.

Byrne leaned closer to the screen. His pulse thrummed in his ears. He looked back at Reilly. Her expression confirmed his suspicions.

“When do I leave?”

*   *   *

OCTOBER 19th

16 HOURS AGO

80 Miles West of Spain, 35,000 Feet Above the Atlantic Ocean, USA

12:53 pm EST

5:53 pm GMT

There were more bodies than he could count. For as many of them as there were in the streets, he could only imagine how many lay dead inside their homes or in the various other buildings. The individual remains became so pixilated when he zoomed in on them that all detail was lost. There appeared to be some unquantifiable amount of blood on the ground surrounding them, but it was simply impossible to tell for certain.

Byrne couldn’t afford to make any assumptions about their collective cause of death. He needed to consider every conceivable scenario, especially in an area surrounded by so much violence and political upheaval. He was far better prepared to handle a viral outbreak than an assault by a militant jihadist faction like Boko Haram.

The buildings were in such a state that disrepair could easily be mistaken for the residua of a violent siege. There were holes in the rusted tin roofs and entire sections of structures had collapsed in upon themselves. What appeared to be a market was concealed beneath rows of cloth and wooden awnings, the aisles between which were completely empty.

Byrne leaned back and tapped his teeth with the end of his pen. There was something about that observation…

The streets in which the majority of the corpses lay were main streets. Others were residential, as evidenced by the animal pens behind the main dwellings. The concentration of human remains was the key to the revelation. Whatever fate befell the population had come at night, when people were in their homes or the town center. While that didn’t necessarily preclude viral involvement, it did support the alternate narrative that an attack had come under the cover of darkness.

Byrne rubbed his eyes and looked out the window. The sun set over the Atlantic, imbuing it with a crimson glow that sparkled upon the waves.

There was something he was missing. He could feel it.

He closed his eyes and imagined Dr Odongo entering the clearing with the baboon carcasses. They’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours, yet looked as though they’d been deceased for much longer than that. Something about it bothered him, beyond the obvious. Something that was staring him right in the face.

He pictured the flies crawling all over their faces, into orifices they’d been unable to explore while their meals had been alive.

And then it hit him.

The carcasses were intact. The baboons had been dead for nearly a full day and not a single scavenger beyond the flies had made any attempt to consume their remains. There were no wild dogs fighting over the bodies or jackals laughing at a distance. There hadn’t even been evidence of vultures. The trees had been filled with screeching monkeys, not carrion birds, which would have pecked out the moist orbital globes first, then the bloated bellies and tender tongues.

Byrne opened his eyes and again scrutinized the images on his laptop.

The resolution wasn’t sharp enough to tell if there was any evidence the human corpses had been scavenged, but it was good enough to see there were no carrion birds perched on the rooftops or the telephone wires. There were no dogs roaming the streets. The only sign of life was a small herd of cattle clustered to one side of a fenced pasture. They were thin and had long fur, and were packed so closely together that it was impossible to tell one from the next, which begged the question: why were they alive while all of the men were dead? Had other species of livestock survived inside their pens? More importantly, why had the baboons died while whatever species of monkey shrieked from the trees survived?

Viruses could be finicky when it came to interspecies transmission, but he couldn’t think of a single one that drew a distinction between species as closely related as primates.

Again, he found every piece of evidence contradicting the next. Had an attacking force used a chemical weapon? That would explain the lack of scavengers, if not the survival of the bovines. Surely an agent like that would leave traces behind, which he supposed he’d find out soon enough.

Byrne scrutinized the forest encircling the Sierra Leonean town and realized just how easily the entire place could have been surrounded without anyone knowing. Heck, it could still have been surrounded when the picture was taken, for all he could see through the trees.

He again looked at the cattle. They were at the edge of the field farthest from the jungle, their hind quarters crammed into a corner, their heads aligned to form an imposing wall of long, curved horns. They all faced uphill toward the dense canopy from which Byrne could almost hear the screaming of monkeys.

*   *   *

2.9 Miles East-Northeast of Daru

Kailahun District, Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

October 19th

3:27 am GMT

Byrne had never experienced free fall, nor had he ever had any desire to do so. Until they fastened him into his harness, a part of him had genuinely believed they were just screwing with him and they’d end up landing on some gravel airstrip in the middle of nowhere, not hurtling through the darkness with the wind peeling his cheeks back to his ears. It was all he could do to keep from screaming and embarrassing himself in front of men who already made no secret about how little they thought of him. He was unlike them in every way, although if the man to whom he was harnessed didn’t pull the cord on the blasted chute soon, no one would be able to tell them apart after they hit the ground.

A dense canopy of kroma, ceiba, and red ironwood trees rushed toward them. He caught a glimpse of Daru in the distance before it vanished behind rugged foothills. The man attached to his back, Captain Trevor Richards of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, pinned Byrne’s arms to his sides and nosed them both downward. The wind screamed in their ears as they accelerated straight toward a seamless mass of two hundred-foot-tall trees.

It hit Byrne with a start that they were going to crash through the canopy, whether they slowed down or not.

The individual leaves drew contrast from the mass of foliage. Even at the very top, the branches were as thick as Byrne’s arms. He envisioned what would happen if they struck one at what had to be a hundred miles an hour—

A sharp tug knocked the wind out of him. Yanked him upward. The parachute expanded with a popping sound. His feet swung down beneath him. He drew his knees to his chest a heartbeat before they slammed through the upper canopy.

A blur of brown and green. Boughs struck his feet and rump. Sent him careening.

“Straighten your legs, dammit!” Richards yelled into his ear.

Byrne did as he was instructed. A branch raked across his visor and nearly tore the Tyvek hood of his camouflaged isolation suit.

A sudden jolt.

The harness yanked his groin into his gut. His breath returned with a gasp.

They spun on the parachute cords. The trees whipped past in a blur. He looked down and saw his feet swirling over a snarl of branches and, beneath them, a seamless stretch of darkness. Leaves and twigs rained soundlessly down toward it.

“Hang on,” Richards said.

“I don’t have a whole lot of choice—”

The marine disengaged the parachute release. They were falling before Byrne could finish his thought.

Branches snapped and bark burst from the boughs. They passed through the lower canopy and into a ring of trunks.

The calculations defied him. A hundred and fifty feet. More than four hundred pounds between them, accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared. The force of the impact with the ground would be—

Another sharp tug and a pop as the reserve chute deployed.

They careened into the darkness, spinning in wild circles.

They weren’t slowing down fast enough. They’d hit the ground like sacks of flour thrown from the roof of an apartment complex.

Byrne caught glimpses of the ground to either side; shadowed shrubs and mats of detritus, rising far too fast, while beneath him, there was still only darkness.

They passed through the ground without encountering resistance. The ragged edges of the earth rose rapidly above them, along with the forest floor. The walls around them were rounded and bare. Walkways had been carved into the dirt in a spiral pattern that led all the way down to the bottom of the pit, which materialized beneath their feet mere seconds before Richards pulled the toggles and they swung upward.

They splashed down into two feet of water, slid through the soft mud, and stumbled forward to dissipate their momentum.

Richards released the lock on Byrne’s harness and shoved him out of the way so he could collapse the chute. The other Marines burst from the canopy and streaked into the pit with a surprising amount of grace. They alighted like fowl and bundled up their parachutes with practiced ease.

“What is this place?” Byrne asked.

“An illegal diamond mine,” Richards said. “This whole country is riddled with them.”

Byrne couldn’t see a thing. The only light was provided by the dim reflection upon the stagnant water of what precious little moonlight passed through the dense canopy hundreds of feet above him. There were stacks of sieves and mounds of sifted earth, but no indication anyone was there, or had been for several days.

“Saddle up, boys,” Richards said. “We’ve got a hike ahead of us.”

Byrne waded toward the uneven ramp that would lead them to the surface. The water was warm and its surface was alive with mosquitoes and black flies. His foot snagged on something and he fell into the water. He cursed and smeared the mud from his visor. He felt a lump on top of his tactical helmet and remembered the night vision goggles mounted to it.

The others slogged past him without offering to help him up. They already wore their goggles, which looked like cameras with tapering telescopic lenses that barely fit inside their hoods.

Byrne stood and manipulated the goggles through the fabric. It took some doing, but he eventually aligned them with his eyes.

The world transformed into a disorienting spectrum of green and gray, through which the others moved like wraiths. He struck off after them before they could leave him behind, only this time with more caution. He looked down into the water and stopped dead in his tracks.

The object that had tripped him floated to the surface. It was a body, its skin distended by absorbed fluids and decomposition. It slowly settled back into the muck.

Byrne turned in a circle. The entire pool was full of corpses.

“I’m so glad I can’t smell anything with this suit on,” he whispered.

He picked his way through the remains and climbed out of the water. He had to jog to catch up with the others.

*   *   *

Daru, Kailahun District, Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

6:03 am GMT

The soldiers ahead of him moved stealthily through the jungle: ducking under vines, passing through curtains of epiphyte and orchid roots, and skirting clusters of shrubs easily as tall as they were. Byrne frequently lost sight of them, only to watch them materialize from some unexpected point in the brush. He tried his best to minimize the ruckus of his passage, for all the good it did him. At least the others wouldn’t be able to lose him.

Byrne’s introduction to them had been brief and he’d been so preoccupied he’d glossed over them. He’d spent the entire plane ride from Atlanta to Morón Air Base in Spain poring over satellite imagery. The preliminary aerial surveillance wasn’t as cut-and-dried as he’d initially believed.

Daru was a small settlement twenty miles southeast of the diamond-mining town of Tongo. It had a population of 6,000, the majority of whom were of the Mende ethnic group. It also housed barracks for the Sierra Leonean army, which made it a target of moderate strategic value, especially to an extremist faction like Boko Haram.

