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PROJECT BLACKWORM

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Julian Michael Carver


150 Kilometers Northwest of Chengde, China

Near the China-Mongolian border

20 August 2037


Phew! Smells like bear shit.

Trying to ignore the liquefying sensation of swamp crud soaking into his boots, Private Zane Kennedy of the United States Marine Corps glanced back at the AAPV-7A1 amphibious armored vehicle.

Wedged in between two gnarled trees that jutted out from the swamp, the amtrac had become a permanent fixture of the Northern Chinese swampland. The treacherous night trek ahead beckoned, as Zane observed the eerie environment through the ghostly green glow of his night-vision goggles.

Caught below the swamp by some unseen obstacle—possibly a leftover from the war—the vehicle had thrown track and become utterly inoperative. The Marines’ comms equipment had also been fried after a Chinese computer virus had infected the network during the Tianjin Offensive, ruining any chances of signaling their position.

Eager to begin the journey to the runway on foot, Zane was the first one out of the hatch and into the water. With similar enthusiasm, the vehicle’s five other occupants followed.

The delay caused by the amtrac’s immobility would almost certainly mark them as the last squad out of China. With the war having come to a close months earlier, and the Pentagon ordering the last of the Old Breed’s battalions out of the war zone, Zane was relieved to finally be going home. When he wasn’t holed up in the amtrac, his tenure in China had been spent storming bombed-out cities and manning foxholes. The amtrac had been their shelter, guarding them from the shrapnel from cluster munitions dropped from Shenyang J-11 aircraft as well as small-arms fire from waves of Chinese infantry. Leaving the sunken vehicle behind was bittersweet, but buoyed by the dream of returning to the world, Zane eagerly splashed through the swamp, letting the wetlands swallow the vehicle’s remains.

Beats the hell out of waiting to get rescued. Wading through fetid water, he shuddered. I can’t believe we’re in this mess! Thanks for that, Sarge.

To save time, Sergeant Connor Ford, known for his discreet, unauthorized excursions, decided to take a little detour to the extraction point: a shortcut through a swamp just shy of the Great Wall of China’s ruins. His rationale: one last joyride to reminisce on their time overseas and a chance to push the aging amtrac to its limits. Unfortunately for Ford, the vehicle failed his moronic test, marooning the six of them in a bleak wasteland miles south of the extraction point.

“Quit your belly-aching, Kennedy,” Zane recalled the sergeant bellowing when questioned about the last-minute route. “This vehicle hasn’t done us wrong yet. Don’t worry; your whining ass will be sittin’ pretty on a C-47 fappin’ to centerfolds before you know it. Now chin up, and drive us through that forest!”

Zane—the amtrac’s driver—complied, and about an hour after leaving the main road and pushing through the wetland, the vehicle had gotten stuck in a shallow pond, becoming an enduring monument to the prolonged Sino-American War. He had tried to move the machine through the muck, but the steaming water had told him a story he hadn’t wanted to hear. Once he’d heard a buckling sound near the vehicle’s treads, he’d known the machine was toast. Not only had the vehicle thrown track, but also the worn treads had snapped, leaving nothing but the wheel assembly to churn helplessly in pond silt.

Carrying part of the blame for their ill-fated journey, Zane was tasked with scouting ahead of the five other Marines, plotting a course through the swamp toward their long-awaited salvation.

“Eyes ahead, Kennedy,” grumbled Corporal Lonnie Hackett, waving his M5 through a cloud of cantankerous mosquitoes. “I’d hate to get greased by a sniper just a few klicks from the extraction point.”

If they wait for us,” Private Dwight Simms grumbled from the tail end of the small group. “They might label us MIA and leave us for dead.”

“Now why would you say that?” Private First Class Wyatt Mayfield frowned, channeling his thick Brooklyn accent. “You’ll jinx us, Simms!”

“Relax, Mayfield,” Dwight groaned, tripping on a sunken log. “War’s over—no one’s gonna snipe you. Besides, you think they’d have snipers defending a hellhole like this? This isn’t some lush bamboo forest; it’s a swamp! Hell, half of it’s underwater.”

