Vexed to Nightmare by Jon Adcock

Vexed to Nightmare by Jon Adcock

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here” ~ William Shakespeare

It was zero dark thirty, late enough for all the monsters to be asleep…or so we hoped. Silhouetted against the full moon, the shattered buildings were like broken teeth jutting from a gaping mouth. The two of us were crouched behind a low stone wall. Stirred by the wind, bits of ash swirled around us, briefly clinging to our clothing before being swept away by the next gust. The recombinant released several surveillance drones and closed his eyes as the drones’ images transmitted to his implant. After a few minutes, he signaled all clear, and I motioned the rest of the team to advance.

Bioengineered from bear DNA, the recom was a hulking presence as he sat on his haunches and adjusted his weapon harness. Twin Devastators were mounted on the harness,  each capable of firing a barrage of flechettes to shred anything hit by them. The recom was twice the size of an adult male and covered with coarse fur under his combat armor. He was imposing, and, if needed, I was counting on him to punch a hole through to the extraction site.

“Too easy. Don’t like it.” The recom’s voice was a low rumble.

“You’re too pessimistic, Junior. We’ve had this conversation before. You gotta try being a glass-half-full kind of person.”

“No way it’s this easy, Loot,” Martinez said as he joined us. Junior glanced up and gestured at Martinez before returning to his harness.

“First, we’re not out of the city yet. Second, don’t fucking jinx it.” I took a swig from my canteen. “How’s the package?”

“Creepily docile. It’s not struggling or resisting in any way. Just stares at us. To be honest, it’s giving me the willies.” As we talked, the condensation of our breath swirled and danced like ghosts at some spectral ball.

The rest of the squad came up then. The package was an emaciated man in tattered clothing, barefoot despite the cold. Blake and Lopez were on either side of him, each gripping one of his arms and propelling him forward. His hands were zip-tied behind his back, and he was gagged. A mesh muzzle was secured over the lower half of his face for additional safety. Lee followed five feet behind, his rifle pointed at the man’s back. Our captive dropped to his knees and stared at us when he was let go. I stared back. The parasite rode its hosts hard. The most striking feature was his eyes. There were no whites left. Instead, they were bright red from the blood pooling in them. There was no trace of fear in those eyes, no trace of anything human, but it wasn’t like looking into a void. Something was looking back.

We were dropped into the city at nightfall. There was some…thing among all this wreck and ruin. A parasite that wore its hosts’ bodies like a suit of clothes. Our orders were to get a specimen. Lee was the newest member of the team. He was young, barely twenty, and still had a smattering of acne on his cheeks. I’d be surprised if he needed to shave more than twice a week. Blake was blonde-haired and blue-eyed—a 6’3”, corn-fed, Mid-West farm boy with a quiet competency about him. Martinez was short and stocky with a gapped-tooth smile and an easygoing manner. Lopez was devoutly religious and a family man with a bushel of kids back home. Junior was the last member of the team. Over the previous year, recombinants had been slowly integrated into the services. He was surprisingly gentle when not in combat—and had a dry sense of humor. His designation was JR-1592, but he asked us to call him Junior instead.

“So, where do you think it came from?” Blake knelt and peered into our captive’s eyes.

“Probably a bioweapon one of the sides tried using—something they deployed and then lost control of,” I said.

“Yeah, or something that crawled its way out of Hell.” Lopez crossed himself quickly.

“Whatever it is, Command wanted a sample, and we got ‘em one.” I took one final drink from my canteen. “OK, let’s go. We’ve got a ride to catch.”

Junior dropped on all fours and moved off at a lumbering gait. Martinez took the slack position and followed behind him. War had raged through this region for eighteen months, and the city had been seized and retaken several times. The fighting had been intense in this section. Most buildings were burned-out shells or crumpled piles of bricks and rubble, with twisted girders that stretched upwards like skeletal fingers reaching out from a grave. Several downed combat drones were scattered about as if they were gigantic insects swatted out of the sky. In one block, a tank column had been ambushed, and their charred husks filled the street. The turret to one tank had been blown off and was partially embedded in the side of a building. Junior abruptly settled back on his haunches and signaled a halt.