The militant Islamic jihadist group had swept across Cameroon, Chad, and Niger like a fiery plague, slaughtering and burning everyone and everything in its path. After pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, it became the de facto western army of ISIS, poised to roll eastward across Libya, Egypt, and Sudan, where the two forces would converge with the entirety of Northern Africa and the Middle East under their direct control, providing the ideal staging grounds to launch a massive assault upon Europe.

The simple fact was the correlation between the dead monkeys and the bodies in the streets of Daru was speculative at best. True, the timeframe lent more credibility to Byrne’s hypothesis than mere coincidence, but even he could see how similar the satellite images looked to those of the towns hundreds of miles to the east left smoldering in Boko Haram’s wake. He’d compared them for any overt dissimilarities, anything he could use to rule out a militaristic siege, but couldn’t find anything incontrovertible. By the time he’d set aside the images, he was beginning to think maybe he’d been dispatched into a warzone rather than ground zero of a viral outbreak, which was why he regretted not making more of an effort to connect with the soldiers stealing through the shadows ahead of him.

He’d assumed they were part of the cargo plane’s crew clear up until the point they were twenty thousand feet above Sierra Leone and briefing him so fast he could barely keep up with what they were saying.

Theirs was a mission of reconnaissance, to establish the nature and severity of the threat. If they determined that they were dealing with a potential spillover event, then they were to create a firm perimeter and contain the situation until a team of CDC and UN scientists assembling in Nuremburg could be deployed. If they were instead faced with hostile opposition, they were to gather as much intel as they could while doing everything in their power to keep themselves alive.

Captain Trevor Richards remained in the lead and only occasionally dropped back far enough for Byrne to see him. The digital camouflage of his isolation suit made him nearly invisible and indistinguishable from the other men, were it not for the way he moved. He was sinewy and lithe, fluid in his movements, unlike First Lieutenant Chad Graves, whose broad shoulders and loping gait made him appear to move like a silverback through the brush. Private First Class Ryan Anthony remained closest to Byrne and served as his personal protector, quite obviously against his will. When his assignment had been handed down, the kid had looked like he was going to throw a tantrum. To his credit, he’d steeled his broad jaw, thrown out his chest, and saluted his commanding officer before turning his gray eyes upon Byrne and offering a curt nod. Corporal Elias Warren brought up the rear. He was easily a half-foot shorter than the rest of them and built more like a wide receiver than a linebacker, but he had an economy of movement that somehow lent him an air of danger, as though he were the personification of a trap perpetually prepared to spring.

In the grand scheme of things, Byrne supposed it didn’t matter in the slightest whether they liked or respected him as long as they did their jobs and kept him alive. Of course, when it came right down to it, that was undoubtedly how they must have viewed him, too.

The forest thinned, if only by degree. By the time he recognized the clearing through the trees, they were already upon it.

Richards lay on his stomach in the overgrowth beneath a cieba tree, scanning the clearing through the scope of his M27 IAR.

Anthony appeared as if by magic beside Byrne and pulled him to his knees.

Graves crouched beside them, staring down the slope of tall, wavering grasses toward where a town squatted in the darkness. The buildings were mere silhouettes, nearly indistinguishable from the night.

“Jesus,” Richards whispered.

Warren slid into the bushes beside Richards and sighted down his rifle.

“Someone must have come back for them,” he whispered. “Either that or our intel’s flawed.”

“What do you see?” Byrne asked.

“The bodies,” Richards whispered. “They’re gone.”

*   *   *

6:03 a.m. GMT

They walked in a diamond formation down the main road into Daru. The rising sun cast their shadows ahead of them. Anthony and Warren had scouted ahead and determined there wasn’t a single living organism within the settlement, which didn’t make any of them feel the slightest bit better about the situation. Richards took point and swept his rifle from one side of the deserted street to the other. Anthony and Warren stayed to either side of Byrne, covering the open doorways and windows of the two-story shacks, while Graves brought up the rear.

It reminded Byrne of the ghost towns of the American West, only rather than an air of mystery, an almost palpable shroud of suffering was draped over it.

Richards stopped and waved him forward. There was a dried spatter of blood on the dirt beside scuffmarks where it looked like a body had been dragged from the road.

“Do what you need to do,” Richards said. He removed his backpack, unzipped the main pouch, and extricated the case containing Byrne’s equipment, which he dropped unceremoniously to the ground. “And do it fast.”

Byrne knelt and opened his case. Inside were all of the tools he needed for the collection and testing of blood in the field. Ideally, samples would be taken directly from the source, but he had the skill to make this work. The blood was clotted and congealed with the dirt which, fortunately, was packed and hadn’t allowed the blood to soak very deep. He chiseled off the uppermost layer and scooped it into a plastic baggie.

“I need somewhere to set up.”

Richards locked eyes with Anthony and jerked his head toward the nearest storefront.

Anthony nodded and approached it in a shooter’s stance with his rifle seated against his shoulder. The front doors were little more than shutters that folded back to open the entire width of a shop, above which a hand-painted sign that read simply: 190 Kissy St. He broke the padlock with the butt of his rifle, fished it from the latch, and tossed it aside. Graves covered Anthony while the soldier cautiously drew the shutters open. Graves vanished into the darkness for nearly a full minute before emerging with his barrel lowered.

“All clear.”

Byrne glanced back to find Richards staring at him.

“What are you waiting for?”

Byrne closed the sample inside the case and headed toward the store. There were three rows of metal shelves, all stuffed to overflowing with a seemingly random assortment of goods. Vegetables rotted in wicker baskets beside open sacks of grain. Warm bottles of Coca-Cola were packed next to unlabeled bottles filled with liquids of various colors that looked homemade.

Anthony used his arm to clear some space, sending the wares crashing to the floor.

Byrne set his case on the shelf and carefully unloaded his supplies. The first thing he needed to do was separate the blood from the dirt by spinning it down in a centrifuge with an anticoagulant so he could run it through a gamut of tests and assays. He’d done this so many times he could do it in his sleep. His hands performed tasks he’d learned by rote while his mind tried to rationalize his situation.

He’d expected to find the bodies rotting in the streets. He couldn’t think of a single explanation for how such a large number could vanish in less than twenty-four hours. There were obvious marks indicating they’d been dragged away, but to where and for what reason? Scavengers picked at the remains where they lay. Predators moved their meals to a place where they could be consumed uninterrupted, but only did so with fresh kills, certainly not corpses potentially festering with disease.

The portable centrifuge whirred to a stop. He separated the blood from the heavier organic material and transferred it into several smaller wells. He drew up the blood from the first well and ran it through a First Antigen Rapid Test to evaluate for hemorrhagic diseases like Ebola while he set up the ELISA assay and the PCR machine. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay measured the concentration of antibodies and evaluated for a wide variety of viral, bacterial, protozoan, and helminthic infections from Dengue fever and leprosy to malaria and Chagas disease. The polymerase chain reaction would allow him to isolate and identify any viral DNA from the human genome by running it alongside one of his control samples.

“What’s taking so long?” Richards asked.

“These tests take time,” Byrne said.

“Time’s a luxury we can’t afford, Doc,” Anthony said.

Byrne tuned them out. He loaded the genomic, viral, and plasmid templates into the wells in the Palm PCR instrument beside the blood sample and set it aside to work its magic. He placed the final blood sample onto a Polystyrene plate coated with an antibody solution, added an enzyme-conjugated antibody, and finally the substrate that would trigger the reaction and produce a measurable signal. He slid it to one side and used a pipette to transfer the PCR samples to the gel electrophoresis machine, which conducted an electrical charge across an agar medium to separate the prepared DNA segments by size, isolating the viral segment from the human and control samples.

He breathed an audible sigh of relief when the First Antigen Rapid Test came back negative.

“We can rule out hemorrhagic fever,” Byrne said.

“So we can take off these infernal suits?” Warren said. He stood with his back to them, sighting the opposite side of the street through his scope.

“Not yet. There are still hundreds of diseases we need to cross off our list, any one of which could kill us in any number of painful and horrific ways.”

Byrne removed the gelatinous medium from the electrophoresis machine and shined a black light onto it.

Anthony must have read the expression of surprise on his face.

“What is it?”

“There’s no virus.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. There’s no virus.”

“Could it have separated from the blood or could the sample have been contaminated?” Richards asked.

“You don’t understand. A virus works by inserting its DNA directly into the host’s genetic code. That’s its sole biological imperative. It infects the individual cells and uses the host’s RNA to replicate its own DNA. In essence, its genes are incorporated into those of the organism it infects, like adding more teeth to a zipper. The human genome contains the residue of countless historical viruses we’ve been passing down for eons. This blood perfectly matches that of the control sample.”

“Then what the hell killed all of these people?” Richards asked from directly behind him.

Byrne attached the ELISA plate reader to his laptop and launched the software. The application generated a curve that plotted fluorescence against the concentration of interferons, which were signaling proteins released by cells in response to the presence of viruses, bacteria, and parasites. The comparison to the saved control sample excluded Interferon Type I and III reactions, which were produced in response to an aggressive virus. The elevated levels of Interferon Type II indicated an acute immune response, despite the complete absence of any identifiable pathogen. The presence of immunoglobin G and E antibodies further muddied the waters. They were only produced by the immune system in response to specific infections.

And then it hit him.

“That can’t be right,” Byrne said.

“Talk to me,” Richards said.

“The levels of immunoglobins G and E are off the charts.”

“What does that mean?”

