Short Story 49

Please come get me, Hector. I don’t want to be here after dark.

When you hear those kinds of words from someone you’ve loved, even someone you’re smart to keep your distance from, it’s hard to stay out of their affairs. My ex-girlfriend Larissa left those words on my voice mail, calling right as dawn broke through my apartment windows. As perpetual party girls tended to call at all hours of the night, and as I had left behind my obligation to care when she left me behind, I thumbed my cell’s ignore button and went back to sleep

When I roused myself a couple of hours later, I instinctively checked my phone and, much to my surprise, she had actually left a message. She never did that. Her typical calls were either drunken rants about what I was doing wrong with our relationship or a pitiful plea to come pick her up, and she never bothered leaving messages for such things. Despite having escaped talking to her for over seven months, despite the overwhelming certainty that the message was another drunken rant, I ignored the sensible voice in my head telling me not to open this door again and listened.

Hector, it’s me, Larissa said. I know I shouldn’t be calling you, but you’re the only person on my phone list that I can rely on. I’m at Lake Crusoe, the lake all the way at the Oregon border. 4458 Placid Lane. I know this is asking a lot, like a real lot, but I need you to come pick me up. I’ll explain over the phone if you call me back, if that’ll get you here, but… Please come get me, Hector. I don’t want to be here after dark.

I listened to it twice more, just to make sure I was hearing it correctly. She didn’t sound drunk or angry, only scared. If this was some kind of practical joke, one designed to have your ex-boyfriend drive hours out of his way just to show how dumb he is, she had her act down pretty well.

I knew I had to call her back, though I cringed as I did it. The call went straight to voice mail, and her mailbox was full. After two more attempts with the same response, I almost decided to ignore the message and go on with my Saturday. One-way communication was part of Larissa’s playbook. I was within my rights to ignore her and move on.

Instead, I checked out the address she supplied. There was a Lake Crusoe all right, next to a town simply named Crusoe. The address was on the northern side of the lake, about as far away from civilization as you could get in Oregon. From my apartment in Salem, it would take six hours to get there. My weekend would definitely be blown if I took her bait and went to help her.

I knew I was being an idiot just considering the idea. She probably had gone and found a party boy that was fun most of the time but had that really bad temper when things didn’t go his way and now she needed rescue since they had gone to the edge of nowhere in his car and he wasn’t going to drive her home until he was good and ready. If it was bad enough, she could call the police. Hell, I thought about doing it myself, except her message hadn’t suggested a threat of real danger, so the police would be slow to get involved. I thought about calling her friends and family to see if they’d heard from her, but I had purged their numbers from my phone a month after our breakup. I doubted much good would be achieved anyway. She tended to fly by the seat of her pants and not tell anyone her plans.

So… remain sensible and ignore Larissa, or take a leap of faith and go to her rescue.

I listened to her message one more time. As far as I could tell, she sounded sincere. Her fear and urgency seemed real. So many mixed up feelings bubbled up within me, from the excitement she generated when she danced to the stinging hurt when she dropped out of my life. There was still love there, I felt that for sure, because otherwise this wouldn’t have been a debate. But love can be wrong, and love can be dumb, and I knew that I didn’t need Larissa in my world again.

And then I packed an overnight bag, got in my Honda Civic, and drove those six hours to Lake Crusoe, because sometimes you know when someone is telling you the truth, even without the benefit of hindsight. Larissa needed help, and I was going to help her, consequences be damned.

*****

I called myself an idiot innumerable times on my trip there. What did I think was going to happen? Larissa would jump into my car, thank me profusely, recant all her past mistakes and then declare her love for me? Was there any way this didn’t end badly? Yet every time I thought of turning the car around, I would follow the thought with another call to Larissa on my cell, only to get the same result. So I kept driving, stopping only to get gas and a quick bite to eat. I just couldn’t turn my back on her, not without knowing she was safe.

I barely remember driving through the town of Crusoe, such an unremarkable town it was. A smattering of homes and tourist stores for those wilderness vacationers heading to the lake, my mind was too preoccupied to pay much attention. RVs and pickups filled the parking lots, their owners buying provisions for their weekend stay in the wilderness. People acted as people do, preparing for a good time, blissfully unaware of anything untoward happening in their vicinity.

Well, either the joke was on me, or on them. In about an hour, I’d find out.