“What’s wrong,” I asked him.

“Survivors five blocks over. Three of them are INA troops. They’re being chased down.”

“Share the feed.”

I raised my right arm, and the surveillance drone’s feed was projected as a hologram above my palm. The feed was shaky, and the greenish night vision tint made it look like something filmed in some undersea grotto. There were apartment buildings along both sides of that block. The front of several had collapsed, and the exposed floors left them looking like gigantic doll houses. A group of eight people ran through the rubble. Their pursuers were slug-ridden meat puppets, like our captive. The husks were two blocks behind the survivors and gaining. There were at least two dozen, predominantly male but with a few females scattered among them. Most were gaunt, and all were dressed in dirty and ragged clothes. Some of the clothing were INA or Caliphate uniforms.

The soldiers, two men and a woman, were at the back of the survivors and falling further behind. One of the men was injured and was assisted by his squad mates as they ran. Abruptly, the uninjured male trooper let go and left the other two behind. The woman struggled to support her companion for a half block and finally chose a spot by a burned-out troop transport to make her stand. With her injured comrade at her feet, she fired a few shots as the husks approached. When her ammo ran out, she raised the rifle and held it as a club. The closest one tried to rush her from the side. She swung her weapon and connected with his head. The stock shattered, but her assailant went down. Dropping the remnant of the rifle, she drew her combat knife and dragged her companion back with her until she was finally up against the side of the transport.

“Can you say badass?” Lee leaned in closer to the projection. “We’re not letting her die, are we, Lieutenant?”

If I followed our orders, the answer to that question would be yes. Delivering the package took priority. I watched for a few more seconds as she assumed a fighting stance and feinted with the knife at the husks crowding around her. Swearing softly, I once again regretted reading Don Quixote as an impressionable kid. It was time to saddle up and play knight-errant again. The world seemed to have a never-ending supply of windmills for me to charge at.

“Not if I can help it. Martinez and Junior, you’re with me.”

Red as a bloodstain from all the smoke and ash, the full moon hung above us like a ruby pinned to the night sky. There was a heavy dusting of frost on everything, and the streets glittered as though sprinkled with diamonds in the pale moonlight that spilled across them. We used the rubble and wrecked vehicles as cover when we got closer. A demolished half-track was on the corner, and we took position behind it. I activated a dozen stingers, set them to kill, and tapped into the drone’s feed to assign them targets. The husks had overwhelmed and disarmed her. A group of them were forcing her to the ground. Three were already crouched over her companion.

With a sound like the buzzing of angry hornets, the stingers hovered a few feet above the half-track. Each of them was capable of delivering enough neurotoxin to drop a rhino. When I gave the signal, Martinez lobbed a flashbang, and I released the stingers. After the flashbang went off, Junior roared and charged into the ones crowded around her. The husks swarmed over him like rats over a dog. He reared up on his hind legs and shook them off. Two quick swipes of his paws decapitated one of them and opened up another from groin to neck. He ripped through the rest with tooth and claw. Martinez stood nearby, picking them off whenever he had a clear shot.

I ran to the ones holding her down. Her mouth was clenched tight, and one of the husks held her nose closed. When she finally opened her mouth to gasp for air, four sets of grubby hands held her mouth open as one of them leaned in close as if to kiss her. Tentacles stretched out from its mouth and latched onto her face. The slug larva slowly slid into view. It was a greenish-yellow amorphous mass covered in cilia and approximately five inches long. The tentacles surrounded a circular mouth like a lamprey’s, filled with rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth. All the better for chewing through bone or making a hole where there wasn’t one. The pictures from our briefing hadn’t done it justice.

I put the barrel of my sidearm against the temple of the one leaning over her and pulled the trigger. Junior tore through the others. Ripping the slug away from her mouth, I threw it down and ground it under my heel. According to Intel, the main parasite integrates so thoroughly that it can’t be removed. It reproduces like an amoeba, and one or two larvae are always available for implantation. The larvae were squirming out of the mouths of the dead husks. They couldn’t live long outside a host, but Junior walked among the corpses and stomped on any of them he could find. He paused after each kill and looked down at the smeared mess with satisfaction. Martinez reached down to help her up. When she was on her feet, she punched him in the throat and yanked the rifle from his hands as he staggered backward. The weapon was unwaveringly pointed toward us.

