CHAPTER FIVE
“Move, move, move!” I yell, as I lead my squad away from the burning trees, the heat warming me up, the light throwing everything into stark relief, and one of the brothers yell, “How do they know we’re here!”
And I yell back as I try to run to some sort of safety, “They don’t! They’re just burning the woods to flush us out!”
We scramble down a hillside, the flames and smoke behind us, and Thor is anxious, and he’s trembling, but he’s not barking with the sense that the Creepers are close behind us.
So they’re torching these woods from a distance.
To flush us out.
Why?
I’m cold now, right at the base of my neck. I know why.
We keep moving, running, smoke and flames billowing out back there, and then we come to a slow-moving river. We skid to a halt, and one of the brothers says, “If we had a boat . . . if we had a boat. Creepers won’t cross a river this wide.”
Something catches my attention downstream, and I motion them to follow me. The riverbank is a tangled mess of weeds, grass, and low bushes, and a couple of times we have to slog through up past our ankles.
But it’s worth it.
An old wooden bridge, broken, battered, and with most of the center gone, but enough there to get us to the other side.
“Move it,” I say. “Ross, go.”
He looks to me with wide fear in his eyes. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the heaviest,” I say. “You fall in, we’ll need to do something else. Go!”
He slings the M-4 over his shoulder, gets up at the start of the bridge, stays to the left, where most of the framework and lumber is still there. It looks like the bridge over the years has been battered and torn by the river freezing and refreezing, or maybe some locals tearing away the planks for firewood and repairs.
Ross is about halfway across when he yelps, flails his arms, and Tommy whispers, “Don’t fall, don’t fall,” and by God he doesn’t, and he races across with a shout, turns in triumph, and I push his brother.
“You’re next,” I say. “Haul ass.”
Behind me, Thor is whimpering, dark fur bristling up and down his neck and back.
The wind comes our way.
Smoke, soot, and cinnamon.
Thor starts barking.
I take my Colt M-10, remove the live round, spin the dial down to ten meters.
A shout.
The other brother has made it.
Martin says, “Lieutenant?”
“Make it snappy,” I say, looking up and down the riverbank, looking for little flashes of light, bursts of flame, tree branches moving and falling, all the signs of approaching Creepers.
She says, “Thanks for sending me over last.”
“Hunh?”
A quick grin as she scampers up the broken timbers. “It means you think I weigh less than the other two.”
Martin moves across the bowed and cracked wood, above the moving river, and Thor is still barking, and I’m still eyeing the riverbank, and up there, tall pines are swaying, like a heavy wind is pushing them, but there is no wind.
She’s almost at the other end and I tug on Thor’s collar. “Move, let’s go.”
He whines as he gets up on the bridge, and I push his butt. “I don’t like it either, Thor. C’mon!”
He jumps, he moves, he skitters, sometimes a paw here or there scrabbling, and he’s doing all right, and I think he’s going to make it, and then—
A plank falls free and my boy tumbles into the river.
“Thor!”
I jump over the gap and my heart is damn near still, and the three troopers on the other side have seen what happened, and they race down to the side of the river, but my strong boy, he’s swimming hard, swimming fast, his proud and handsome head out of the water, and by the time the three of the soldiers get to him, he’s already on the bank, shaking himself dry, looking back at up me with a disgusted look, like I had done this on purpose.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Move, I think, you’re so damn exposed here, get your ass in gear.
M-10 in hand, I resume running as best as I can across the bridge, and I’m about six meters from the end, three meters, and then another plank slides free and I yell a very naughty series of words, and fall flat on my belly, the M-10 nearly slipping away, and I’m looking down into the river.
At a rusted car, on its side, two doors open, frozen in place. There’s something pink in the rear, around . . . a seat, a small seat, it looks like, designed for a child or infant.
I get up on my hands and knees, start working my way, and then I’m on the ground.
I roll over and Thor is there, barking, and the two brothers and Martin are there as well, and I get up and say, “You three. Break out now. Run. Separate. Keep low. I’m sticking here for the moment.”
Ross says, “Lieutenant, we don’t want to leave you. We’ll stay and fight.”
Tommy and Stella nod in agreement. I get up on my knees, give the opposite side of the riverbank and a quick glance. More movement. “It’s a goddamn order,” I say. “Your M-4s won’t do shit against the Creepers . . . now get!”
I move back toward a tumble of rocks and a fallen oak tree, and the three of them come with me, and Tommy says, “Lieutenant, I—”
A flicker of light illuminates our surroundings. Stella screams. Ross hits the ground and Tommy is still standing there, looking stunned as he holds up his right hand.
All four fingers have been lased off, leaving tiny black stumps.
I grab him by his collar, pull him behind me and then Ross is holding his brother and Stella is looking through her jacket for some sort of medical gear, and I shout, “Move! Or do you want all to get crisped here! Go!”
They go.