I then reached the edge of the forest surrounding Lake Crusoe, and I immediately felt my anxiety rise. The day had been clear and bright, the sun slated to disappear a few hours hence, but as I drove into the forest I was quickly cast into shadow, the trees gobbling up the light and giving the afternoon an early twilight feeling. The road wound around the tree-covered hillside, slowing my pace. A steady supply of evergreen branches and foliage blocked the world from my sight.

I expected to encounter some kind of wildlife attempting a road crossing as I drove along, but the wildlife kept its distance that day. Instead, I periodically spotted these odd discolorations dotting the local evergreens, fuzzy gray protuberances that seemed to resemble part of a tree if you stared directly at them, but appeared more blurry and indistinct in my peripheral vision. I saw one or two of these odd anomalies every few miles, and they were quite perplexing. Perhaps some kind of arboreal disease, a new kind of invasive moss or insect, was making its way through the forest. I began to count them as I went, a way to distract me from my more pressing anxieties.

Just before the turnoff to Placid Lane, I noticed one lone pine towering above most of its brethren. Its height wasn’t what drew my attention. The upper length of its trunk was absolutely infested with the fuzzy lumps I’d been counting. There had to have been several dozen dotting the tree. As I drove by, I had this very disconcerting feeling that there was a shape behind the blurriness I was seeing. It was like staring at a picture that looked like a vase one moment, then two faces staring at each other the second. Only I couldn’t recognize either shape, couldn’t put a coherent idea to either image. I just knew that there was something else under all that indistinctness.

It’s easy for humans to dismiss their misgivings. We see warning signs and think they’re either lies or they only apply to other people. Heaven knows I did that plenty of times with Larissa in the past, and I was well on my way to possibly repeating history. By the time I turned onto the dirt road that was Placid Lane and put the big tree in my rear-view mirror, I had largely dismissed the phenomenon. I had seen only a bunch of weird moss, after all, and I clearly had reasons to be anxious. Larissa’s vacation spot was just ahead, and I was about to find out how much of an idiot I truly was.

The vacation spot turned out to be a summer home instead of a cabin, a nice two-story house built on the hillside, ringed by a cluster of trees that hid most of the structure from roadside view. From what snippets I could make out, it became clear that Larissa’s boyfriend was probably rolling in dough and that I was about to get on the bad side of someone with a personal lawyer at his beck and call. But that thought quickly died, replaced by utter confusion.

I stopped my car right before the driveway leading into the house, because I had no way to get my Civic around the black SUV that blocked it. The vehicle had plowed into a thick pine bordering the driveway, one of its front tires snarled up on either a massive root or rock formation. Both doors on the driver’s side were open. The front windshield was cracked. An obvious accident, but I couldn’t tell how long ago it occurred.

I turned off my car and exited, moving up to the SUV and searching it briefly. There was no one left inside. It didn’t take a forensic scientist to deduce that the occupants of the SUV left it in a hurry, not bothering to even shut the doors.

I almost called out to Larissa, to tell her or whoever was around that I was here. Yet I didn’t. I felt the need to keep my mouth shut. I could understand a car accident, such things happened all the time, but why wasn’t there a tow truck out here by now? Why wasn’t someone staying with the SUV? What if there was another threat out here, something that forced the vehicle’s occupants to flee?

I got out my cell phone, holding it in my left hand, and walked past the SUV. I still needed more to go on before I called the cops. When it came to Larissa, this kind of incident wasn’t unexpected. She had wrecked a car or two in her time without bothering to call it in. I told myself that all I was going to do was make sure she was okay, call the proper authorities when I knew what was what, and then leave. If Larissa was in trouble and needed to leave with me, I could do that. But if she was responsible for this mess, I wasn’t going to clean it up for her. Yet with each step I took toward the house my unease grew more pronounced.

The driveway ended at a closed garage, with no other vehicles present. The front yard had a well-manicured lawn and a quartet of rose bushes adorned with small pink roses. As I approached the front door, I saw that one of the bushes was splashed with crimson liquid, its pink petals spattered with darker red dots. Rounding the bush, I recoiled in disgust as I found the source of the blood. The body it had come from was laid out before the open door. The rancid smell of the victim hit me, and to my credit I didn’t vomit my hamburger lunch up despite a sudden desire to do so. I averted my gaze to avoid full-blown freak-out time, because the body was in at least three separate pieces, surrounded by a pool of drying blood.