“Whoa. Do you speak English?” I pulled my helmet and balaclava off.

“Yes.” There was only a trace of an accent. The rifle barrel slowly lowered. “You’re American?”

“Yeah, but let’s save introductions for later. How bad is it, Junior? Did we kick a hornet’s nest?”

“Clear for at least half a klick, ” he said after a few moments. ‘Still don’t… ‘

“Yeah, no one’s this lucky. I don’t like it either.”

“It’s not over. They nest like insects and send out hunting parties. This was just a small one. More will be coming.” She walked over to her companion. He was lying on the ground and had started to convulse. The implanted slug was taking over. She stood over him for a moment and then put three bullets into his head.

“A friend?” I asked as she joined us.

“No. He was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve that. We need to leave.”

“When the rest of my team gets here, we will. There’s a temple just outside the city. If you want a ride, a transport is picking us up there. I’m Jackson, the big guy is Junior, and you have Martinez’s rifle. He’s going to want that back.”

“Priya, and I’m keeping it.” She was tall and slender, with caramel-colored skin and long hair as dark as a raven’s wing pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her manner was slightly imperious. Lopez and the rest came up then. When released, our captive dropped to his knees again and stared at Priya. Her eyes widened, and she strode toward him, raising the rifle as she came. “Why do you have one of them? We have to kill it.”

Blake and Lee stepped in front of the husk and raised their weapons. As she passed him, Junior lunged and swept her up with one of his paws. He plucked the rifle out of her hands as he held her pinned against his chest with one massive arm.

“Kill it.”  Priya ineffectually struggled to break free from Junior’s grip.

“We’re taking it with us. That’s our mission.” I said. “You can accept that and tag along or try it alone. Your choice.”

“They’re linked. It’s all the same creature. Keep it alive, and every one of them will know where we are.”

“We’ve got trouble, Lieutenant.” Junior had closed his eyes. “More of them are coming.”

“How many more?”

“A whole fucking city’s worth…and I’m being optimistic. Maybe fifteen minutes ‘til they’re here.”

There was a harsh sound that grew in intensity. Blake and Lee turned around and stared down at the husk. The gag had come loose. Its head was thrown back, and it made the sound repeatedly.

“Fuck me,” Blake said. “Is it laughing?”

“Lieutenant?” There was an edge of panic in Lee’s voice.

I walked up to the husk. It stopped making the sound and stared at me, a smile slowly forming as it did so. Our mission was to secure a sample, but I didn’t know anything about these things. I should probably listen to someone who did. I shot it.

“Let her go, Junior, and share what you’ve got.” I raised my right arm, and a holo map of the surrounding area was projected above my palm. Our position was marked in blue, with red dots marking the positions of the incoming hostiles. It was an ocean of red. “Priya, you know this city. I need a route away from our friends and to the extraction site. Any suggestions?” I handed her my sidearm as I asked this.

“The underground metro.” She pointed out a spot nearby on the map. “One of the newer branches runs out to the river. A bridge near the terminus will take us across to the temple.”

“So, take our chances in a long dark tunnel, or stay up top and get overrun?” I watched the red tide on the map advance.

  “The route’s clear from here to the station’s entrance,” Junior said.

“Alright, tunnel it is.”

The station must have been stately and beautiful before war raged through the city like a mad bull. Now, substantial portions of the ornate ceiling had collapsed, and the elaborately painted murals on the outside walls lay in brightly colored pieces on the ground. We picked our way through rubble and twisted girders until we reached rows of stilled escalators that stretched downwards into darkness as thick as tar. Junior sent the remaining surveillance drones ahead and released a swarm of fyreflies to light the way. The bots flew around us, enclosing us in a ten-foot cocoon of soft radiance as we descended the steps to the subway platform. The tunnel loomed before us, black and gaping like the maw of some enormous animal. We jumped off the platform and entered it.

