THEM (Book 0): Invasion (13 page)

Later that evening two more people were brought into the room, a mother and who I assumed was her child. Strangely, they were brought in by two armed soldiers; I chalked that up to the fact that they were illegals. I figured they hadn’t met anyone around here who spoke Spanish, so I started up a conversation with the mom to pass the time and put her at ease.

She seemed nervous at first, but eventually she opened up to me. Her name was Lupita, and she told me they’d crossed the border together before the outbreak, and that she’d come to Fredericksburg to work for a bed and breakfast service doing house work. Her daughter’s name was Elena, and she spent most of our conversation hiding behind her mother’s leg, at least until Rayden pulled out some licorice whips.

“Hey, where’d that come from?” I asked.

“Duh, the convenience store. You don’t think I went in there just to get Cody his beer and cigarettes, do you?” He gave me the universal “adults are so stupid” look that all kids master by the time they hit puberty, and handed Elena two licorice strings, which she took with a shy smile.

“Nice to know you’ve been holding out on me all this time. Also nice to know you’re smart enough not to bring chocolate with you on a road trip.”

He laughed. “You kidding? That’s the first thing I ate.”

“See if I give you any more jerky once we get our shit back.”

He rolled his eyes. “You can keep it. I have enough candy to last me a few more days.”

“Whatever, kid. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you may not be able to get any for a while. I have a feeling that the trucking industry is going to be out of commission for a good long time, so you’d better get used to eating jerky.” He shrugged, and I turned back to speak with Lupita. I noticed that she kept glancing out the window and scanning the skyline outside. I asked her in Spanish if anything was wrong.

In response she grabbed me and took me aside, away from where her daughter and Rayden were playing.
“El cucuy, viene en la noche! Por favor, usted debe salir y nos llevará con usted!”

Rayden perked up and spoke to me over his shoulder. “She sounds upset. What’s she saying to you?”

I shook my head. “Something about a monster that comes at night. She’s asking me to leave and take them with us.” I continued to try to get more information out of her, but all I could get her to tell me was that the guards wouldn’t let them leave, that a dark figure had come the night before and took some people out of the room.

I figured that if it was real it was probably soldiers, and if it wasn’t she was in shock and having nightmares. I tried to calm her down, but it was no use. Eventually she gave me a frustrated look and grabbed Elena, then sat on a cot on the other side of the room.

“What’d you say to piss her off?” Rayden asked.

“Nothing. Maybe she’s just scared that the soldiers are going to take her and Elena to jail or something. She says a dark figure came in the room last night and grabbed some people. I think it may have been the soldiers moving people around.” I glanced outside and noticed that it was finally fully dark. “At any rate, it’s none of our concern. We just need to grab our gear and get the hell out of here.”

Rayden looked at me like I was the biggest asshole in the world. “Yeah, but if something really is going on, you’re not just going to leave them here, are you?”

“Not my monkeys, not my circus, kid. Believe me, I would if I could, but we’re barely going to have room for my folks on the way back. Besides, I’d feel terrible taking these people out of here and putting them in harm’s way. Things are only going to get hairier and scarier the closer we get to Austin, and I’m going to have my hands full just keeping an eye on you.”

He gave me the evil eye. “That’s cold, man.”

“That’s survival, kid. I learned in Afghanistan that you can’t save everyone, no matter how much you want to or how hard you try.”

“Maybe so, but it’s still messed up.”

I shrugged. “You’ll get no arguments on that point from me, but that’s just life. The sooner you learn to accept it, the better.”

He ignored me and rolled over on his cot. I decided to leave him to his thoughts, which were likely filled with disillusionment. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d let someone down, and it wouldn’t be the last. My main concern was getting us out and long gone before the local law and those Guard troops knew we’d disappeared, then I’d focus on rescuing my parents. Outside of that, all other concerns would be secondary, at least until I had us all safe and sound back at the ranch.

I tried to get Rayden’s attention to give him a few final instructions, but he pretended to be asleep. Since the kid was giving me the silent treatment, there was nothing else to do but wait. I fluffed my pillow, laid my head back on the cot, and waited for lights out. After that, the black ops shit would commence.

Just as I suspected, at 10 pm sharp a soldier came by to check on us and turn the lights out. After he left I heard him messing around with the door, so I waited for a few minutes and then snuck over to whisper in Rayden’s ear. “Kid, keep your eyes peeled. If anything happens while I’m gone, you beat feet out of here, you hear me? Head down to the gymnasium and hide there. If I come back and you’re gone, I’ll come get you down there. Got it?”

He paused before replying. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Good. I’ll be back before you know it.”

I gave him a pat on the shoulder and tiptoed over to the window, then I popped it open and slipped out into the night. It was darker than hell outside, and from what I could tell the place was running on generators for most of the settlement’s power. That meant minimal lighting in non-mission critical areas, and it also meant that the sound would help muffle my movements.

I crawled along the wall and climbed down a drain pipe, then crept around the place until I figured out where the HQ area was in relation to the room they’d put us in. After that, it was just a matter of sneaking and peeking in a few windows to find where they’d stashed our stuff. I used my multi-tool to get the window open and rifled through the room until I found my ammo and knife.

The firearms were a bit more of a hassle, as I had to jimmy a few storage cabinets until I found what I was looking for. The assholes hadn’t even tagged my shit, which told me they had no intention of returning any of it. I decided that I’d best find my vehicle and get us the hell out of here before we experienced firsthand what was really going on in this place.

It didn’t take much to sneak past the guards on patrol. They were sloppy and not at all concerned with keeping anyone in the place. I headed down to the parking lot where Bibi had said the cars were kept, and sure enough my baby was parked in the back. There was only one guard on duty, so I snuck up behind him and choked him out. I gagged him and tied him up, leaving him in the back of a Hummer for the next shift to find him in the morning.