“IgG attaches to pathogens designated for elimination and IgE binds to allergens that produce histamine and cause inflammation. The two in conjunction indicate a very specific immune response, one designed to combat the presence of a toxin capable of triggering a violent allergic reaction.”

“In English, Doctor.”

“The human immune system releases these antibodies in response to the presence of biological toxins, like those found in a bee sting or a snake bite, only in nowhere near these concentrations.”

“You’re suggesting—”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you that I know without a doubt what killed these people.”

“And what’s that?”

“Venom.”

*   *   *

8:36 am GMT

The building across the street featured a native clothing store and, above it, a two-room apartment, the rear window of which offered an unobstructed view of the grassy slope leading uphill through the pastures to the edge of the forest. From this vantage point, they could clearly see the trampled paths where the bodies had been dragged from the streets. They converged into a single trail that led beneath the dense canopy. In the far distance to the west, Byrne could see the broken fence where the long-horned cattle from the satellite image had once been contained.

The occupants of the apartment had been overcome while they slept. The bed linens lay crumpled to one side and the sheets were spattered with blood, although the combined volume couldn’t have been more than three or four ounces, even taking into account the spatters on the walls and the smears leading across the floor, down the wooden stairs, and through the doors and windows. Whoever claimed their remains had been careful not to leave any traces of their presence. It was as though the attack had come in two phases. The initial siege had been fast and surgical in its precision: the victims had been injected with venom and left to succumb to the eventual paralysis. The second had come some time later, when the bodies could be collected without offering the slightest resistance. That was their working theory, anyway. Unspoken between them was the fact that if their theory was correct, there was the chance the victims could still be alive.

“We should call it in,” Byrne said.

“And say what?” Richards said. “All we have is a single blood test from an unknown victim who, for all we know, could have been stung by a bee before their death.”

“So what do you propose then?”

“We search the remainder of the town. Whoever did this must have left some trace behind. You continue running your tests. If that fails, I can think of one sure way to conclusively determine what we’re up against.”

Byrne stared at the point where the path vanished into the darkness beneath the branches. He recalled his observation that the entire town could have been surrounded without anyone knowing it and had to stifle a shiver.

“What’s over there?” Warren asked from where he knelt by the adjacent window, studying the forest through the scope of his rifle.

“The satellite imagery shows a seamless stretch of forest,” Graves said.

“What about thermal or magnetometric imagery?”

“We didn’t anticipate needing them. We’ll have to wait for the satellite to pass over again.”

“And when’s that?”

“Just under twelve hours from now,” Graves said.

“You’re kidding, right? We should be able to task any satellite and have it here within ninety minutes,” Warren said.

“If you want the same aerial photographs we already have, sure. If you want to see anything below the canopy, we have to coordinate with NASA to get the GEOS 2 satellite overhead. It’s in geosynchronous orbit, so it can only be programmed to pass overhead once every twenty-four hours.”

“By then it could be too late. We need to know what’s out there right now!”

“Then we have no choice but to take matters into our own hands,” Richards said. “Doc, I need to know every possible method of venom dispersal.”

“I’m certainly no authority—”

“An educated guess will suffice.”

“I would imagine the primary method of delivery would have to be subdermal. Our skin acts as a barrier, hence the reason bees have stingers and snakes have fangs.”

“No possible means of aerial envenomation?”

“I’ve never heard of it, but that’s not to say it can’t be done. To the best of my knowledge, no one’s attempted the weaponization of venom, outside of its use on darts and arrows by various indigenous tribes.”

“So if we’re wearing our isolation suits, we should be safe,” Anthony said.

“As long as they remain intact,” Byrne said. “Keep in mind, though, they aren’t designed to stand up to any kind of trauma or sharp penetration.”

“I got news for you, Doc,” Graves said. “Anyone gets that close to us will have a bullet through his brain before he can even think about attacking.”

“This town had a population of nearly two thousand. As far as we know, not one of them escaped their collective fate. We should just report in and wait for backup to arrive.”

“And by doing so we could be consigning our reinforcements to their deaths,” Richards said. “We need to determine the nature of the threat before we do anything else.”

Byrne looked toward the forest, where presumably the entire town had been dragged. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was out there.

*   *   *

11:48 am GMT

They agreed to perform a cursory search of the town in hopes of finding any clues before heading blindly into the wilderness. Every house was in the same condition. These people had never known what hit them. The attack had come through the broken windows and doors while they were sleeping and their bodies had been removed through the same egresses. There were no bullet holes or spent casings, no discolorations on the walls or ceilings to suggest aerial dispersion, or any other indication of the means by which these people had been overcome. All that remained of them were smears and patterns of blood to mark where they’d fallen and the direction of their posthumous passage.

Whatever livestock they’d held was gone as well. The stables and pens were vacant, the straw desiccated and dusty. There were no fresh tracks or any other sign animals had even been housed there recently, with the exception of sporadic mounds of fecal material, which Byrne theorized belonged to animals other than those once contained in the pens.

The spoor was black and runny, a trait caused by a high concentration of blood. The fact the same feces was scattered throughout the town suggested it came from one species, and not one that had been domesticated or housed in the pens or pastures. Richards suggested it belonged to a species of scavenger that had fed upon the victims while they were either incapacitated or dead, which made a certain amount of sense. Byrne was no expert on feces, nor did he have any desire to be, but he couldn’t dismiss the observation that much of the spoor appeared to be older than forty-eight hours, especially that found near the fringes of town by the majority of the empty livestock pens.

The establishments in what passed for the commercial district were different. There was nothing peaceful about the way the patrons of the ramshackle bars and restaurants had gone. The walls and ceilings were spattered with blood. Tables lay overturned amid shattered bottles and plates. Dried blood flaked from the wooden floor like lichen and formed a brick-red path onto the dirt road where the victims had either crawled or been dragged out into the street. The dirt remained disturbed where many had fallen and struggled to drag themselves in the opposite direction from which their remains were ultimately taken.

Byrne performed the ELISA assay on another half-dozen blood samples he’d collected from various points around town while the others explored the military barracks. It appeared as though the majority of the forces had been dispatched before the siege. Bunks remained perfectly made and footlockers were half-empty. There were no boots or fatigues to be found in most of the buildings, which reminded Byrne more of mobile homes stuffed full of cots than actual quarters. The inner walls of the guard shack were riddled with bullet holes and covered with blood, as was the westernmost barracks, inside of which it looked much like all of the other dwellings.

Graves was able to determine that the forces had been dispatched three weeks ago to Koindu, a town forty miles to the northeast on a finger of land thrust straight into Guinea on one side and Liberia on the other, presumably as a deterrent to the advances of Boko Haram. Richards speculated the jihadists must have gained knowledge of the maneuver and swept southwest along the banks of the Moa River, which flowed directly behind the outpost.

The assays had provided no new information, but had confirmed the presence of IgG and IgH antibodies in comparable amounts. It was only while waiting for the others to complete their search of the barracks that Byrne decided to isolate the blood from the spoor near the front gates, where Anthony remained as his personal guard, and run it through a separate ELISA assay. The results solidified a theory that had yet to fully form in his mind.

“Interesting,” Byrne whispered.

“What?” Anthony said. He peeked back over his shoulder before returning his attention to the gate blocking the lone road into the outpost.

“This blood sample. From the stool. It has elevated levels of eosinophils and acetylcholine receptor antibodies.”

“So what?”

“Acetylcholine receptors purvey chemical signals from the nerves to the muscles. Eosinophils are the white blood cells responsible for combating allergic responses, especially in relation to the respiratory system.”

“What are you getting at?”

“The nervous system in the first thing affected by envenomation, followed in short measure by the respiratory system. Think of a cobra. After it bites its prey, its venom goes straight into the bloodstream and to the nerves, where it blocks the signals from the brain to the muscles, causing paralysis. Immune responses work much more slowly. The body produces increased amounts of white blood cells in response to the elevated levels of histamine caused by the venom. Eosinophils, specifically, help combat inflammation of the lungs, which is the ultimate denouement of a snakebite. First the prey can’t move, then it can’t breathe. That might be an oversimplification, but you get the gist.”

“We already knew we were dealing with a type of venom. That doesn’t change anything.”

“But it tells us a lot about the animals that produced the spoor.”

“Great.”

“Don’t you see? They’re ophiophagic. The elevated levels of eosinophils and acetylcholine receptor antibodies aren’t present in the blood of the victims, but they’re in high concentration after passing through the bodies of the scavengers. They’re not sensitive to the venom because they already have the antibodies to combat it. Like a mongoose or an opossum—”

“A honey badger.”

“Exactly.”

“But none of those are large enough to prey upon people, no matter how incapacitated they are.”

Byrne stood and paced the front deck of the empty barracks. Richards and Warren emerged from behind a stand of trees on the far side of the field, while Graves appeared from the direction of the river.

Anthony was right. He couldn’t think of a single ophiophagic species that preyed upon man, nor could he think of one that scavenged. Ophiophagy was a specific adaptation that evolved based on the prevalence of venomous sources of food. So what did that imply?

“We’ve stalled long enough,” Richards said.

Byrne understood what he meant. The time had come to follow the trail into the jungle, where any number of potential dangers could be lurking behind any tree trunk or waiting in the trees with weapons trained down on them. They’d be sacrificing every advantage the open space afforded.

“Tell me you learned something we can use,” Warren said. He nodded toward Byrne’s case.

Byrne shook his head and glanced at Anthony. He was reluctant to share what he’d found until he was able to make sense of the results. They didn’t make sense, at least not in this context. Either the species responsible for the spoor was a scavenger that had seemingly overnight evolved the ability to manufacture antibodies in the levels required for the ingestion of high quantities of venom, or the production of antibodies was the adaptation of a predatory species that had somehow developed the ability to produce venom.