“You were sent to get a sample?” Priya asked me after we had walked for an hour in silence. We were at the very back of the group. Two drones followed behind as rear guards to watch our six. It looked like we had evaded the husks, but I was still uneasy and glanced over my shoulder every few feet.

“Guess that’s not much of a secret anymore. Command got wind of what was happening and wanted a specimen, probably for R&D. We were dropped in last night to get it. Any idea where it came from?”

“No.” She was quiet for a moment or two. “I’ve never believed in our gods and demons. Now I’m not so sure. The demon Andhaka is said to have a thousand eyes and arms. This one has tens of thousands. Every host is part of it.”

“Yeah, Lopez is convinced this is a jailbreak from Hell. Was the city already overrun when you rolled in?”

 “No, it was gradual. This area is isolated and not strategically important. Only a small force was left to secure things when the Caliphate was pushed back to the west. Mostly, we tried to help the civilians still here. We established a base in the city’s center and set up food distribution centers. Patrols went into neighborhoods, looking for people who needed assistance. After a while, we started hearing rumors. Whispered stories about things that were men, but not men and areas of the city no one entered after dark. Then, the food trucks and patrols stopped returning. Four days ago, we finally got a specimen. What we know is from that autopsy. The next morning, a dense fog hung over everything. It was like a grey blanket was thrown over the world. The drones started picking up heat signatures—a lot of them. Shapes started coming out of the fog. Children or what had once been children. Hundreds of them. They swarmed over everything and everyone in their path when we hesitated, not wanting to open fire on a bunch of kids.”

“Jesus, I can’t even imagine what that was like.”

“I relive it every time I close my eyes.” We walked in silence for a while, each lost in their thoughts. I had no doubt she was standing on that fog-shrouded street once again. “Do you have any children?” She finally asked me.

“Yeah, a daughter.” I pulled her picture out of my pocket and showed it to Priya. “Her name is Amy, and she’s seven. She lives with her mom. The marriage didn’t last long, but it gave me Amy, so I can’t complain. You?”

 “A ten-year-old boy. Parth.”

“Husband? Wife?”

“I had a husband, Arish, but he died when the war broke out.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and she nodded. “I don’t think I’ll get married again. It’s too hard on the ones left at home. Though, Lopez seems to have made it work. Hey, Lopez, how many kids now? Five?”

“Remember, she’s pregnant again, Lieutenant. Number six in June.” He said.

“Christ, Lopez. Climb off her every once in a while.” Blake called out.

“What can I say? My wife and I love each other. You get sick of being single, let me know, Blake. Theresa’s got a cousin I can fix you up with. Don’t worry; she’s pretty—almost as pretty as Theresa is.”

“Good thing your wife’s pretty. Those kids would be fucked if they only had you to rely on for their looks,” Martinez called back.

“So, what’s your story, Priya?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Those two troopers were regular army. The way you handle and carry yourself, you’re not. Military Intelligence?”

“I never thanked you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome, but you didn’t answer the question.”

“I know.”

In the dank tunnels, the darkness was a feral animal that shrank from the light and quietly crept after us. The only sounds were our footsteps and the soft scurrying of the rats. Their tiny eyes blazed from the shadows like constellations of stars. We had a subway system map downloaded and checked it at junctions to stay on course. After three hours of walking, we were on the branch that ran out to the river. Here and there, we had passed disabled trains in the tunnels. Several of them were stalled on this section of track. Martinez was on point then. He paused and signaled a halt when he reached the end of one of the disabled trains.

“What’s wrong?” I called out.

“Survivors. Kids. I’m going to check if they’re alright.” He answered and disappeared behind the train.

“Martinez, God damn it. Stop.” I shouted.

When we got there, he was gone. It was like the ground had opened, and the abyss had taken him. Junior released a swarm of fyreflies set at full illumination. The light ravenously bit into the ebony blackness, tearing off huge chunks. The darkness fled, driven back to crouch in corners and hide in the recesses.

“Those double doors over there, Priya; what does that sign say?” I asked.

“It’s a cross passage between tunnels. It’s for evacuations.”