They rush past me, into the woods, and then Tommy starts keening in pain as he moves further into the trees, and I kneel down, take off my bandolier, stretch it out. One round in the chamber, two more left. Thor stands next to me, gently panting, his fur sopping wet. I rub his head and say, “Just like old times, eh? You and me. Against the aliens.”
He licks my hand, usually a symbol of Hey, you got a treat handy, and I scratch his ears and say, “We get clear, and we get some chow our way, you’re first up. I promise.”
My heart has eased some and despite the situation, I feel reasonable. Creepers hate the water, although they’re fascinated by it. They’ll move along the side of a river or a creek, and look at the water, and circle a lake, but they hardly ever cross a wide stream or river, unless they find a bridge.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Click-click.
Which counted for a lot of bridges being blown that first year of the war, when it was learned that this was one of their very few weaknesses. This bridge wasn’t much of a bridge, and I wished I had a grenade or two, or some thermite, or something to knock it over, since that would increase my odds of living until the next sunrise.
Trees whipping back and forth.
Still, it doesn’t look like it could hold a Creeper, which I’m counting on.
Thor growls.
“I hate to bring this up at a time like this, but when you get wet, boy, your fur really stinks,” I say, trying to lighten my mood.
He growls again. I don’t think he was amused.
Then a couple of trees crash into the river, and a Battle Creeper emerges. I hunker down, wait. The smell of cinnamon is pretty strong. The Creeper goes up one side of the riverbank, and then the other, its legs sinking into the mud some, slowing it down. It hesitates at the bridge, lifting its center arthropod up, like it’s surveying the area.
I rub the back of Thor’s head. “Quiet, buddy, stay quiet.”
He settles in next to me, whining just a bit, and then staying still, but with his fur still bristling.
The Battle Creeper starts moving across the bridge, gingerly placing its eight legs here and there to stay upright and out of the water.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I whisper, and then I aim my Colt M-10, and just when the bug is halfway across the bridge is when I let it have it. The BLAM! is loud and my shoulder smarts, but the round flies out in a perfect arc, explodes right in front of the alien’s breathing membrane, and within a second or two, the Battle Creeper is enveloped in the gas, and it starts to shake, quiver. Its claws rise up and fire off a burst of flame, a weak laser blast, and the claws fall to its side. The trembling in the legs increase, until the Creeper collapses, its legs falling through the open planking and timber, until it rests on its side, dead.
I say, “Correction . . . you’ll be damned.”
I eject the spent cartridge, take one of the remaining two, snap it into the breech and slam it shut, and—
Two more Creepers emerge.
I’m suddenly frightened so much that I have an urge to pee.
They’re not Battle Creepers. One is a Transport Creeper, which has a wide and deep trough at the rear of its main arthropod, which is used to haul stuff around. It can be human bones, old computer equipment, books, chunks of plastic, bloody pieces of vivisected humans, or whatever else the Creeper decide needs to be moved. The other Creeper is a Research Creeper. It looks like a Battle Creeper but the end claws—besides being weaponized—also have ancillary claws that are used to pick up and examine things. The Battle Creeper doesn’t care about examining things, just burning and lasing them to soot.
But the current theory is that the Research Creeper is lead among the three variants.
And this Research Creeper is lifting up its main arthropod, and using one of its arms, reaches into the rear of the Transport Creeper and pulls out—
A long, wooden plank.
It drops it to the ground.
A long pipe comes out. Another long pipe.
One more wooden plank.
The Research Creeper goes onto the bridge, and it works behind the dead Battle Creeper, and pushes it into the river, where it hits with a gentle splash and then rolls over, and sinks some, leaving six of eight legs up in the air. The moving water makes little V-shaped eddies around each exposed leg.
And then the Research Creeper starts working.
It starts repairing the bridge.
That’s why I’m so scared.
I know what’s going on now for certain.
They’re after me.
I move down some, Colt M-10 in one hand, bandolier in the other, and I take cover, and with another successful shot, I kill the Research Creeper dead in its tracks, holding a plank.
The plank drops into the water first, followed by the Research Creeper. The Research Creeper doesn’t sink, though. It just gets tangled up in the first Creeper I killed.
My breathing quickens. My shoulder is hurting something awful.
I’m down to the last round for my M-10.
What next?
The Transport Creeper moves up to the bridge.
I fire and the round is either a dud or my shaking hands knocked my aim off, for the round arcs over the Transport Creeper and rattles around as it hits the trees.
The Transport Creeper waits.
Another tree crashes to the ground, and then another.
A Research Creeper emerges, fires six or seven laser bursts in my direction, scorching tree bark, leaves, and dropping two burning branches. I hold my breath, move again, tumble into the dirt.
I lift my head.
The Research Creeper is halfway across the bridge, making it secure. More movement in the woods.
Two more Battle Creepers emerge.
They pause at the water’s edge, waiting.
Very patiently waiting.
Not me.
Grabbing the empty bandolier and my now-useless M-10, I start running, and God, do I start running.