It wasn’t Larissa - too big and too male. He was dressed in causal wear, his clothes as torn up as the rest of him. Her boyfriend, I wagered, but the condition of his face made easy identification impossible. Someone or something had savaged it into a torn, pulpy mess.

It took me a few seconds to remember my phone, and a few more seconds of frantic finger action to realize I had no reception. I expressed my unhappiness with a storm of swear words that I won’t repeat in polite company. It was when I heard my voice cursing out into the solitude that honest fear finally took hold of me, because by all appearances I was alone with a victim of either a savage wildlife attack or a local ax-murderer.

I quickly quieted, and in the dread silence I could hear my inner voice of sensibility talking. Get back to the car, it said. Drive away and call for help. I almost listened to it, but that persistent voice of chivalry was also talking, and its voice was louder. This was where Larissa was supposed to be. If she was still alive, and I drove away, I’d be abandoning her to her fate. Then again, if the killer was still around, I’d just be adding to the body count.

It was a pointless debate. I couldn’t turn my back on Larissa, especially now. Judge me harshly for that, if you must. Call me stupid, and I will agree. But instead of running back to my car, I gritted my teeth and walked up the stone path to the waiting body, taking care not to tread on the copious amount of blood drying on the rocks.

I honestly don’t know how crime scene workers do it. Between the mobs of insects already going to work on the body, the terrified expression on what remained of his face, and the nauseating aroma of various bodily fluids, I could barely stand to look at it. There were definite chunks of flesh missing from all over his torso, lending evidence to my wildlife attack hypothesis. I also noted a cell phone in his right hand, lacking power but still intact. An animal would’ve ignored a phone but a human assailant would’ve taken or destroyed it.

I wasn’t about to touch the corpse, so I was done here. The front door was ajar and I could see the hallway past it, but no signs of activity within. Still, there was a lot of house to cover, and if I was serious about helping Larissa, I had to go inside. Steeling myself for another bout of brave idiocy, I closed my eyes, counted to five and…

“Freeze!”

I may have avoided upchucking from disgust, but I’m forced to admit that I did pee myself a little when I heard that harsh word come from behind. At least I didn’t have much in me at the time.

“Lock your hands behind your head and turn around slowly,” insisted the voice, a feminine one with a tone that promised instant violence for disobedience. I did as she ordered, really hoping this person didn’t have an itchy trigger finger.

The woman standing before me had a rifle trained at my head, and while I’m pretty illiterate when it comes to guns I could tell that it was military-grade and not a hunting weapon. She was a foot shorter than me, had a frame of solid muscle, a short crop of white hair, and cluster of scars on her face that reminded me of the kind of scratches my old cat would occasionally give me. She was dressed head to toe in hunter garb, but instead of jungle camouflage the colors were dark blue. Even the headband she wore was a solid navy blue. She had a disciplined air about her, and I believed this woman would kill me without hesitation if I gave her a reason.

Fearing that she would peg me as a murderer, I glanced down at the mangled corpse and said, “I didn’t kill him. I was…”

“I know that, genius,” she interrupted. “Tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

“My name is Hector,” I quickly replied. “I have a friend staying here who called me this morning to come get her.”

“Do you have any weapons on you?” I shook my head and while I sensed she wasn’t ready to take my word for it, she lowered her weapon and motioned with it for me to come away from the house. Then she pointed to a spot on the driveway and told me to stay right there with my hands where she could see them. I complied.

She backed off a few feet to an azure-colored backpack lying on the ground. I hadn’t noticed the pack until now, and while she rummaged through its front pockets she kept her eyes and rifle aimed my direction. “I don’t have the authority to frisk you or detain you, Hector,” she explained, “so I’m going to have to trust you. That said, you can trust me when I say that the moment you pull anything will be your last moment on this earth. Understand?”

I nodded. By now, she had retrieved two small objects that resembled glass tennis balls. She pocketed one, held the other, walked down the driveway several meters, tinkered with the glass ball for a moment, and finally placed it on the ground. The ball began to pulse a quick burst of cerulean light every few seconds, like a beacon designed to warn airplanes of tall structures in the dark.

“That’ll cover our back for a while,” the woman stated, walking past me and toward the corpse. “You can put your hands down now. You seem harmless.”

She stopped at the body, kneeling down and inspecting it with the same detachment a morgue worker might display. I let her do her thing in silence, not at all sure what was going on or who this person was.