The doors were fifteen feet away, and one was partially open. It hung like a broken jaw. We moved up on them carefully. Once there, Junior took up position in front of them. He activated the shouldered mounted guns, and they swung up on their struts. When Lee and Blake yanked the doors open, Junior braced himself, the guns swiveling as they waited for target acquisition. A long, empty concrete corridor stretched before us. Junior sent the rear-guard drones ahead and then lumbered after them. We were right behind him. The fyreflies were in a wide dispersal pattern to optimize visibility.

“There’re stairs up ahead. Someone’s on them.” Junior had called a halt.

“Martinez?” I asked.

“No, too small. A child.”

Halfway down the corridor, there was an alcove with stairs leading up to ground level. Near the foot of them, a small child sat with his head in his hands. He was about seven or eight, close to my daughter’s age. The sound of his sobs almost drowned out the echoes of our footfalls as we approached him. We lowered our weapons, feeling foolish and not wanting to traumatize him further. Lopez crouched to be less threatening and laid a reassuring hand on the child’s shoulder.

“Tell him he’s safe now, Priya. He can come with us.” I knelt next to Lopez.

The child raised his head then and smiled. The most striking feature was his eyes. There were no whites left. Instead, they were bright red from the blood pooling in them. He opened his mouth, and a tentacle darted out and struck Lopez in the neck. He grabbed at his throat as if stung and collapsed. I tried to back up as it turned towards me and lost my balance. Something flicked past my head as I fell back. Priya emptied her pistol into its face.

“Still breathing, but unconscious.” Lee was kneeling over Lopez, checking vitals.

“What the fuck? Have you seen it do that before, Priya?” I asked.

“No. It must be adapting and changing. Getting better at capturing prey. It’s better at wearing us, too.” This last part was said in a half-whisper, the fear in her voice palpable.

 “Where’s Martinez? Are you getting anything, Junior?” I asked. “Did they drag him to the other tunnel or up the stairs?”

“I’m blind. The drones have gone dark, Lieutenant,” Junior said after a moment.

“Which ones?”

“All of them. In both tunnels. I caught movement before they went out. Lots of it.”

“Fuck!” This would be a death trap if we stayed. “We need to get out of here.”

The stairs were mounted to the wall like a fire escape and ended at a large landing. Two metal panels inserted into the ceiling were the exit. I climbed the wide ladder leading up to them. The panels opened outward, with a deadbolt as a lock. The bolt was rusted in place. As I hit it repeatedly with my hand, we heard them coming. The corridor rumbled with the echo of their running footfalls. Junior positioned himself at the top of the stairs while Blake and Lee leaned over the railing and opened up on the wave surging from below. I kept pounding on the bolt until it finally broke loose. I heard the high-pitched, staccato whine of Junior’s guns firing in short bursts as I pushed up on the panels. One of them rose an inch or two, and I was showered with dirt and pieces of rubble. It wouldn’t budge any further. It must have been buried under debris.

“Blake, I need help getting this open,” I called out. Junior was descending the stairs. They were wide enough that Lee could walk beside him as support. Priya was sitting against the nearby wall with Lopez’s head cradled in her lap. He was starting to stir. “Priya, try to get him ambulatory.”

With Blake’s help, we got the one panel to give a little more. Then, he climbed as high on the ladder as possible, pressed his back against the panel, and heaved himself upwards. More dirt and pieces of rubble cascaded in. Blake braced himself and thrust upwards again, straining until the panel finally gave way. Once it was open, we jumped down from the ladder. Lopez was on his feet, supported by Priya.

“Help him out of here,” I told Blake.

Junior and Lee were still descending the stairs. The guns were in free-fire mode, and the flechettes tore through the husks surging from below. As each spent magazine ejected, Lee would slam a fresh one in. The rounds threw the ones in front up against those crowding behind them. Those first few hung there, doing a macabre dance before finally dropping. The ones behind climbed over their bodies. Only a handful of fyreflies were near, and Junior and Lee were draped with shadows. The bottom portion of the stairs and the tunnel were in near darkness. In the gloom, the barrels of the guns glowed a dull red as they overheated.

“Junior, Lee,” I shouted. “The exit is open. Fallback.”