Following a compass needle and Sergeant Ford’s pure intuition, the convoy maneuvered five miles inland, praying for signs of the US runway. When hours passed and no one spotted a C-47, Zane couldn’t help but groan in defeat.

Since abandoning the amtrac, all he could do was pray for a swift arrival at the tarmac. Now, he found himself hoping a pit viper wouldn’t clamp down on his kneecap.

Finally, after passing endless pools, scorched trees, and obsolete military equipment from years gone by, the Marines found a patch of dry land. Mayfield was the first to touch down, falling on his face and kissing the mud. Spitting the sordid soil from his parched lips prompted ridicule from his peers.

“Probably a mix of snake shit and twenty-year-old diesel!” Dwight chuckled, pulling his companion back to his feet. “You might grow a second head now with all the crap they’ve dumped here! How’d that taste, Mayfield?”

“A little better than your mother’s moldy snat—

“Sergeant, with all due respect,” Zane interrupted, eyeing the oncoming terrain, “shouldn’t we be approaching the extraction point? I figured we would’ve heard a C-47 by now. But nothing. Not even perimeter lights.”

And that awful swamp ambiance. I won’t miss this place one bit.

“You think you could do better, Private Kennedy?” Sergeant Ford grunted, scraping swamp residue off his boot with his knife.

“No, Sergeant,” Zane replied immediately. “Not at all. The compass doesn’t lie. I just wonder if we might have estimated that the extraction point may have been a little . . . uh . . . farther away than we had originally thought.”

“I could try the radio again,” Mayfield suggested, unzipping his backpack. “Got a little banged up after Tianjin, but I salvaged what I could. I reckon if I fiddle around with it, we could—”

“Save it, Private Mayfield,” Sergeant Ford went on, eyeing Zane. “Admit it, Private Kennedy. You just want to bitch about my shortcut!”

“No, Sergeant! I—

Before Zane could defend himself, the sergeant did something he never had.

“I fucked up,” Ford said, slamming his fist into a gnarled tree. “Okay? I was wrong! There, happy, Kennedy? It’s bad enough that I’ll have to report to the CO that I cost the battalion an amtrac. Now I gotta worry about gettin’ you four assholes back home safe and sound.”

Four? Uh, Sarge—shouldn’t there be five of us?”

Corporal Lonnie Hackett’s haunting words hung in the air, sending a chill up Zane’s spine as he turned back to the ghastly swamp. When they had left the mired amtrac, there had been six Marines. Now, as they regrouped on the dark, desolate island in the swamp, Zane had counted five, including him and Ford. Between the sunken amtrac miles to the south, and their current coordinates, someone had gone missing.

Reybitz.

“Where’s Trey?” Mayfield shrieked, instinctively clicking off the safety of his M5. “Hey, Trey! Trey Reybi—

“Simmer down, Mayfield,” Sergeant Ford snapped, veins bulging from stress. “And put that safety back on! The swamp’s got everyone on edge, is all. If a snake or sniper would’ve plugged him, we woulda heard somethin’!”

“We gotta go back,” Zane insisted, even though he recoiled at the idea of retracing his steps through the swamp.

“No shit, Kennedy!” Ford snapped, straightening his helmet. “You think I was gonna leave him?”

“No, Sergeant. Of course not—

“Okay, spread out. If he drowned, we’ll find him. Swamp’s only a few feet deep. Damn, we’re already runnin’ late! They’re gonna give me shit on the runway for this. Fan out! Let’s get this over with!”

Zane cringed as his boot sunk back into the gunk, vanishing under a green film of leech-infested swamp. Finding himself on the edge of the search party, he scanned through the mist with the grainy green light of his night-vision goggles. It was nearly two in the morning, four hours after they had been scheduled to depart for the States. If they were fortunate enough to set foot on the tarmac, Zane feared their plane may have already departed, postponing their homecoming in Camp Pendleton.

Damn, Reybitz! Where the hell did you get to?