*   *   *

2:09 pm GMT

The rain fell in rivulets through the canopy, hitting the muddy ground with a sound like a rushing river. Byrne skirted the sucking puddles and battled through the wet shrubs. Guinea fowl called from the brush and scampered away when they neared. Macaws squawked and swifts darted through the treetops. Byrne watched for the monkeys he’d heard on Dr Odongo’s recording, but didn’t see a single species that didn’t have wings or scales.

The trail they’d been following since leaving Daru was still evident, although by now it had become a narrow stream, obscuring whatever footprints might have survived the parade of bodies being dragged over them.

That was the detail that most bothered Byrne. There were any number of ways to relocate a large quantity of remains – loading them onto a truck, airlifting them by chopper, or even pulling multiple victims on a makeshift travois. Dragging individual carcasses across such a large distance and over terrain this brutal seemed like the least practical option. There had to be a method to this madness, otherwise heaping the remains on top of each other for mass incineration would have been the fastest and most efficient means of elimination. The only reason to go to this much trouble was if whoever was responsible intended to keep the bodies, for whatever ghastly reason. If the attack on Daru was just a test of whatever mode of venom dispersion they employed, then the last thing Byrne’s detail could afford was to let the enemy perfect its weapon. Chemical agents were bad enough; a biological weapon that left no residue, could easily pass through airport screening, and was capable of completely incapacitating an entire town in a matter of hours without allowing more than token resistance from trained soldiers would be catastrophic in the wrong hands.

If only Byrne had access to even one of the victims. Maybe then he’d at least be able to determine the means of envenomation. An airborne mode of delivery would almost certainly be fatal as there wouldn’t be time for the victim to generate an immune response. The sudden and acute respiratory inflammation would cause more bleeding than they’d seen in town and would manifest as a mist from coughing or pools when the diaphragmatic reflex waned and anoxia caused the loss of consciousness. It seemed the least likely path to weaponization, but how else could so many people be overcome in such a short amount of time? It wasn’t even possible to overwhelm a population so large without an invading force numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands.

Indigenous tribes in the Amazon had been using poison-dipped darts and arrows for millennia, but even they didn’t have the skill required to hunt thousands of people without leaving so much as a single dart behind. There had to be some other form of mass dispersal, and the fact he couldn’t think of it scared him more than anything else. What kind of nightmare were they walking—

Impact from the side.

Byrne hit the ground. Hard. The weight of his assailant nearly knocked the wind out of him. Before he could cry out, he was seized by his shoulders and rolled onto his back.

Graves thrust his face shield against Byrne’s and mouthed the word Quiet.

Byrne nodded.

Graves widened his eyes as though seeking confirmation.

Byrne mouthed the word Okay and Graves climbed off of him. By the time he rolled over, Graves had vanished into the shrubs. Byrne could barely see Warren off to his right. The soldier lay prone in the mud, his shoulders and rear end breaching the surface of the brown water, the barrel of his rifle propped on the branch of a thorny shrub with green-spotted fruit. The angle of his sightline was obscured from Byrne’s vantage point. He crawled around the wide buttress roots of a ceiba tree to get a better view.

At first, all he could see were the same trees as everywhere else. It was only then that he realized he could no longer hear the pheasants scurrying invisibly through the brush or the trumpeting of hornbills from the upper reaches. The only sound was the pattering of rain on the leathery branches and dribbling onto the saturated detritus. And beneath it, a faint buzzing sound he’d been so lost in thought he might not have ever heard.

The flies were fat and black and only occasionally appeared through the screen of leaves and flowering shrubs. There was a small clearing where a tree had fallen and created a light gap. Graves materialized from the forest and crept forward with his rifle seated against his shoulder. The rain made clapping sounds on his isolation suit. A cloud of flies erupted from in front of the soldier. He waved them away, lowered his barrel, and stared at the ground. When he looked back at the others, the expression on his face was unreadable.

Richards rose from the bushes mere feet to Byrne’s right. He’d been so well hidden Byrne hadn’t even sensed he was there. Warren pushed himself from the mud and preceded the captain into the clearing. Anthony appeared beside Byrne as he followed.

Byrne pushed through branches so heavily thorned he feared they might pierce his suit, and stepped around Warren to get a better look at what lay on the ground before him. The flies tapped against his face shield as he stared down at the dead animal. Its skin was like parchment and taut against its prominent bones. The level of desiccation made it appear almost mummified, as though it had been dead for weeks and left to rot beneath the blazing sun, not in an expanding puddle of rainwater than had to be a good foot deep. Byrne knew better, though. He’d seen this long-horned bull on a satellite image taken a mere thirty-six hours ago.

*   *   *

4:18 pm GMT

Richards argued the bull could have come from a different herd. Byrne had been unable to prove otherwise, but couldn’t shake the feeling this was one of the cattle that had escaped from the pen at the edge of town. Further inspection had revealed both of its hind legs were dislocated at the fetlock and hock joints, which made them appear oddly strait and elongated, as though they’d been pulled with extreme force. One of its horns was broken; the fracture line was fresh with no sign of callus formation. The rain had washed away any indication of the mechanism of its death or how it had come to be in the clearing.

Raising its head by the broken horn revealed a large, bloodless wound on its neck. The muscles and tendons stood out like wires. It looked like a scavenger had bitten into its neck, and then thought better of it. Again, Byrne wished he had the human bodies for comparison. Or maybe a sample of blood to run through the ELISA assay, without which it would be impossible to prove the bull hadn’t been attacked by a wild animal weeks ago and left to decompose in the clearing, despite the fact that whatever killed it had made no attempt to consume it.

Graves proposed it had mangled its own legs by stepping in the burrows of some ground-dwelling animals – it happened all the time on his parents’ ranch back home, he said – and it had ended up using its formidable horns to defend itself from predation while it wasted away. The scavenging must have only commenced when the rain started and the bull bled the last if its lifeblood into the puddle that formed around it.

The others agreed it was a plausible scenario. Byrne, however, continued to mull it over as they advanced deeper into the jungle. The rain slowed, but the ground had already drunk its fill and supported muddy puddles that often concealed the trail. Progress was slow and treacherous. It felt as though they’d traveled ten miles from Daru, but according to Richards’s GPS they were barely over three. A fresh batch of aerial reconnaissance from an ordinary military-grade satellite showed the town just as they’d left it, only wetter. The streets were bare and there was no sign of life anywhere. The surrounding forest remained impervious to the camera and they still had several hours before the GEOS 2 was overhead, neither of which did them the slightest bit of good.

Byrne knew it was still too soon to share his burgeoning theory, especially considering how ridiculous it sounded inside of his head. It started with the inference he’d drawn from the stool sample. Whatever animal left its spoor must have attempted to scavenge the victims while they were still alive for there to be such a high concentration of blood in its feces. It would take a brazen animal to even attempt something like that. Vultures were known for such acts, but the fecal material was definitively mammalian, which considerably narrowed the field. And considering there were no known ophophagic scavengers, it meant they had to be dealing with an opportunistic predator, one roughly the size of a dog, judging by the size of its spoor. And if a species that large had somehow evolved the capacity not for the consumption of venomous species, but rather for its production…

Byrne shook his head to clear his thoughts. That line of thought was patently absurd. There had to be another, more logical solution; he just needed to come at it from a different angle. He was exhausted and hadn’t slept in several days. Things would undoubtedly make more sense after a good night’s sleep, although he wasn’t overly optimistic that would happen anytime soon.

The canopy remained silent, save for the dripping of condensation working its way inexorably to the ground, which did nothing to suppress the sounds of their passage. Despite their attempted stealth, Byrne could pinpoint the locations of the others around him, if only by the whispering of leaves grazing their isolation suits or the faint slurping of boots being drawn from the mud. Byrne was getting better at concealing the sounds of his passage, but he had a long way to go to catch up with the others, who maintained a diamond formation around him.

The intonation of the dripping changed. As did the faint whistling noise of the wind through the trees.

Byrne slowed and surveyed his surroundings. The branches overhead nearly blocked out the sunlight, only a fraction of which reached the ground in palpable columns of light. It diffused into the upper reaches ahead of him, dramatically lighting boughs that appeared noticeably less dense and shivered on a breeze he couldn’t feel through the oppressive humidity.

He resumed walking, alternately glancing from the trail to the treetops. The others passed through the bushes like specters. Their pace slowed. They obviously recognized the same thing he had. There was a change in the air. The goosebumps rose on his shoulders and neck. He felt the faint movement of air, but there was something else, something he couldn’t quite define. He watched the branches overhead. There was no sign of life. No motion. No sound. Even the metronomic dripping seemed to have ceased. And yet still it felt as though something was up there. Watching him. Tracking his every movement.

Byrne looked back down and pushed through a wall of saplings taller than he was.

Richards stood in front of him, silhouetted against the golden aura that passed through the canopy. The others appeared to either side of him and stopped when they reached the edge of a sheer cliff.

The whistling of the wind almost sounded like it came from beneath them.

Byrne approached the ledge and looked down into an enormous pit like the one into which they’d parachuted, only this one was so deep the light barely reached the bottom, where it shimmered on the surface of a murky brown pool.

The trail they’d been following since Daru terminated at their feet.

The diamond mine appeared to have been abandoned for decades. The spiral walkway that wound around its circumference was narrow and crumbling and often vanished behind cascades of roots and vines.

“Give me some more light,” Richards said.

Graves clicked on the underbarrel beam on his rifle and shined it down into the pit. It spotlighted the surface of the water and penetrated its murky depths.

“Jesus,” Warren whispered.

Byrne stepped backward so quickly that he tripped over his own feet. He hit the ground with a shout that echoed throughout the still forest.