“Was this your friend?” she asked absently, her fingers measuring the width of a particularly large gouge in the body’s left thigh.

“No. I think she might be in the house. I was about to go in when you showed.”

“I saw that. Why do you think I stopped you?”

“I…” My confusion and fear slid toward irritation. Larissa was still missing and this mystery woman wasn’t being very forthcoming. “Okay, I think it’s time you told me who you are.”

“Madison,” she flatly replied. “I’ve been watching the house for a good hour before you got here. The MLs can linger around their kills for up to four hours and it’s never a good idea to interrupt them. You’re lucky they’ve moved on.”

“The MLs?”

Madison ignored my question, choosing instead to walk around the corpse and pry out the cell phone from the body’s death grip. She looked it over closely, grimaced, and then placed it on the ground next to the body. She turned her head to me. “The ones who did this. The main pack has moved on but sometimes one of the dumber ones gets left behind, stuck in a closet or a bathroom. Just one of these things can ruin your whole day.”

I looked at the corpse again and shuddered at the sheer viciousness of the attack. “Are they animals?”

“In a fashion, and under different circumstances I’d love to answer the hundred questions you must have, but we’re not secure. You need to leave the area.”

I took a deep breath, dreading what I had to say next, but knowing that I couldn’t leave here without being sure. “My friend might still be in the house. I need to go in there.”

Madison gave me a small sympathetic smile. “I know all about not wanting to leave friends behind, Hector. But the odds are excellent that there’s no one alive in there. You should get back to your car and go. I’ll handle it from here.”

I shook my head adamantly. “You don’t know she’s dead. She might be hiding in the house. She might not even be in there. I just… need to know.”

Madison groaned. “She, is it? Were you two more than friends at some point?”

“Not your business. Look, I’ll stay out here and out of the way if you want, but…”

She held up a hand to silence me. “Fine. I don’t have the authority to stop you from being stupid. But if you’re staying, you should come with me.”

I looked at her with confusion. “Why?”

“Because the safest place for you is right next to me.” She said this without any boasting, and I had no trouble believing her.

She fished out the second glass ball from her gear and handed it to me. It was heavier than I expected, and I could see the tiny machinery residing inside it. She pointed to a triangular button on the beacon’s surface and said, “That activates it. If you see anything move that isn’t me, you push that button. The pulse light disorients them, but it doesn’t stop them. Otherwise, stay behind me and follow every instruction I give. And I really hope you’re not one of those types that likes to wander off in times of crisis, because I shoot guys like that.”

Madison led the way past the front door, rifle at the ready, and I followed close behind, gripping the ball as if my life depended on it. Right away I noticed the mob of grimy tracks on the wood flooring, so many that a mental picture of a pack of muddy dogs running wild in the house popped into my mind. I picked out an individual print – thin, three-toed, and almost skeletal. Numerous scratches and gouges accompanied the tracks, sometimes dotting the walls and even the ceiling in places. A new pungent odor assailed my nostrils, something close to urine but far more sour than what I was used to.

Those hundred questions in my mind about these “MLs” kept on pestering me, demanding answers. But I dared not break the silence and distract Madison. Her outward calm helped to dissipate my fear, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was way out of my depth, with a total stranger throwing me a life preserver that she could yank away at any moment.

The short hallway led to the living room, the once lavish spread of furniture having been reduced to garbage. Cushions and pillows shredded, wooden frames smashed and cracked, art and pictures reduced to shards – the damage seemed as deliberate as it was malicious. Madison moved through the damage with cool precision, sweeping every corner and every potential hiding spot. I kept to the center of the room and out of her way, watching for any unexpected movement around the house.

I’d hoped that our search would be an ultimately fruitless one, because that would mean that Larissa wasn’t here, that she might have escaped. It was a small hope, but better than no hope at all. For all my mixed-up feelings toward Larissa, I like to think I saw her nature pretty clearly. She was not a survivor type. If she had been in this house when the animals had come, she would not have known what to do.

Then I noticed that one of the hallways leading from the living room showed a large smear of red, followed by a thinner trail leading to a closed door. My heart sinking, I pointed it out to Madison. She told me to wait while she checked it out. She moved to the door and cautiously opened it. She hesitated for a brief second, then went inside and out of sight. I stood there, scanning the room, on guard for anything, afraid of what Madison would find, afraid that she might not come back out at all.