Private Trey Reybitz—who had been at the rear of the group—had disappeared suddenly and inconspicuously. Retracing his steps, Zane pieced together the squad’s path since they’d abandoned the amtrac. He had last recalled hearing the plainspoken Texan about two klicks beyond their starting position, when Zane had asked how deep the swamp water was. After a few guesses from the others, Reybitz had responded. That was the last time anyone had heard from him.

How the hell did he just disappear? You mean no one else noticed him missing? How far could we have possibly gone since he vanished? This is too surreal.

“Seriously, Reybitz,” Corporal Hackett yelled, wading through a deeper section of swamp. “I better not get any more leeches. This is the last thing I wanted to do.”

“Especially when I saw myself seeing Beijing shrinking from a plane window,” Private Simms added, swatting mosquitoes and patting his brow with his shirt collar.

“See anythin’?” Sergeant Ford shouted from the opposite end of the search party.

“Nothing yet, Sarge!” Mayfield replied.

Trying not to gag on the rancid swamp’s stench, Zane waded timidly through the frothy pools. Twenty meters to his left, Simms was barely visible, obscured by bramble patches. The other members of his company remained concealed behind a wall of fog, apparent only by their constant bitching.

I can’t wait to get out of here, Zane thought, trying to imagine the calming rustle of leaves in smalltown America. Come on, Reybitz, where the—

Something intruded on his thoughts; something that didn’t belong. Ahead, the shadowy silhouette of a Marine, stood rigid in swamp water two feet deep.

Splashing a few steps, Zane arrived within fifteen meters of the man.

Trey Reybitz.

Oh, thank God!

“Trey!” Zane yelled, hardly believing his eyes. “Hey, guys! I found him. Hey, Reybi—”

Trey Reybitz was unresponsive. At first, Zane wasn’t sure how to approach his comrade. Was Trey suffering from a PTSD episode?

“Trey, what the hell man?” Zane called, wading toward his comrade. “You lookin’ to get court-martialed?”

“Hey Reybitz!” Ford yelled as the other Marines came splashing through the fog. “Hey, why don’t you—?

Holy shit!” Hackett screamed, raising his rifle. “His arm! Where’s his fucking arm!?!”

Arm? Hackett, what are you talkin’—

As Zane circumnavigated Reybitz, he witnessed the bloodcurdling truth; a reality so obscure and horrific it made the battle of Beijing look like a luxury cruise. The unsettling sight nearly knocked him back into the festering swamp. Nothing in basic training could’ve prepared him for what came next.

Something pushed Trey sideways. Clamped onto his left arm were the jaws of a shadowy biped, covered in hair, wreathed in shredded leaves and swamp matter.

At first, Zane thought it was a man in a ghillie suit, but the figure’s glowing eyes suggested otherwise. Zane stood in stunned silence, watching in horror as the figure feasted on Trey’s right arm, now a mangled stub of blood drizzling flesh. The creature, seemingly unaware it was being observed, kept one hand planted on Trey’s pale forehead, as if using it for leverage, while Trey stared blankly into space.

Dammit!” Corporal Hackett cursed. “The hell is that thing?”

“Our next target,” Ford replied, switching the safety off his M5. “Light ’em up, boys!”

“No, Reybitz is still breathing!” Zane howled. “Don’t—

A torrent of small arms fire lit up the dark swamp. Rounds raced toward the skunk-ape-thing at three thousand feet per second. The barrage ripped apart Reybitz, snapping the incoherent Marine out of his stupor only to be eviscerated by a hail of bullets. The creature caught one in the shoulder, dropping the shredded Marine. Now, with a clean shot, the Marines sent round after round into the beast’s gut, chest, and head. The animal remained upright for over a minute, before collapsing on the fallen Marine in a splash of mud and water.

At least these fuckers can be killed!

Zane unloaded his magazine into the ape-thing’s back, before turning around and facing his squad.

“Sarge, Trey was still alive! Sarge?!

Sergeant Connor Ford froze in place. With a smack of his lips, his mouth hung open. He dropped his M5. Corporal Hackett, Private Simms, and Private Mayfield seemed equally catatonic, their weapons splashing into the water.