*   *   *

5:26 pm GMT

The golden aura darkened to a rustic orange then to a deep crimson as the sun descended toward the Atlantic Ocean. Their route into the pit was even more hazardous than it had looked from above. The earth had fractured as it eroded and buckled beneath them with every step, forcing them to walk with their backs pressed against the uneven walls, as far from the edges as they could get. Chunks of dirt and rock broke loose and hit the water with echoing splashes and the occasional sickening thuck.

Byrne dialed up his respirator and tried not to think about how horrible the stench must have been. The bodies nearest the surface didn’t appear to float so much as rest upon the ones beneath. The vile water was soupy with gobs of flesh. There was no telling how deep the pit was, but the prospect of there being several hundred men, women, and children in its depths made his stomach clench. What kind of monsters would cast them into the pit so unceremoniously when setting fire to the village to incinerate the remains would have been far more respectful, not to mention sanitary? If the carcasses hadn’t been roiling with disease before, they certainly were now.

He wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but the manner of disposal seemed almost sacrilegious. These people had been thrown away like garbage, cast aside with no more thought than one might spare for a fast food wrapper. If Boko Haram was indeed responsible, then mankind was lost. Any religion – no matter the inaccuracy of the interpretation – that could spawn a faction capable of such callous disregard for the sanctity of life was a virus that needed to be eradicated before it damned the entire species to a mindless, predatory existence.

There were entire sections where the trail had entirely eroded away. The others were better trained at picking their way down the exposed rock using the vegetation as leverage than he was, but the prospect of falling into that horrible pit strengthened his grip every bit as much as his resolve. He would have been content to examine the remains through the scope of a rifle, and probably would have if the bodies had been in better condition. Water was notoriously unkind to human remains, which absorbed fluid to the point of becoming unrecognizable gelatinous blobs. After this long, he didn’t hold out much hope that he’d be able to determine the mechanism by which these people had been envenomated, let alone be able to collect anything resembling a useful sample of blood or tissue. He was in way over his head and everyone knew it, but he was also their only hope of figuring this out quickly enough to prevent this kind of carnage from happening to any number of unsuspecting towns, whether here or around the world. For all they knew, even now a man could be walking into Times Square with the means of wiping out Midtown.

A haze of mosquitos hung over the water, through which black flies twirled lazily. They alighted on the parts of the corpses that broke the surface and formed a living, seething second skin.

Byrne descended the ramp into ankle-deep water beside Richards, who shielded his eyes from the setting sun as he stared high up into the distant canopy with an indecipherable expression on his face. Warren paced nervously while Anthony and Graves kept their rifles trained on the forest floor fifty feet up. Byrne realized that down here they were at a serious tactical disadvantage and hurriedly knelt beside the nearest body before he lost his nerve.

The man’s black skin had faded to a whitish-gray and split when Byrne attempted to use a stick to draw the remains closer, forcing him to resort to using his hands. He took the man by the forearm and cringed when his fingers sunk into the waterlogged flesh.

“I don’t like this,” Warren said.

“You and me both,” Anthony said. “Hurry it up, would you?”

“You’re more than welcome to help,” Byrne said as he dragged the dead man from the deeper water onto the ledge.

Richards unslung his rifle and seated it against his shoulder. He leaned against the earthen wall and used the scope to look straight up into the rapidly darkening canopy, hundreds of feet overhead.

Byrne carefully rolled the man onto his back. His eyes remained open, but a film clouded his irises, making them appear to have rolled all the way back into his head. His features were swollen and misshapen, his neck engorged and goitrous. He was naked, save for his underwear, which had taken on the greenish-brown color of the water.

“There’s something up there,” Richards said.

Warren followed Richards’s line of sight with his own rifle.

“Hurry up, Doc,” Anthony said.

The skin on the dead man’s chest was intact, but the distention masked any abnormal swelling of the lymph glands that would betray an acute immune response. Regardless, Byrne palpated both axillae, then the man’s neck—

Putrid water gushed from what had initially looked like a goiter, but was merely a flap of skin. The water had entered through a wound beside the man’s trachea, just like the one on the bull back in the clearing.

“I don’t see…” Warren said. “Wait. There. What in the name of God…?”

Byrne shoved the dead man aside and nearly fell into the deeper water in his hurry to grab another corpse. The woman wore a tattered nightgown that clung to her bloated form. He scraped her wet hair from her neck to reveal a similar wound. The man who floated up to the surface from beneath her rolled to his side and exposed a tear in the skin from his collarbone to his earlobe.

“Move out,” Richards said. “Now, goddammit!”

Someone jerked on the back of Byrne’s suit and he toppled to his rear end with a splash. He kicked at the water as he scooted away from the remains. His back struck the rock wall and still he splashed in a vain attempt to distance himself from the carnage. The way the water distended the flesh… if there were any violation of the integrity of the skin, the water would have leaked out. The only place it had done so was the neck, which meant the wound was not only the means of exsanguination, it was also the point of envenomation.

Anthony grabbed him by the front of his suit and hauled him to his feet. The soldier’s eyes locked onto his.

“Snap out of it, Doc. We’ve got to go.”

Richards and Graves were already two tiers up and climbing fast. Warren reached down from the next level and helped Byrne pull himself up.

Byrne felt himself climbing, but seemed detached from his physical form. His mind reeled at the implications of what he’d discovered. The truth had been staring him right in the face the entire time.

They didn’t follow the winding route, but rather scaled the crumbling path from one level to the next, using whatever outcroppings they could find.

The light of the setting sun bled into darkness. The other men became silhouettes and the branches high above blended into the night sky.

A faint beeping sound.

Richards abruptly stopped climbing and shed his backpack. He knelt and removed the case containing his tablet from inside.

“What did you see up there?” Byrne asked.

In response, Warren thrust his rifle into Byrne’s chest and inclined his chin upward.

Byrne raised the IAR to his shoulder and pressed his cheek to the stock. The view through the scope was disorienting at first, but as his eye adjusted he was able to distinguish the thick, leafy boughs from the shadows. There was something else up there, something he couldn’t quite—

“Christ,” he whispered.

There were bodies in the trees. Human bodies. Way up in the treetops. Suspended by their feet, their arms dangling beneath them, swaying on the breeze.

Warren snatched his rifle back.

“How did they get all the way up there?” Byrne whispered.

“A better question would be what the hell is capable of getting them up there?” Graves said.

“Would you guys shut up?” Anthony said. “I think I hear something.”

Byrne dialed down his respirator and held his breath in an effort to better hear. A reddish light bloomed from his left. He turned to see Richards trying to shield the glow from his tablet. On the screen was a satellite image, only the contrast was all wrong. Everything was dark purple and blue, with the exception of a ring at the center of the screen composed of red and orange dots that constricted as he watched.

Byrne realized with a start that he was looking at thermal imaging from the GEOS 2 satellite, which must have finally been overhead.

“We’re surrounded,” Richards whispered. He looked up at Byrne, who was thankful he couldn’t see the man’s face through the reflection of the heat signatures on his face shield.

A high-pitched sound from the distance.

Byrne looked up toward the forest above and this time clearly heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

The screeching of monkeys.

*   *   *

7:56 pm GMT

The screaming of primates reached a deafening crescendo, then abruptly ceased. The resulting silence was somehow even worse.

Richards had dropped the tablet in favor of his rifle and all four men quietly fanned out to better cover the entire circumference of the diamond mine.

Byrne’s pulse rushed in his ears as he scrutinized the dark forest floor, now a mere fifteen feet above them. The red and orange ring on the tablet at his feet continued to shrink in almost imperceptible increments. If whatever was up there had been able to lay waste to an entire town, what chance did the five of them have?

“What the hell us up there?” Anthony whispered.

“Shut up or we’ll find out!” Graves whispered. “There’s still a chance—”

“They know we’re here,” Richards whispered.

Byrne knelt and picked up the tablet with trembling hands. The image was dark and he was unable to clearly gauge the scale, but if each conglomeration of colored pixels corresponded to an individual organism, they were more than surrounded, they were easily outnumbered thirty-to-one. Their own shapes in the very middle appeared small and isolated as the ring continued to constrict—

The image went black.

“Full night vision,” Richards whispered.

Byrne tapped the screen, but nothing happened. The satellite must have traveled out of range once more.

He looked up toward the forest. He couldn’t see a blasted thing. The branches overhanging the pit were indistinct shapes composed of varying degrees of shadow. The upper reaches continued to sway.

“Set your weapons for three-round bursts,” Richards whispered. “When they come, they’re coming all at once. We can’t afford to burn through our magazines too fast.”

A loud cracking sound overhead, followed by crashing through the trees.

Byrne glanced up in time to see a human body cartwheel from the lower canopy and streak past him. It hit the water with a splash that echoed away into the night.

He recalled the bodies in the first diamond mine, the one into which they’d parachuted. At the time, their only intel had been the satellite images of the streets of Daru. They’d been expecting to find corpses everywhere. The bodies in the water hadn’t seemed out of place, but in retrospect, there hadn’t been any clearly identifiable trails like they’d followed to get here, and yet the bodies had been in roughly the same condition as the ones in the pit below him must have been sixteen hours ago.

“Keep your eyes open, boys,” Graves whispered.

Byrne swiped the screen and opened another map, one entirely composed of black and white. The magnetometer map wasn’t nearly as detailed as either the thermal or aerial images. The trees provided little more than texture, as their mineral content was vastly inferior to the strata from which they grew. The topography was revealed in a gray scale that varied with ferromagnetic content. Biological matter and rocks with low iron content appeared dark gray, while dense stone rich in mineral content was almost white. The black circle in the center corresponded to the diamond mine, the outer edges of which had been stripped to the bare dirt. The center was much brighter, as the bottom of the pit had yet to be mined. And leading away from it to the east was what almost looked like a faint white snake.