They slowly backed up the stairs. Like a tidal surge, the husks relentlessly followed after them, climbing over their dead in pursuit. The right gun seized up, and then the left. The husks washed over them like a wave. Junior managed to rear up and take two steps. Lee was unconscious and was cradled in one of Junior’s immense arms. Junior took two more swaying steps before he dropped to his knees. The husks were trying to force his mouth open. As I ran down the stairs to help, the fyreflies clustered above Junior and illuminated him in stark relief. He raised his right arm. In his hand was a grenade. The pin had been pulled.

The echoes of the explosion followed me up the ladder. As I climbed out, I shook my head at Blake’s questioning look. I slammed the exit closed. The panels had handles parallel to each other. I grabbed some rebar from the surrounding rubble and shoved the pieces under them. After a few moments, scrabbling and thumping came from below, and the panels rose slightly. The rebar stopped them from opening any further. Priya had said they nested like insects. How they swarmed up the stairs reminded me of documentary footage of army ants I had watched in school. Like the ants, they were relentless, single-minded in purpose, and as pitiless as the sun. There weren’t many things I hated, but I hated these things.

Devastation stretched out before us. This section of the city had been heavily bombed. Not a single building was still standing, and the blast craters were raw wounds filled with stagnant water. In the corner of my vision was a counter to evac. It was strobing red. I brought up the city map and checked our position. There was still a distance to go before we reached the temple. We had spent too much time in the subway.

“We have less than an hour to get to the extraction site. We need to double-time it.” I said.

“Your friend can barely walk,” Priya pointed at Lopez, sitting on a pile of rubble, his head in his hands. “It will be light soon, and those things are hunting us. We can hold up someplace and sneak out tomorrow night or the next. Surely another transport can be sent then.”

“Staying isn’t an option.”

“Why? What aren’t you telling me?”

“You said it yourself. This area is isolated and not strategically important. Several missiles will be launched soon. I don’t know if they’re yours, theirs, or some of ours, but their payloads are nuclear. This city will be wiped off the face of the Earth.”  

‘There’s still people in hiding here.” She raised her hand to her mouth in horror.

“Yeah, it’s fucked up, but it is what it is.” Grief and anger made me snap this out. “Guess the powers that be decided they didn’t have the resources to contain this.” I knelt in front of Lopez. “Blake and I will help you, Luis, but we have to move fast. You got those kids to get back to. You need to do your best.”

“I’m good. I got this, Lieutenant.” He struggled to his feet and stood there swaying.

Blake and I each grabbed an arm and half-dragged and half-carried him. The going was slower than I wanted. The streets were choked with piles of rubble we had to climb over, and the counter to evac kept clicking down. I didn’t have a Plan B.

“We need to check something out, Lieutenant.” Blake abruptly said.

“We don’t have time.”

“This could help.” He pointed to a collapsed building nearby. A vehicle was in the rubble.

It was an old hover sled, its chassis pocked with bullet holes, and a desiccated corpse in the driver’s seat. Half the driver’s head was gone. I didn’t think anyone still used sleds. They were too slow and not armored enough. In a war zone, flying one of them would be like riding on a clay pigeon at a shooting range. Blake pulled the driver’s remains out of the seat and took their place. He checked the instrument panel.

“Still has some charge left,” Blake said.

“If it’s operational, can you fly it?” I asked.

“Yeah. In high school, my neighbor bought an old one like this from Army Surplus. My buddies and I used to steal it and take it joyriding.” There was a high-pitched screech, and the sled shuddered violently but lifted a foot or so off the ground. “I think one of the blades is bent. I can’t guarantee a smooth ride, but it will be quicker than walking.”

The sled consisted of two seats in front and a fairly deep bed in the back for hauling supplies. It was even more stripped down than the usual barebones they were noted for. Whatever it had been for, either speed or lift, the alterations hadn’t done the last guy any good. Priya and Lopez entered the cargo bed, and I took the shotgun seat.