Swamp sludge curdling around their kneecaps, the four men stood stone still, bewitched by the same powerful spell that had overtaken Reybitz.

Jamming another mag into his weapon, Zane charged his M5, then aimed in the direction opposite their transfixed gazes.

There you are!

It took only a moment to identify the creatures in the shadows about twenty meters away; four of them, one for each spellbound Marine.

Zane aimed center of mass, then fired his M5, sweeping from left to right in disciplined three-round bursts.

Three creatures dropped in quick succession, but the fourth . . . where . . . ?

The hairs on the back of Zane’s neck prickled. A brilliant aura of fluorescent light washed over him; a kaleidoscopic experience of colors unknown in an endless vortex. From a world away, he felt the grip of his spent M5 slip from his hands, rattling off rounds until it splashed into the swamp. His consciousness departing and his short-term memory a blur, Zane couldn’t help but succumb to the monster’s cerebral voodoo.

Unable to control his own body, his kneecaps gave way, slamming him into the foul swamp water.

And there, in the festering pool, he witnessed a kaleidoscope of madness.


Fragments of the past few hours jumbled or forgotten, Zane couldn’t look away from the light. Or rather, the glow radiating from the outstretched hand of a central figure. The entity reached into Zane’s mind, sorting out his thoughts, fears, and desires.

A wave of images invaded Zane’s consciousness. Soon, Zane came to understand the strange, sordid history of the swamp.

Through an alien awareness, Zane glimpsed the swamp years earlier as a calm prairie on the Mongolian border, farmed and tilled under the long shadow of the Great Wall of China.

The vision jolted into darkness when the American warplanes arrived. Cluster munitions mixed with white phosphorus as the topography of the prairie churned and burned. Impact craters from the blasts desecrated the land, leaving it vulnerable to rainfall that flooded the landscape.

The wildlife adapted to the new environment or perished. But one species evolved at an exponential rate, elevating their consciousness to a higher level.

After the United States Army and Marine Corps took the fight inland, the swamp’s proximity to the runway made it a convenient dumping ground for toxic and radioactive waste—a festering cauldron of the horrific byproducts of the Sino-American War. From this caustic cocktail, these things emerged with the power to hijack human consciousness.

Able to remotely influence unsuspecting humans.

One such telepathic nudge had convinced Sergeant Connor Ford that there was a shortcut through the swamp. Zane then saw a vision of the actual route they had taken, a convoluted maze, twisted with miles upon miles of mangled trees and submerged bomb craters. Having seen the true nature of the swamp, Zane realized his squad had had no hope of traveling through it without stumbling into the strange colony.

Their entire excursion had been a ruse; lured into a human abattoir by a species of irradiated, but genetically enhanced mutants.

And these unnatural abominations had only two goals; to breed and to consume.

No! Break free! Fight it! Fight it and break—

Free.

Reality blurred around Zane as the hallucinogenic haze wore off. The ground rushed at him, as the moist muddy floor smeared his face.

Ugh!

It took everything in him to move; his brain, having traded energy with his captor, fought to communicate with his body. With great effort, he willed his head to tilt and take in his new surroundings.

Suffering from missing time, Zane last placed their position ten feet from the amtrac, beginning their trek through the swamp. Now he found himself in a crudely dug, subterranean warren. American and Chinese artifacts of war were strewn about the dark domain, illuminated by moonlight shining through the carved windows of the muddy walls. Skeletal human remains littered the area, their faces wedged in the muddied walls like rebar. The stench of death and decay was everywhere. It was a place of complete despair and lost hope, a testament to years of brutality, contamination, and war.

Uncle Sam’s own outhouse right in Beijing’s backyard.

Zane’s memories returned in fragmented, blurry pieces. He now remembered what had transpired after departing the amtrac.

The swamp trek. Reybitz going AWOL. The creatures.

Suddenly it was clear; he had been abducted by the strange beings and taken to their lair where they planned to digest his remains, just like they were doing with Reybitz after their hypnotic possession of his physical—

Hey, Zane! Get up! It’s coming back, man!”