Byrne glanced down at the water, then back at the magnetometer readout.

It made total sense.

A crackling sound above him.

The branches along the edge of the pit shook. Byrne caught a blur of motion directly overhead. Leaves and blossoms fell from the trees like snow.

“I found a way out—” Byrne started, but Richards shushed him.

Byrne switched on his night vision apparatus and lowered it over his eyes. He could see the shapes in the bushes and the trees, but none of them clearly enough to tell what they were. They were obviously well adapted to hunting under the cover of darkness.

The crackling sounds faded and a preternatural silence once more descended upon them.

Byrne scooted to the edge and stared down into the water. There were bodies upon bodies beneath the living skein of insects.

“Listen to me,” Byrne whispered. “There’s a way out—”

A shrill cry shattered the stillness. Others joined it as the night came to life. Shadows burst from the undergrowth and exploded from the branches. They hit the ground and poured over the edge of the pit in a tidal wave of animalian ferocity.

Warren shouted and gunfire erupted all around Byrne. The report near his ear was deafening and made everything sound tinny and hollow, as though he were trapped inside an air duct. Discharge flared from barrels. Byrne caught glimpses of bared teeth as muscular forms scurried down the dirt walls and leaped from the spiral ramp. Long brownish-red fur flowed from their bodies like flames.

A spatter of blood struck his face shield a heartbeat before a simian shape plummeted past him toward the water. It hit one of the corpses and drove it under.

Anthony screamed from Byrne’s right. The soldier toppled backward as he fired, his bullets chewing up the earthen wall. Slender arms slashed at his head and chest while jaws snapped at his throat. His isolation suit tore. He struggled and stumbled. Dropped his rifle. Lost his footing. Fell a half-dozen feet to the walkway below him. Before he could get back to his feet, they were upon him. His horrible cries echoed over the ruckus.

Something heavy struck Byrne between his shoulders. Drove him to his knees. He felt claws in his back. Scratching against his hood. He reached behind him, grabbed a handful of fur, and flung the beast over the edge. What almost looked like an orangutan crossed with a chimpanzee streaked toward the bottom of the pit.

Byrne climbed to his feet and grabbed Richards, who bellowed as he fired into the masses of creatures streaming from the jungle.

“There’s only one way out of here!” Byrne shouted.

If Richards had heard him over the shrieking and gunfire, he didn’t acknowledge him.

“Listen to me, goddammit! Either we get out of here now or we’re all dead!”

“We’re all dead regardless!”

“Not if you follow me!”

Byrne turned toward the water, took two running strides, and jumped out over the nothingness.

*   *   *

8:15 pm GMT

Byrne’s stomach fluttered and he heard himself shout.

He hit the water feet first. Felt something squish beneath his heels. And then he was immersed in the cool fluid.

He flailed and struggled through the tangle of arms and legs. His exertions caused the flesh of the bodies trapped beneath the surface to dissociate from the bones. Even with the night vision goggles, he could barely see a thing as he fought his way down through the corpses, crawling between and over and around them. He worked his way deeper and deeper until there became more space between the remains and he was able to see the rocky bottom.

Water trickled into his isolation suit from the punctures in the back, but fortunately his respirator was still patent and the seal around his hood remained intact.

He envisioned the magnetic signal on the map that had reminded him of a snake, how it had appeared to branch from the eastern side of the mine and turned—

There!

The hole was nearly concealed by the corpse wedged into it. The woman’s hair wavered like seaweed. Her rear end had entered the tunnel first, folding her forehead to her knees. Chunks of flesh and detritus sluiced past her on the subtle current. He grabbed her leg and pulled, but merely felt the bones in her knee dislocate.

Something brushed his side.

Byrne whirled to see Richards pass to his right and grip the woman by the shoulder. Together they leveraged her from the hole and sent her drifting back to join the others.

Byrne didn’t waste any time. He slithered through the orifice and into a chute so narrow he had to use his hands to pull himself deeper into the earth.

The ground beneath him slowly metamorphosed from coarse rock to stone that had been smoothed by time and running water. The walls withdrew enough for him to swim and he took full advantage. He banged his elbows and knees, hit his head and jammed his fingers. Squeezed past rotting remains and did everything in his power to restrain the growing panic inside of him.

What if he was wrong? What if they were swimming into a dead end, or worse? The air supply in his respirator wouldn’t last forever, nor would his suit hold up to another attack.

The tunnel constricted once more. The walls were sharp with broken rocks, the ground littered with fragments that threatened to cut through his gloves. Diamonds glimmered from the rubble. He got a grip on the walls and propelled himself from the end of the tunnel into a larger pool. The moment he felt the ceiling lift, he pushed himself to his hands and knees and raised his head out of the water.

There were maybe a dozen corpses in the murky pool, one of them partially ensnared by the cords of a parachute.

Byrne shouted and climbed to his feet. Looked straight up and turned in a circle. There was no sign of movement from the trees, no shadows scurrying over the edge of the pit.

Richards burst from the surface and splashed in Byrne’s direction.

“Go, go, go!”

He shoved Byrne ahead of him.

Warren emerged from the water and slogged toward where Byrne and Richards started up the ramp. Graves was right behind him.

“Jesus,” Warren said. “They were coming from everywhere!”

“They took down Anthony like he was nothing,” Graves said. “Just swarmed over him.”

Richards grabbed Byrne by the shoulder and turned him around.

“Can they swim?”

Byrne shrugged from the man’s grasp and tried to recall what had happened after the one he threw hit the water, but couldn’t remember anything beyond it landing on one of the corpses.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Primates don’t instinctively swim. Rivers generally serve as geographic barriers for zoonotic diseases. At least until they spread to man.”

“What the hell are they?” Graves asked.

Byrne had no answer. Primates like the chimpanzee – if that was even what these things were – were notoriously aggressive and thus a threat for spreading contagions, but he’d never heard of them attacked as a pack.

“It doesn’t matter what they are,” Richards said. “Right now we need to find a defensible position and call for retrieval.”

“No chopper’s going to be able to get to us through these trees,” Warren said.

“Then we’re going to have to get to town.”

Richards pushed past Byrne and jogged up the spiral ramp toward the jungle. The others hurried to catch up. The rain had made the ramp muddy and treacherous, slowing their pace to a maddening extent. The forest was little better. Any trail they might have left that morning was concealed by heavy branches bowing beneath the weight of the accumulated water. This time they made no effort at stealth. Richards took the lead and ran with his rifle at port arms, using it to clear his way. Graves brought up the rear. He jogged backward whenever the foliage granted enough space and then sprinted through the underbrush to catch back up with the rest of them.

Byrne’s legs ached and his chest burned. He was under no pretense about his relationship with these men. If he lagged, they would leave him behind without a second thought. So he pushed through the pain until he feared his body would simply give out, then pushed some more.

Richards suddenly stopped, crouched beside a broad tree trunk, and raised his rifle.

Byrne gratefully collapsed behind him and tried to catch his breath. He could see the slope leading downhill into Daru over Richards’s shoulder. The town somehow seemed even more deserted than they had left it. The darkness itself appeared to have taken up residence inside the buildings. A hazy mist rolled through the streets.

“Do you see anything?” Warren whispered.

Richards slowly swept his sightline across the main street one more time before answering.

“No.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“We have to be sure. If they catch us out in the open we’re done.”

Graves crept up beside Richards. The two exchanged whispered words, then Graves flattened himself to the ground and squirmed into the tall grass.

“How did you know that tunnel was there?” Warren whispered.

“There was an anomaly on the magnetometric readout,” Byrne said, “a white shape suggesting extremely high ferromagnetic content and unaffected by the topography. It looked like it led toward the mine where we first landed and I didn’t remember seeing the same kind of trails they left after dragging the bodies so—”

“You figured they had to be connected for the bodies to have ended up in the other mine.”

“Diamond mines are full of iron ore, the erosion of which causes a chemical reaction that produces iron oxide, a ferromagnetic precipitate that accumulates on exposed surfaces.”

“Which served to outline the entire system on the map.”

“Maybe not the entire system, but definitely the part with water.”

Warren clapped him on the shoulder.

“That’s one I owe you,” he whispered, and crawled over beside Richards.

Byrne caught movement from his peripheral vision and looked past the others to see Graves step out from behind a ramshackle structure with a tarp roof. He held up his right fist and pumped it up and down to signal them to hurry up.

Richards and Warren broke from cover and sprinted out into the open. Byrne raced to catch up with them. The slope was slick and the grasses tangled around his ankles. He was halfway to the dirt road leading into town when Richards and Warren both stopped and looked uphill, to their right, toward the forest.

Byrne slid to a halt and followed their line of sight to where the trail they had followed mere hours ago vanished into the shadows.

The upper canopy came to life with simian screams.

*   *   *

9:42 pm GMT

Dark shapes burst from the trees and rained down upon the field. They hit the ground and without slowing charged downhill toward town. They used their arms for propulsion and swung their haunches behind them, utilizing a loping, almost sideways gait to crash through the tall grass at a staggering rate of speed.

“Run!” Graves shouted.

Byrne ran for everything he was worth, lifting his knees to free his ankles and desperately trying to keep up with the others, who pulled farther away from him with every stride.

What little head start they had on the creatures tearing through the weeds was rapidly diminishing. The grasses swayed and bowed to mark their passage, but only offered the occasional glimpse of a hunched silhouette or a streak of flowing fur.

Byrne tripped.

Hit the ground.