After that, it was a matter of pulling my taillight’s fuse to keep the headlights off as I pulled out of the place. I only had to drive a few blocks to find the fence perimeter they’d set up; once there I parked the truck in someone’s driveway near the fence line, back behind the house where no one would see it. Later I planned to use my bolt cutters to clip a hole in the fence and get us the hell out of there, right after I went back for Rayden.

I checked my watch; it was roughly 30 minutes past midnight. Plenty of time to jog back to the high school, get Rayden, and be gone before dawn. I headed back over, being mindful of patrols, especially since they were probably rolling with night vision on blackout lights. I managed to evade the only patrol I saw and snuck around the back of the high school where I had climbed down a few hours before.

Just as I climbed back on the rooftop that led to the room we’d been assigned, I saw a shadow moving away from the window at high speed. It looked like a man, but I’d never seen anything on two legs move that fast before. It looked as though it might have been carrying something in its arms, but I couldn’t be sure in the dark. I followed it with my eyes, watching it jump off the roof. It landed upright and continued on without pause, speeding in a southwesterly direction in the span of a few seconds. Momentarily stunned, I ran back over to our room, frightened of what I might find inside, hoping it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.

Sure enough, it wasn’t anything I’d have wanted to see. Lupita was sprawled on the ground, her neck twisted at an odd angle. My eyes searched the room, but the kids were nowhere to be seen. I stuck my head inside and started calling out in the lowest voice I could for Rayden but got no answer, so I climbed inside to see if he’d run off like I told him to.

I was just about to go looking for him in the mess when I heard some moaning off to one side of the room. I ran over and found the kid lying in a tangle of plastic school chairs, battered but basically unhurt. He was dazed, but as he came around he described what had happened.

“Just a couple of minutes ago, I got up to look for you out the window and saw something outside. I thought it was you and went to open the window. Then I saw what it was and went to wake up Lupita and Elena so we could get the hell out of here. She was already awake, but I couldn’t get her to move. She just laid there whimpering and holding on to her little girl. So, I ran to the door to get help, but it was locked. I banged on it and banged on it, but no one came.”

I sat him up and checked him for injuries, allowing him to pause and tell me the story at his own pace. “By that time, the thing was inside the room. I turned around and it had Lupita by the neck. She was struggling and struggling, but she couldn’t get loose. Elena was screaming and screaming‌—‌the thing broke her mom’s neck. It was so loud I could hear the crack, even with Elena screaming at the top of her lungs. Then he dropped her and reached for Elena, so‌—‌I rushed at it to try to save her. That’s all I remember.”

He hung his head and started to cry. “It took her, didn’t it? I told you! I told you something bad was gonna happen, but you didn’t listen! Now Elena’s gone and that thing killed her mom, and it’s your fault!” He screamed the last bit at me, and turned away.

I sighed. “Look, kid, I had no idea something like this would happen. Heck, I saw it take off with her, and I still can barely believe what I saw. The thing is, we can’t stay here. Whatever it is that took Elena is long gone, and if we stay here it’s going to come back for us too. Best that we just leave and put this behind us before we end up dead as well.”

He turned toward me, and I didn’t need lights to see the look of accusation on his face. “You’re a coward. You’re a coward, and I’m sorry I ever agreed to help you!”

Before responding, I paused and took a deep breath. “Maybe so, kid, but I’m a living coward. And I’ll be honest, I don’t like this whole deal any more than you do. But I plan to have my ass on the road and long gone before that thing comes back. Now, you can stay here or you can come with me; it’s up to you. But I’m out of here regardless of your decision or how you feel about me.”

Right about then, the sound of the window creaking open interrupted our argument. We both turned to look, and I saw the very thing that had killed Lupita and taken Elena just moments before, crawling through the window Gollum-style to finish what it had started. The kid froze like a spotlighted deer, and all I could think was that I was hella glad I had some firepower with me, because this thing looked like the grim reaper itself. Without a second to spare, I pushed Rayden behind me and reached for my Glock, hoping like hell that 200 grain hollow points would be enough to take this thing down.

ELEVEN

CRY

WHATEVER IT WAS, it was definitely not human, although it had humanoid characteristics. It moved like a cross between a spider and a snake, with rapid skittering movements that were disconcertingly sinuous and bug-like all at once. Strangely, it wore fatigues, combat boots, and a rain poncho with the hood pulled up. I couldn’t see a face, but I guessed it was going to be ugly by the way it moved.

“Screw me blue and call me Willy Wonka,” I muttered as I pulled my Glock and drew a bead on the thing.

As I fired, I took a lesson from my previous experiences with the deaders and immediately started going for headshots. Now, a lot of people think that just because you’re an Army Ranger and you were in the “Special Forces” you can shoot the balls off a gnat at 300 yards with just about any firearm. And, they’re wrong. Most of the guys I knew in the Regiment never touched a pistol except for recreation, although almost every one of them could place a nice tight grouping in the ten ring at 300 yards with an M4. And the snipers? Forget it. Those guys are trained to be 100 percent successful in taking out a target at over 800 yards in two shots or less.

But again, when it came to being a serious shooter with a sidearm, most Rangers weren’t. Personally, my handgunning skills were limited to growing up plinking on the ranch, taking a few combat shooting courses before and after my time in the service, and also spending not an inconsiderable amount of time on the range with a handgun. So, I was definitely no slouch, but I was no freaking Doc Holiday, that’s for sure, and this thing took full advantage of my lack of accuracy to keep me from planting one in its noggin. As soon as I fired the first shot, it started pulling an Agent Smith on me, displaying contortions with its spine and neck that no human ever could… and especially not at that speed.