He turned to the left, where Private First Class Wyatt Mayfield stood ten feet away, fused to the wall with translucent swamp goo.

Zane followed Mayfield’s awkward head-bobbing to the floor. One of the creatures was struggling to get up. Somehow during their duel of consciousness, Zane had managed to subdue the being long enough to break free of its spell. Using its hairy, mud-caked arms to lift itself back up, the beast regained its stance, towering over him by at least a foot.

Dude!” Mayfield shrieked, gyrating his head—his only free appendage—toward his feet. “My rifle’s right there! Quit dickin’ around and nail that sucker!”

Snapping out of his daze, Zane dove toward the sloppy ground where the weapon rested. The creature, fighting off what Zane judged had been a telepathic hangover, approached with a sluggish gait. With a desperate tug, Zane freed the barrel from the goop. He spun toward the creature and filled it with lead.

The barrage knocked the thing against the wall, then through it, and into the swamp beyond. The putrid stench outside permeated the chamber as swamp water flooded into the room. Zane watched in disbelief as the creature’s corpse sank into a vortex of frothing swamp water.

“Get me out of here!”

“I’m trying, Mayfield! Pipe down! They’ll hear us!”

It took all his remaining strength to free his comrade from the syrupy residue. The substance, whether some fecal matter left behind by the creatures or radioactive residue from the swamp, was extremely sticky. Having grafted to Mayfield’s palms, the material had to be pried off. After freeing Mayfield, Zane spent another minute scrubbing the slop off, allowing time for his comrade to retrieve a weapon; a dented but operational Chinese QJS-161 light machine gun.

“No time to waste.” Mayfield rushed past him. “Let’s jet!”

As they turned to leave, Zane vomited on the wall. When he looked back up, he saw eight more ape-things fifty yards down the corridor, feasting on the remains of his fellow Marines—their bodies infused to the wall. Corporal Lonnie Hackett was being devoured from the waist down, with one creature munching on the man’s thighs as it worked its way down toward the kneecaps. Private Dwight Simms hung diagonally, while a creature chewed out his throat. Sergeant Connor Ford, his face contorted in a rictus, had two of the wretched things latched on one arm. Private Trey Reybitz was almost unrecognizable; a corpse defiled by the ravenous beasts.

“They’re dead man!” Mayfield squealed, ducking out the escape hole. “I can hear a C-47 from here! Come on! Come o—”

Mayfield’s pleas faded into the background. Zane had become entranced by the creatures down the corridor, devouring men who over the past three years he had come to regard as brothers. They had bonded, talked about returning home together. He knew their families, their spouses, and their children.

Hell, they had even killed together.

Now they would rest here for all time, their bones entombed into this accursed charnel house until the ages rendered their remains into dust.

It wasn’t until Mayfield grabbed Zane by the collar and yanked him out from the tunnel that he broke free of the disturbing scene and back into the swamp’s nauseating atmosphere.

Zane stumbled forward into a mad dash through the swamp. The terrain outside the lair was lined with narrow paths above water, weaving between odorous pools and rusted out military hardware. Here and there, Zane caught glimpses of the creatures, feeding on bloated remains from other soldiers lured into the slaughterhouse, both American and Chinese. Now, in the full light of the moon, Zane took in their sinister appearance.

They were vile, wretched things, some six to seven feet tall, covered in matted mangy hair. Yellowed claws curled from their fingers like tendrils that reminded him of ancient ground sloths. Their feet were flat and webbed, powerful and adapted for efficient swimming. They resembled a bizarre perversion of bear and reptile; an accident of nature infused with biohazardous waste; a truly terrifying creation.

Part bear? Part snake? Part man?

Some of the mutants turned to pursue Zane as he struggled to keep up with Mayfield’s chaotic sprint. The creatures lumbered slowly at first, before increasing their pace to a calm lurch through the wetland.