I think only a minute had gone by before Madison reappeared, but it had felt like an hour. She had a woman’s purse in her left hand, her rifle in her right. Her demeanor had changed to that of a doctor about to tell a patient they only had a year to live.

“Is this hers?” She held up the purse, a lavender model dotted with smears of blood and several deep rips in the material.

“I don’t recognize it,” I said, a hopeful note in my voice.

“Look through it and make sure,” Madison said, handing me the purse. “Stay here for now. The downstairs is secure, but I need to check out the second floor. Do yourself a favor and don’t go into the bedroom.”

“What did you find?” I asked. But she ignored me as she moved to the second-floor stairs, and I had a feeling that it was a question I already knew the answer to.

I held off looking in the purse, holding out hope that Larissa didn’t have a purse like this. I knew she could’ve bought a new one, but that wasn’t a reality I wanted to accept. In that moment, she wasn’t gone. In that moment, I could still pretend that I could be the gallant knight coming to her rescue for just a few seconds longer.

Then my right hand slipped into the purse, and I pulled out her makeup kit, the round one that she could whip out in the blink of an eye. I pulled out her phone, the same model that she had called me with dozens of times before. I pulled out her wallet, and her driver’s license displayed her brown-haired, blue-eyed face for all to see.

I didn’t notice when Madison returned. I think shock was dulling my senses at the time. But when I did look up to acknowledge her, she gave me a grim nod and refrained from asking the obvious. She gestured with her head in the direction of the front door. “We should go,” she said. “The upper floor is clear. No other victims, thankfully.”

“I…” I stammered a couple of time, still trying to process my horror, but I finally got out my grim statement. “I think I should go see for myself.”

Madison closed her eyes and sighed before speaking again. “I know you want closure, pal, and you do what you need to do. But trust me, there’s no closure through that door. Only nightmares.”

She held out her hand, her intention to take Larissa’s purse. I gave it to her without complaint. Then she quietly stayed with me until I was ready to leave. I don’t know if it was cowardice or pragmatism that kept me from going into the bedroom, but I never went in. All things considered, I don’t regret my decision.

*****

I had expected Madison to take me over to my car and all but insist that I get the hell out of Dodge. And if she had done so, I’d have agreed. I didn’t want to be here any more. Amongst my myriad emotions was a profound sense of failure. If I had called the police instead of rushing here myself, maybe things would’ve turned out differently. Maybe Larissa would be alive. I wanted to be alone with my sadness, but Madison didn’t agree. She told me to stay put and keep my glass beacon close at hand while she took care of a few things. So I found myself leaning against the side of the house, trapped between my grief for my ex-girlfriend and my growing desire to get answers about her death.

By the time I finally felt sane enough to start thinking in the moment again, Madison had covered the body on the stone path with a blanket from inside, closed the front door to the house, and now appeared to be working with an I-Pad she had pulled from her pack. She also asked me a few questions, mostly about Larissa and the phone call she had made to me this morning. Of course, she still refused to answer my own questions, telling me she’d get around to explanations later. Not only that, she was making no move to call the police or anyone else, despite the double-homicide before us. Madison’s clinical approach to everything began to rub me wrong, and I pulled out my phone to make the call myself. As before, there was no signal. Still, my patience with Madison was rapidly running out, and when my frustration finally overpowered my fear I walked up to her and tapped her on the back.

“I think I’m overdue an explanation, Madison,” I said. I then noticed that the I-Pad in her hands displayed a topographical map and that Madison had been tracing red lines and red Xs onto its surface with her finger. So enthralled she was in the activity that she didn’t even notice me until I touched her. She even jumped slightly before giving me an annoyed glare.

“And I’m trying to save lives,” she replied, lowering her I-Pad. “This isn’t the time.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be the time.” I shook my head and started walking down the driveway, towards my car. “I’m leaving. Say hi to the police when they get here.”

“If you leave right now, you’ll be dead before you get to the highway.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned back to Madison. Neither her tone nor her posture indicated a threat, but I could tell from her face that she meant what she’d said. Still, I was done with the mystery game.

“I’ll take my chances, unless you give me a reason to believe you,” I said.

I don’t think she was used to be challenged, as I saw a brief scowl cross her face before she spoke to me. “Have you seen anything unusual today?’