Pushed himself up and half-ran, half-limped toward the road, where Richards and Warren were already dashing after Graves toward the open storefront they’d used as their makeshift laboratory.

The screeching of primates grew louder by the second.

Byrne glanced one final time at the violently shaking weeds before he hit the main road and couldn’t see them anymore through buildings that didn’t look like they’d stand up to a strong wind, let alone any kind of assault.

“Hurry!” Graves shouted.

The others blew past him into the store and down the darkened aisles. Graves dragged the shutters across the opening and appeared ready to seal them, whether Byrne made it or not. The gap was barely wide enough to allow him to slide through when he reached it. He sidestepped Graves and slammed into a rack that crashed to the floor, sending him careening across the wooden planks with its contents.

Graves slammed the shutters closed and whirled to face Byrne.

“Help me!”

Byrne struggled to his feet and held the shutters while Graves rummaged for anything he could use to secure them. He found a length of chain behind the counter, wrapped it around the inner handle and a support post, and jammed a screwdriver through the links to hold it in place.

They headed away from the partition and toward the back of the store, where Richards stood on top of an overturned shelf, repeatedly slamming the legs of a metal chair up into the ceiling. The flimsy wood cracked and splintered. He cast the chair aside. Jumped up. Caught the edge. Jerked on it until a section of the ceiling collapsed and sent him toppling to the floor.

Warren climbed onto the shelf, kicked off the wall, and pulled himself through the hole into the darkness.

The screaming outside was deafening. The creatures hurled themselves against the shutters, over and over. Byrne couldn’t bring himself to turn around to make sure the chain was holding.

Graves climbed up behind Warren and reached back down for Byrne, who leaped past his outstretched hand and strained to scurry up into what looked like a small apartment. Graves tugged on the back of his suit and dragged him away from the orifice so Richards could climb through behind him.

“Secure all points of ingress!” Richards yelled.

The door at the back of the main room was serviced by a rickety flight of wooden stairs leading down to an alley filled with garbage. Warren overturned a table, flattened it to the door, and slid a threadbare couch against it. Richards ran to the bedroom, flipped the mattress over the broken window, and attempted to brace it with a dresser, a trunk, and anything else he could find. Byrne followed Graves down the steep, narrow staircase to the front door on the street level and helped rip up the floorboards to brace the door against the stairs.

Richards posted Graves at the top of the entryway and helped Warren wrench the washbasin from the wall and wedge it into the frame of the broken window in the kitchen. Byrne stared at the vaguely human-shaped bloodstain on the floor and the smears leading up the wall and to the barricaded window.

He stumbled backward, braced his back against the wall, and slid down to his rear end. He stared up at the ceiling. The wood was weathered and bowed and there were spots where he was certain he could see the night sky.

“We’re going to die in here,” he whispered.

Outside, the shrill cries ceased.

The silence was infinitely worse.

*   *   *

10:26 pm GMT

“I transmitted the emergency signal,” Richards whispered from the bedroom, where he watched the alley through a gap beside the mattress barely wide enough for the barrel of his rifle.

They hadn’t seen or heard the creatures in close to twenty minutes. The more time passed, the edgier they got.

“So what do we do now?” Byrne whispered.

“We wait.”

“How long?”

“You have to remember,” Graves whispered from the top of the staircase, where he watched the front door down the barrel of his rifle. “This mission’s off the books. We’re not officially even here.”

“What does that mean?” Byrne whispered.

“Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie and make you feel better?”

“The truth.”

“We’re on our own.”

“They’ll come,” Warren whispered. “They can’t afford for us to be found here by anyone else. There will be too many questions.”

“They’ll just firebomb the whole town and make it look like an accident.”

“Would you two shut up?” Richards whispered. “They’re not going to firebomb the town. They need what we have.” He looked pointedly at Byrne. “They need what he has.”

“I don’t have anything,” Byrne whispered. “There’s no outbreak. No virus.”

“But they don’t know that. For all they know we’ve collected the next Ebola virus or a potential biological weapon of mass destruction. Either one is worth its weight in gold to the powers that be.”

Warren peered down at the alley through the gap beside the dented metal tub.

“They won’t leave us here,” he whispered. “They’ll come for us.”

“And then they’ll turn this town into a crater you can see from space,” Graves whispered.

“That kind of thing doesn’t happen,” Byrne whispered. “There are protocols, especially when dealing with virulent organisms.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, Doc.” Graves chuckled. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd there have been more potential pandemics since the turn of the century than in the entire history of man before that?”

A creaking sound overhead.

Conversation ceased and all eyes looked to the ceiling.

“Something’s up there,” Byrne whispered.

“You think?”

“Shh!”

Motes of dust sparkled in the dim moonlight that passed through the roof. Byrne watched them billow on a current of air he couldn’t feel.

Another creaking sound. This time from closer to the bedroom.

Warren aimed his rifle at the ceiling and slowly approached, placing each foot silently on the wooden floor.

A shadow passed over a tiny hole and the column of motes disappeared.

“I have a shot,” Warren whispered.

“You could bring the whole roof down on our heads,” Richards whispered.

“One shot won’t compromise the structure.”

“We can’t take that risk. Hold your fire and wait for extraction.”

More creaking from directly above Graves, who slowly stood and aimed his rifle straight up.

A loud thump and a metallic clang. From below them.

Byrne scurried across the floor and looked down into the store. All was dark and still. No hint of movement.

“They’re testing our perimeter,” Richards whispered.

“They’re animals, for Christ’s sake,” Graves whispered. “They aren’t capable of—”

A shriek of scraping metal.

Warren ran back into the kitchen and threw his shoulder into the washbasin before it could slide from the sill. He shoved it back into place with a groan.

“Eyes open,” Richards whispered.

“They can’t get in here,” Graves whispered. “We have every ingress secured.”

“They took out the entire town,” Byrne whispered.

“While they were sleeping.”

“Shh!” Richards whispered.

A faint scratching sound. Overhead. Moving stealthily above the bedroom. Richards followed its progress with his eyes.

Clang.

Byrne looked down through the hole. Caught movement from his peripheral vision. Turned and saw a screwdriver roll across the floor. The chain through the handle on the shutters unraveled with a clanking sound and slithered to the bare wood.

“Help me!” he shouted, and frantically searched for anything he could drag over the hole.

“Use the table,” Graves said. He ran toward the barricaded rear door.

“Don’t abandon your post!” Richards shouted.

Graves dragged back the couch and pried the table from behind it.

Several shapes streaked past below Byrne. He heard the clatter of nails on metal and wood.

“Hurry!”

Graves inverted the table and slid it toward Byrne, who maneuvered it over the hole and climbed on top of it. Impact from beneath it nearly knocked him off. He grabbed one of the legs for balance.

Another blow. The table lifted from the floor and clapped back down.

Screaming erupted from all around them at once. The scratching sound on the roof turned to pounding, then to what almost sounded like thunder. Beams cracked and planks split.

Warren stepped away from the window, switched his AIR to full automatic, and fired up into the rafters. Dozens of bullet holes opened in the old wood, through which Byrne caught glimpses of long fur. Blood trickled through the gaps and bodies tumbled down the slope.

“The window!” Graves shouted.

The washbasin toppled inward at the same time there was a loud crash from the bottom of the front stairs.

Warren lunged for the washbasin as an avalanche of brownish-red fur filled the window. He yelled and fired into the mass of bodies, which drove him backward and to the floor. His shots went wild, hitting the wall on their way toward—

Byrne dove and tackled Graves. The bullets whipped past them and chewed up the bedroom wall, on the other side of which Richards retreated as he fired at the mattress, around which clawed appendages carved into the wood in an effort to squeeze past the barricade.

Graves pushed himself up from the ground and looked at Byrne as though seeing him for the first time. He gave a curt nod, rose to his feet, and bellowed as discharge spit from his barrel.

Warren screamed and struggled to squirm out from beneath the creatures that slashed at his isolation suit and pried at his hood. They snapped at his face shield and bit his forearms with teeth that looked like those of a chimpanzee, only with long hooked canines. His rifle clattered to the ground. He used both hands in an attempt to keep them away from his—

One of the creatures tore through his hood and clamped onto his neck.

Warren’s cries abruptly ceased. His lips framed inaudible words. The vasculature beneath his skin darkened and spread like purple lightning bolts.

The table popped up. Hit the floor. Slid to the side.

Byrne glimpsed hunched shapes rising through the hole and dove for Warren’s IAR. Rolled onto his back. Shouted as he pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked in his grasp and spewed fiery steel through the bedroom wall on its way down toward the orifice. The bullets tore through the bodies climbing from the store and rushing toward him, lifting them from their feet and painting the walls crimson.

The couch scooted into the room. The back door fell inward and served as a ramp for the creatures scurrying in from the night.

Graves sprinted away from it, toward the front door. There were bodies around his legs before he was halfway there. He fell forward and tumbled down the stairs.

“Go!” Richards shouted.

He blew past Byrne through the path Graves had cleared toward the stairs. He leapt from the top step and crashed down onto the planks that still braced the lower half of the broken door. Primates screamed and slashed at him as he kicked down the remainder and dragged Graves out onto the street.

Byrne was airborne before they cleared the landing. He hit his head, then his shoulder. Clipped his foot on the rail. Came down on top of furry bodies and careened onto the sidewalk. Pointed Warren’s rifle back into the stairwell and pulled the trigger.

More creatures poured from inside the house, even as their brethren fell. They climbed over the bleeding bodies of their brethren and pounced onto the sidewalk. Even more scurried down the façade and rained from the roof.

Byrne continued to pull the trigger, even after the magazine was empty. He dug his heels into the dirt in an effort to distance himself from the monsters. Their cold blue eyes locked onto him as they bounded toward him, their fists striking the earth, their long fur streaming behind them, their cries echoing through the desolate street.