The sled listed 20 degrees to the right, and the shuddering came in waves, but it flew. The one thing sleds were noted for was their stealth. Not this one. It screeched like a banshee. Blake got it fifty feet off the ground, and we put block after block behind us as we raced towards the evac site. The wind had picked up, and sudden gusts would cause the sled to lurch sideways. Blake struggled to keep it steady. Dawn was close, and the horizon’s edge began to smolder. I could make out the dark, winding ribbon of the river ahead of us and the hillside where the pickup would be. Then, the sled abruptly dropped twenty feet.

“Running out of charge,” Blake said. “I don’t think we have enough juice to get to the evac site, but I’ll get as close as possible.”

The last few blocks were nerve-wracking as the sled lurched and struggled to maintain altitude. We dropped some more and were barely skimming over the top of the debris. The sky blossomed with crimson and gold as the sun began its ascent from behind the nearby mountain range.

“I need to put it down.” Blake finally said.

The sled landed with a jarring thud. We were in one of the city’s older and poorer sections. Heavy fighting had skipped this section, and the buildings were mostly intact. The streets were narrow and unpaved, with dilapidated houses packed close together. Most were shanties with corrugated tin roofs and blankets for front doors. Blake and I helped Lopez out. When we let go, he slid to the ground and sat against the sled.

“Get them to the evac site. I’ll be along in a few minutes.” I told him.

“Why? What’s going on, Lieutenant?”

“There’s something I need to do. Get them safe, Jimmy. I won’t be long.”

He hesitated briefly and then helped Lopez up. Priya gave me a questioning look but went with them. A half dozen stingers remained, and I activated them. All but one was set to kill. We had passed over a small group of husks before Blake put us down. The mission was to get a sample, and I wouldn’t let my men die in vain.

Dawn was breaking, but the buildings blocked most of the early morning light. Night still tenaciously held on in the alleyways, and shadows blanketed everything. Gusts of wind whistled down the empty streets, sweeping up trash that swirled through the air like flocks of birds. There were clotheslines strung between the houses and the clothes pinned to them snapped in the breeze. The only other sounds were the creaks of the corrugated roof panels. A small man dressed in a tattered INA uniform squatted on his haunches in the middle of the next block.

“Where’s the rest?” I stopped a safe distance from him. “There were at least ten of you.”

 All I got was a smile for an answer. When the husk started to rise, the non-lethal stinger hit him in the abdomen. He pulled it out and stared for a moment before collapsing.

 “Well, here I am. What are you waiting for?” I called out.

The only sounds were the wind and its rustlings. Most of the shanties were windowless, and little of their interiors could be seen through the flapping door coverings. A hundred meat puppets could have been hidden along the street, and I wouldn’t have known. I secured the husk with zip ties, ensured the mesh muzzle was firmly in place, and lifted him in a fireman’s carry.

The river was further away than I thought, and the evac counter reached zero long before I got close. There was a small park on this side of the river. At the end of the park, a cement ramp corkscrewed upwards to a pedestrian skyway that led to the levee. I set my burden down and rested for a bit at the base of the ramp. If the transport were gone, I’d leave my friend and try to get as far away from the city as possible. Maybe I’d even get lucky and find another working vehicle.  

Once across the river, the temple was on a nearby hillside. The sky was full of clouds, but the sun poured like butterscotch on the temple’s dome and grounds whenever they parted. It was beautiful. I shifted my grip on the husk and trudged up the pathway. I wasn’t religious, but I still whispered a prayer or two that the transport would be on the other side of the hill. The Kestrel was there. Quiet and fast, it was effective at small team insertions. I felt a surge of relief.

Two combat drones made a slow circuit of the LZ. When I got in range, they broke off and raced towards me, weapon systems hot. The drones were eight feet long and resembled mutant mosquitos. My ID chip was pinged. They slowed and circled, weapons still targeting me while they waited for the verbal passcode. After I gave it, the drones returned to their patrol. Priya and Luis were in the doorway of the Kestrel.

“Got room for two more?” I called out when I got closer.

“That was stupid to do,” Priya snapped.

“Yeah, I can be impulsive at times. I like to think it’s endearing.”

“It’s not.” She reached down and, with Luis’s help, pulled the husk inside.

“Hey, thanks for waiting,” I told the pilots after I had climbed in and secured the door.