I furrowed my brow at the question. “Are you serious?”

She grunted in exasperation over her phrasing error. “I meant on your way up here. In particular, have you seen strange growths on the trees, fuzzy images that might offend the eye? Anything like that?”

I took a moment to recollect my trip, and then told her what I’d seen, especially the one tree right before Placid Lane that looked infested with some kind of weird moss. Upon hearing that, Madison swore, looking genuinely unnerved now.

“What you were seeing was the type of camouflage they use,” she explained. “They can resemble parts of the forest, like tree bark or bramble, but they don’t do a good job of it. If you look at them when they’re masked for too long, you can tell something is off with their cover. One or two of them, a handful, can mask themselves pretty well, enough for most people to ignore. But if you saw dozens of them, then they weren’t trying to hide. That means they’re on the hunt.”

Next to Madison’s backpack was Larissa’s purse. She went over to it and pulled out Larissa’s phone, holding it up for me to see clearly. “This phone is completely intact. They learn, you see. They adapt like we do. They learned a few years back that cell phones were something to be smashed, to keep their prey from calling for help. But they didn’t destroy this one, or the other victim’s phone. And they let you come here without any problems.”

I shrugged away the concern. “I was in a car.”

“They’ve taken down people in cars. You did notice the wreck in the driveway, right? Like I said, they’re adaptable. They know how to induce accidents. After what you’ve told me about your friend, I think they’ve been casing this place for at least a day. I think your friend caught wind of them last night, which was why she called you this morning, probably because her new boyfriend either dismissed her fears or thought he could handle things. We get a lot of the ‘fake rugged’ types, the business players who buy summer homes and then vacation up here thinking the stock market and the wilderness work by the same rules. And your friend had to been pretty scared, because cell phone coverage here is pretty bad and there’s only one reliable spot.”

Madison pointed up the hill, to an unseen location through the thick foliage. “Cell Point, they call it. She probably hiked there alone to make the call, and I suspect that’s why the pack went after her and her boy toy this morning. Walking in these woods alone when a ML pack is around is like tying some raw steaks to yourself and dancing around a tiger pit.”

“At least she did something,” I replied, feeling a need to defend my dead friend.

“That she did.” Madison frowned as she said the words. “That’s what worries me, Hector. They could’ve taken her in the woods at any time. She would’ve disappeared, and you’d have never known her fate. But they were thinking ahead to their next meal. They waited until after she made her call and then trailed her back here. Then they decided to… you know, play with their food a bit. They do that sometimes, letting a victim think they’re getting away when they’re really just prolonging the suffering. Your friend was allowed to get into the SUV, only to have an accident. After that, they chased down the male victim here on the steps…and your friend in the bedroom.”

I closed my eyes at the mention of Larissa’s gruesome fate. Even though I didn’t see it, my imagination coughed up the image of Larissa screaming in terror as a group of beasts ran after her, the dying screams of her new boyfriend filling the air behind her, and then getting cornered in the bedroom before…

“But here’s the thing, Hector,” continued Madison, her words snapping me out of my horrible daydream. I was grateful for that. “With both victims, they waited. They gave them a chance to go for their phones. Usually they’re content to just eat their prey and move on, but not this time. No, they want people to come. They want the police. They want the paramedics. This pack is big, and it’s hungry.” She was growing more apprehensive as she talked, and it did nothing for my calm either.

“These animals don’t sound like animals,” I said.

“They’re not like the rest of the woodland critters you know,” she replied. “And if you leave, they’ll get you before you drive a mile down that road.”

That’s when we heard the cries. Not human cries, not the cry of any creature I was familiar with. A type of rasping cough combined with a high-pitched warble that went on for several seconds. When it cut off, the silence that followed scared me more. I couldn’t tell the distance or the direction, but Madison must have pinned it down as she faced south, down the road I had traveled to get here. She handed me her I-Pad, got her rifle, and held it at the ready. I started to ask if that was one of the MLs when she held up an insistent hand, quieting me.

In short order, two more calls sounded out, very similar to the previous one, and then more and more until it was a veritable concert of creatures. I thought of a mutant wolf pack, announcing itself to the world, and it occurred to me that sundown couldn’t be far off. Facing these murderous beasts during the day was bad enough, but the idea of dealing with them at night chilled me to the bone.