The distinct rumble of a C-47 Pratt & Whitney engine interrupted his hectic, helter-skelter thoughts. Ahead, the swamps emptied into a prairie, beyond which stood a rusty chain link fence. And beyond that—the beautiful mortar-cracked pavement of the American tarmac.

The runway! We’ve made it!

As both Marines trudged out of the swamp and into the grassland, something peculiar stood in the shrubs ahead. Instantly, Zane recognized it as a soldier, dressed in dark tactical attire and shining a laser sight on both Marines as they fled the thicket. Mayfield saw him too, raising both arms as if to flag him down.

Thank God! We’re saved!

“Hey! Help us!”

The man in the shrubs nodded as if he understood Mayfield’s woeful cries—before peppering the Marine with a burst from his HK416.

Whoa! Stop! St—

Hundreds of rounds joined the volley from the surrounding forest, shredding Mayfield into a geyser of blood, bone fragments, and hamburger. Before he could process Mayfield’s death, Zane felt a powerful stabbing sensation rip into his shoulder. More hot lead riddled his midsection, knocking him flat on his back with the sting of a thousand yellow jackets.

Coughing up blood, Zane wept as he gazed up at the starry sky and watched the C-47 rise to the heavens.


Those two sons of bitches don’t know how close they came to salvation...

Special Operations Group Commander Caleb Elliott peered through his night-vision goggles. Among the foliage just beyond the field, eight glowing forms on infrared stood at the edge of the swamp. Standing erect and undaunted by the presence of the covert operators, the strange colony eyed the prairie, likely calculating whether to attack.

Ten feet away lay two members of the missing squad. One of the men had already died, while the other was hacking up blood, his chest slowly rising and falling as he stared up at the sky. Elliott assumed they were the only survivors of the mutants’ savagery.

Raising the infrared scope of his HK, Elliott centered the glowing cross hairs on the middle biped fifty meters away. Around him, he could feel the nine other members of his strike team do the same, carefully selecting their own targets.

Ten of the CIA’s elite paramilitary operators versus eight powerfully psychic beings, Elliott thought, weighing the odds. It would be a battle for the ages, but in the end, good ol’ firepower would win out...

Or at least he hoped.

After another minute of tension, the mutants slowly retreated into the swamp. One by one, Elliott watched their heat signatures fade away, until any trace of the strange race had been engulfed by the darkness.

Elliott, relieved the creatures hadn’t infested his mind, lowered the barrel of his HK. Around him, the other strike team members relaxed, chattering about the standoff. After all the rumors, they had finally caught a firsthand glimpse of the elusive race.

Close call. Damn things must be gettin’ bold to venture this close to the runway.

“One of these days, they’re gonna wander out into the prairie,” a young operator named Hawkins noted.

“China’s problem,” Elliott said, eyeing the dying man on the grass. “Do me a favor and put one in his dome. He’s a US Marine. I can’t stand to see him suffer like that.”

“Wilco,” Hawkins said, walking calmly over to the Marine slumped on the grass.

An orange muzzle flash and pistol shot followed. The deed was done. Hawkins returned to the shrubs, holstering his sidearm with the callous affect of a dead-eyed killer.

“Lee. Murph. Bury them closer to the tree line,” Elliott said to two operators. “Everybody else man the perimeter. After we bury these Marines, we’ll depart for extraction. I’ll call it in. And congrats; looks like we’ll live to see another day.”

Grunts of acknowledgement followed as members of the strike team set out to complete their assigned tasks. Elliott pulled out an Iridium satellite phone from his ruck and dialed a number from his recent call log. On the blue digital screen, a dialing icon blinked to life before connecting him with a government official on the other end.

Elliott had never met the officials that tasked him and his team to the Chinese forest, but had been briefed on the objective. Needless to say, it was the hairiest mission he’d ever been assigned—both figuratively and literally.

“It’s finished,” Elliott said bluntly, eyes trained on the wetlands.

“Excellent,” replied a brusque male voice from the other end. Now you can appreciate the months you’ve been deployed to Chengde. We didn’t anticipate any military personnel moving through the swamp. In fact, strict orders were delegated to the appropriate authorities to ensure it would never happen. I guess these enlisted boys got cute and decided to go exploring. It cost them dearly. How many made it out?”