“Didn’t have much of a choice. The big one kept us here at gunpoint,” the pilot said with exasperation laced with a bit of amusement. She was tall and stately with rich, dark brown skin.

“Look, no hard feelings. I know a great bar near the base. I’m buying when we get back.” Blake said. From the glare the co-pilot gave him, it would take more than a few drinks to win him over.

“Might take you up on that,” she said. “Buckle up. Once the Bugs are stowed, we’re hauling ass.”

The rear ramp lowered, and the Bugs flew in and entered their docking stations. Seats along both sides of the Kestrel were interspersed with harnesses for recom troops. While the rest buckled up, I dragged the husk over and shackled him to the seat frame across from us. He was beginning to stir. The Kestrel rose vertically and hovered for a few seconds before accelerating away. The city receded behind us.

 “Did you know him?” I asked Priya. She had been staring at the husk.

“Not very well, but yes. His name was Kushal.”

The cabin was loud, but we could still talk in reasonably normal tones. The husk was fully conscious now and pulled himself into a sitting position against one of the chairs. His shackles prevented him from raising his arms high enough to undo the muzzle. He stared at us in the same disturbing way the other one had. I felt like a bug under a microscope. I stared back. He was entirely still except for his right foot. It was spasmodically twitching.

“There’s something in there. It thinks and plans, but I don’t get the subway?” I said mostly to myself. “There were only seven of us, and it lost dozens of hosts trying to infect us. Is it just driven to do it, damn the cost?”

There was a jagged section near the base of a nearby chair. The husk abruptly slashed his arm against it.  As the blood spilled down, he leaned forward and wrote “want taste” in blood on the floor of the transport.

“Fuck me,” Blake said as Lopez crossed himself.

“Taste? Taste what?” I felt a shiver down my back.

“thoughts memories,” it wrote and, after a pause, added, “delicious.”

“Oh my God,” Priya blurted out. “Kushal is still there. The foot movements, it’s code.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Kill me.”

The husk looked down at his twitching foot as if he were only now aware. He looked up and smiled. Maybe it had been wishful thinking, but I assumed the hosts were gone. As the cilia lengthened and threaded through the host’s brain, I figured enough damage was done to snuff out the original owner. Instead, it looked like they were still in there. What would that be like? Locked in while something wore your body and whispered to you in the dark?  Catching it had been too easy. It knew about the incoming missiles from Martinez and was trying to survive.

The mission was to get a sample, but I never questioned why. It was a monster, but it could be our monster with a few tweaks. You just needed to tame and control it. Eliminate the tell-tale signs of infection and find a way for it to talk, and you’ll have the ultimate infiltrator. I unbuckled, took out the remaining stingers, and jabbed them into its thigh. As it began to convulse, the light coming through the rear windows increased a thousandfold.

“They’re early. There’s a shockwave coming. Brace yourselves, turbulence is going to be a bitch,” the pilot called out.

 After a few moments, the shockwave hit. The Kestrel violently lurched and dropped, throwing us against our restraints. The plane stalled and started losing altitude in a downward spiral. Clouds, mountains, and the ground cascaded past the windows. After a few terrifying moments, the pilot was able to bring it back under control.

“I owe you dinner now,” Blake called out to her.

“Sugar, you owe me dinner and then some.”

The slug larva had emerged and was pushing against the mesh muzzle. I watched as its movements became feebler and feebler. I had mixed emotions as I watched it die. Satisfaction was part of it, but there was also a sickening feeling that it wasn’t entirely over. The splicers would still have something left to work with. Maybe this one was gone, but something similar would probably come from the gene labs down the road. If I could, I’d burn everything until nothing was left.

“I’ll take the responsibility for killing it,” I told Blake and Lopez.

“It attacked us after its muzzle came off,” Luis tore the muzzle off and ground the larva under his boot. ‘Fuck it anyway. It didn’t deserve to live after what it did to our guys and the rest.”

We sat in silence for a while, remembering and mourning missing friends. Priya was sitting next to me. She reached over and clasped my hand. I gave it a gentle squeeze, looked up, and smiled. The sky was full of clouds. The undersides of some of the distant ones were brushed with faint light—the light of a burning city.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Jon Adcock 2024