Richards grabbed him by the back of his suit and dragged him away from their advance. Graves stepped between them and the creatures and started shooting even as they swarmed over him and buried him beneath their numbers.

Byrne rolled to all fours. Shoved Richards ahead of him.

“Run!”

“Marines don’t know the meaning of the word,” Richards said, and opened fire.

Byrne didn’t even have time to turn around.

Impact from behind.

His face was driven into the dirt. He rolled over. Tried to shield his face with his forearms.

The gunfire ceased.

Byrne’s screams rose above those of the primates before they were silenced by a stabbing pain in the side of his neck and the sudden descent of darkness.

*   *   *

10:58 pm GMT

The agony was beyond anything Byrne had ever experienced. Fire flowed through his veins. The venom pulsed within him, branching out from the deeper vessels, through his flesh, and out to his skin, where every nerve ending was a live wire. Even the sensation of his clothing against him was more than he could bear.

He could feel himself winding down. His thoughts became increasingly sluggish and disconnected. He was only peripherally aware of the creatures around him. Their attack had been a blitzkrieg, and had ended as quickly as it started. The screaming faded to grunting, then to sniffing and shuffling sounds, and finally to silence as the primates vanished into the shadows, leaving their prey to suffer in peace as the venom worked its paralytic magic.

Byrne clawed at the gravel in a futile attempt to drag himself from the street. He sputtered and coughed, freckling his face shield with blood. His eyes focused in and out on the blood of their own accord. He caught one final glimpse of Richards to his right before the muscles in his neck failed him and his head struck the ground.

If they were still here when the creatures returned, they would be dragged into the forest and hung from the trees with all of the others, to serve as sustenance for whatever the hell they actually were. With as many chemicals as they pumped into the ground in these diamond mines and at the rate the indigenous viruses mutated, there was no way of knowing what kinds of monsters were breeding in the darkness beneath the dense canopy.

He screamed, and yet no sound formed. The dirt scraped against the Plexiglas. His fingers curled into the earth one final time, but dragged him no farther.

With his last conscious thought, Byrne prayed for death.

*   *   *

OCTOBER 20th

TIME INDETERMINATE

Byrne felt like he was drowning in a fathomless black sea. The waves of unconsciousness pulled him under and only occasionally did he breach the surface and experience moments of what could only loosely be considered consciousness. His appendages were warm and unresponsive, yet he could feel his pulse throbbing through every vessel with exquisite clarity. He tasted blood, felt damp warmth on his neck and chest.

He had no idea how long he opened his eyes, only that he experienced a surprising sense of disorientation every time he did, as though he’d been awakened from a dream that was somehow more real than the plane his body inhabited. The pain returned in subtle increments. Tears crawled down his cheeks, but he couldn’t summon the physical release of a scream.

The simian handprint in the dirt served to remind him of the siege and the incremental brightening of the sky of the passage of time. Try as he might, he could no more see the others than he could raise his head to look for them. There was still no sign of the primates, but they were right there waiting for him with their ferocious teeth bared when the waves of unconsciousness pulled him under again…

Fire in his toes roused him. The sunlight was blinding, but it tethered him to consciousness. How long had he been out? A meek whimper passed his lips. The almost blissful warmth was gone, replaced by an electric sensation akin to a razor stropping his nerve tracts. With the pain came fleeting moments of lucidity, when he understood completely that he was paralyzed and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He was a prisoner inside his own flesh. The prospect of being suspended high in the trees, completely aware of his situation and helpless to do anything about it…

The suffering the townspeople must have experienced was beyond the limits of his imagination. They’d been drained of their blood, like a spider drained a fly, their necks tapped in the same fashion as a maple tree being harvested for its sap.

That was why the bull’s legs had been disarticulated. Either its weight had caused the joints to dislocate while it was being dragged or when they attempted to hang it from the trees. Byrne wondered how many others they might have seen had they looked up into the canopy through the scopes of their rifles.

A clattering sound from somewhere above him and to his right. The buckling sound of a heavy object landing on a tin roof to his left.

The creatures were coming back now that he and the marines were helpless. Now there was nothing they could do to stop it. The creatures could now maintain a steady state of envenomation without the threat of them fighting back, keeping them paralyzed but alive until they were drained of every last drop of blood.

The clamor of nails on rooftops. Snuffling and grunting.

Byrne pictured himself being dragged into the jungle and strung up by his heels while he was slowly bled to death. Worse, he envisioned doing so while he was conscious of everything around him. Feeling every pain. Staring blankly into the trees while those monsters climbed all over him. He couldn’t think of a worse way to die.

He eyes closed his eyes and once more welcomed the darkness, from the depths of which he heard the distant rumble of thunder and the clatter of nails on the buildings and the tin awnings.

*   *   *

NOW

Daru, Kailahun District, Eastern Province, Sierra Leone

9:18 am GMT

The thunder transforms into the recognizable thupping sound of helicopter blades. Byrne opens his eyes. The crippling pain returns, and with it the realization the chopper has frightened off the creatures. He closes his eyes and struggles not to sink back into darkness. He has no idea where the monsters are now, only that they can’t have gone very far. His sole overriding imperative is to warn the men who’ve come to rescue them.

He opens his eyes and struggles to his feet as the Sikorsky MH-60G Pave Hawk descends through the dust. Fights through the lingering paralysis and the rotor wash. Shields his eyes from the dirt whipped up from the road. He passes Graves and Richards, but can barely see their silhouettes through the dust, let alone any signs of life.

“Don’t…”

Byrne gurgles blood and watches the chopper settle to the road. The rotors slow and the cloud of dust billows outward. He waves his arms over his head to get their attention before it’s too late, but loses his balance. Hits the ground.

“Don’t…get…”

He rolls onto his back and stares into the sun. Their rescuers have no idea the nightmare that awaits them if they get out of their chopper. Byrne can’t let that happen. He somehow finds the strength to stand again. Waves his arms over his head.

The latch on the sliding door of the Pave Hawk disengages with a thunk.

“Don’t get out!”

His voice echoes away into oblivion. He looks from one side of the street to the other.

The creatures.

The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was the sound of them scurrying up the wooden buildings and climbing over the awnings. They hadn’t had time to run for the cover of the forest. There’d barely been enough time to hide.

The Pave Hawk’s side door slides open.

“No!” Byrne shouts.

Men in camouflaged isolation gear jump to the ground, their rifles at the ready. Their face shields reflect the sun as they run toward him. They don’t know what hits them.

The simian screams explode from all around them at once. The men turn helplessly in circles as the primates leap from the open windows and burst from the shadowed doorways. They streak across the street and converge upon the soldiers, who barely manage to fire their weapons before they’re buried under a flurry of slashing claws and snapping teeth.

The rotor whines back to life, but it’s too late for the pilot. The blades turn impotently as the creatures bound through the open door and converge upon the cockpit. A blur of brownish-red fur through the windshield, then a spatter of blood. The landing gear rises and drops back to the ground. The tail swings around, tearing through the front half of a building and filling the air with wooden shrapnel.

Byrne falls to his knees. He can hear the screams of his would-be saviors even over the roar of the rotors.

They will all share the same horrible fate. Once the men from the chopper are subdued, the creatures will return their attention to Byrne and there will be absolutely nothing he can do to stop it. He lacks the energy to run, not that he’d make it very far, and he no longer has the will to fight.

He slumps forward and sobs in frustration. Blood trickles down his chin, dribbles onto the Plexiglas.

One by one, the screams of the men are silenced.

Byrne glances back at Graves. The first lieutenant’s feet scrape the ground in an effort to stand, but he hardly has the strength to raise his head. If only he’d been right and the chopper had obliterated the entire town. At least then their deaths would have been swift and merciful.

The helicopter blades kick up dirt as the chopper continues to bounce and judder and swing slowly in circles. Through the side window Byrne sees the pilot crumpled against the console and the creatures climbing over each other in their hurry to get out the open door.

He looks at Richards, who has dragged himself closer. The captain’s mask is cracked and he’s covered with blood, but the expression of resolve on his face is unmistakable. He reaches for his rifle, which remains well out of his reach.

Byrne picks up the IAR. Richards’s eyes lock onto his, then direct them toward the chopper.

The creatures rise from the fallen soldiers and turn as one toward Byrne.

Richards nods solemnly.

Byrne understands.

He raises the rifle to his shoulder. Sights down the Pave Hawk as the tail spins around again.

A blur of brown as the creatures bound toward him, their long fur flagging on the tempestuous gale.

Byrne pulls the trigger. Watches the bullets punch through the helicopter from the rear propeller toward the back door, puncturing the gas tank and tearing through electrical components.

A flash of light turns the creatures to silhouettes.

Their fur becomes flames as they’re thrown like rag dolls ahead of the explosion.

A wall of heat tosses Byrne backward.

He hits the ground near Richards. Skids across the gravel. Meets the captain’s stare one final time.

Richards nods to Byrne, then closes his eyes.

Byrne screams as the flames engulf him.

Thanks for reading SNAFU: Unnatural Selection.

We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we did putting it together.

Please consider leaving us a review, or even sampling the rest of the SNAFU series or anything else we put out, as everything is packed full of action, monsters, and creatures that wish you harm.

Table of Contents

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

Dave Beynon

Unborn

Justin Bell

The Weavers in Darkness

James A Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

Kill Team Kill

Justin A Coates

RESTLESS

Lee Murray

A Hole in the World

Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden

Cargo

B. Michael Radburn

Vermin

Richard Lee Byers

The Valley of Death

David Amendola

Venom

Michael McBride