“Just two,” Elliott replied, glancing at the pair of corpses on the tarmac lawn.

“But no survivors, right?” the government official said.

Elliott tried not to let his voice betray his guilt. “Correct. Witnesses have been neutralized.”

Congratulations, Commander,” the government official went on. “You’ve done your country a great service. The secrecy of Project Blackworm is of the utmost priority to the United States. We cannot risk any leaks about the existence of this species. We simply cannot have another Giant of Kandahar moment.”

“Understood,” Elliott said. “But if you don’t mind me asking, uh, what are those things?”

The man on the other end seemed to ignore the question. For a moment, Elliott wondered if he had overstepped a boundary by asking the question. After all, the motto of the CIA’s Special Activities Center was Tertia Optio—Third Option. When diplomacy and war wouldn’t do, the President came to them for more covert methods of imposing the nation’s will—no questions asked. Fearing that he had just become another liability or loose end, Elliott prepared to apologize. After all, all information on this species was classified at above top secret.

“We first came in contact with them a little over two years ago,” the voice suddenly admitted. “We believe they were genetically engineered by some other organization, but I’m not authorized to share anything more on that specific point. During the height of the Battle of Tianjin. Similar scenario. Some boys got a little slaphappy when they were called home and took a detour. By the time they showed up on the other end of the swamp, their forces had been winnowed down to a handful. The survivors told strange stories about demons in the dark and mind control. After these witnesses were . . . dealt with . . . the administration sought fit to prevent knowledge of this species from ever reaching the general public. Get a good look at ’em did you?

“Roger,” Elliott answered, casting a weary look back at the swamp on the edge of which Lee and Murph were still digging two graves. Elliott had worked in black ops long enough to know not to ask which organization it was.

“We’ve had spies from Beijing to Wuhan since before the outbreak of the war. The swampy areas the Blackworm species calls home weren’t swamps back then. Air raids and missile strikes tore apart that entire region, creating the cesspool you see today. Waste crews dumped chemicals and biological waste in the area. From what I’ve been briefed on, this species is some kind of scientific anomaly, kind of like nature’s antibody to a human virus.”

Cleaning up some fucked-up bureaucrat’s mistakes once again, Elliott fumed, gritting his teeth. Now six good Marines lay dead because some twisted bastard decided to play God.

“Any other questions, Commander?” the voice asked impatiently.

“Negative.”

The line went dead.

Elliott turned back to the wetlands. Shoveling quickly before the mutants returned, the two operators had finished digging one of the graves. Lee and Murph approached one of the Marine corpses. Taking one leg under each arm, they swiftly dragged the cadaver over to the grave. Elliot turned away as they cast the corpse into the hole and buried it.

As the two started digging the second grave, Elliott finished packing for evacuation. Somewhere over the clouds, the hum of a C-47 roared toward the tarmac, beginning its descent over the wetlands. A mile downhill, a chain link fence beckoned, guarded by the last contingent of American troops stationed in China.

A Lockheed C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft would be landing shortly on a hidden runway several klicks to the west.

“Ready to pull out?” Hawkins asked. “It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to the extraction point.”

“Have them wrap it up on that last grave,” Elliott said, eager to get the hell away from here. “Tell the others to start heading for the trail.”

“Caleb?”

“Yeah, Hawkins?”

“I heard you ask that intelligence officer what these things were,” his subordinate asked speculatively, “but I didn’t hear the answer. I apologize for eavesdropping, but, if you don’t mind me asking: What the hell are these things?”

“Another American boo-boo,” Elliott replied, looking back at the wetlands. “They’re our little goodbye kiss to China, Hawkins. Now, hurry up. I want my boots snug on that plane’s riveted floor within the hour.”

“You got it, boss.”

As Hawkins shuffled away, Elliott gave one last look at the swamp before shouldering his ruck and departing, hoping to catch the sunrise somewhere over the Philippine Sea.


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