With practiced ease, Madison moved to her backpack and donned it, all the while keeping her attention on the howling pack in the distance. She then waved at me to follow her, and we moved silently toward the main road. By the time we got to my car, the pack had quieted, the silence suggesting more menace than the howls ever could.

Madison had us stop next to my car, and she pointed at my trunk. “Did you bring luggage that you can carry?”

“I can manage it,” I replied. “But aren’t we taking my car?”

“Nope. Walking is better. Hurry up and get your bag.”

I didn’t budge. This long day kept getting longer and I wasn’t about to abandon my vehicle just on Madison’s say-so. “Those things sound close. How does walking back to town make any sense?”

I could see the apprehension on Madison’s face, and she now had her rifle trained on the road back to civilization. “We’re not going back to town. We won’t make it if we try.”

“What?” My voice elevated as my emotional restraint began to give way. “I’m not about to…”

“Quiet!” Her hushed demand carried the weight of a soldier who knew when her situation was getting deadly. I knew not to push her further, yet I still didn’t move to get my bag.

“I don’t know you, Hector,” she said in a low voice, never taking her eyes from the road ahead of us. “You don’t know me, either. I have no authority to make you do anything. You want to drive away, do so. You want to walk your own path, feel free. The moment you leave my sight, you’re on your own. I won’t come save you, because I have obligations beyond you. So you need to make up your mind here and now if you can trust me without getting angry every time something I do doesn’t jive with your sensibilities. If you’re coming with me, get your bag, because in thirty seconds I’m leaving no matter what.”

What else could I do? I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as Larissa, and Madison remained my one lifeline. So like the good little soldier I was, I grabbed my overnight bag, stashed Madison’s I-Pad in it, and awaited her command.

She nodded approvingly at my decision. “We’re going to continue down this road. You’re walking ahead of me. Just follow it until I tell you not to. Don’t distract me and don’t engage in small talk. The flash ball I placed should have ten mores minutes of juice left, which will give us a ten-minute head start. Let’s not waste any more of it.”

And so we walked, heading away from the monsters that had devoured my friend, and further away from the world that I once knew. I had the terrible feeling that it was a world I was never going to see again.

*****

The day darkened considerably as we moved, loose dirt puffing up under my shoes and shadows lengthening through the breaks in the tree boughs. The forest seemed very still, devoid of birdcalls or skittering rodents or even buzzing insects. I watched every tree we passed for weird growths or blurry spots, and the sweat I felt beading on my forehead had little to do with exertion. Madison had us moving at a brisk pace, but she held us back from rushing too fast. Despite my desire to put as much distance between us and the things that had killed Larissa, I had a feeling that speed wasn’t going to help us in this situation. Humans had learned to rely on our intellect and technology – we were otherwise sorely outmatched in the wilderness.

The next hour passed in silence, dread stealing away my need for answers on what these MLs were. But as we journeyed further, the silence grew heavy on my mind. I felt like I’d been torn away from the real world and had been plopped into some bad campfire story, where serial killers with hook hands and ghosts out to find their golden arms abided. Madison might have the training to keep quiet for long periods of time, but I knew I’d crack up if we kept going like this much longer.

“Can I ask questions if it isn’t small talk?” I dared to ask.

Madison didn’t respond at first, undoubtedly deciding if the situation was safe enough for conversation. I looked back at her and she shrugged. “Just keep your voice low, your words to the point, and your eyes front.”

I could live with those conditions, so I asked away. “Didn’t you tell me that these MLs had moved on?”

“From the house. They’re still in the area. They usually don’t come back to their kills once they’ve fed but they’re changing their tactics.”

“So… what are they? What is a ML?”

Madison gave a rueful laugh at the question. “I could write a book about them, Hector, but I’ll just give you the Cliff Notes version. ML stands for Meat Locust.”

I was sorry I asked. I previously pictured the MLs as some kind of canine-type beast. Now I had mental images of giant grasshoppers swarming over people and stripping off their flesh.

“It’s not a really accurate name,” continued Madison, “They operate more like wolf packs than insect swarms. But amongst us Wranglers, the name stuck.”

“Wranglers?”

“Yours truly. On the books, I’m a park ranger. There are only a few of us, all sworn to secrecy and living quiet lives away from the public. You should be honored – meeting one of us is like meeting the Tooth Fairy.”

I didn’t feel especially honored, but I wasn’t crass enough to say so. “Is this one of those situations where the government keeps them a secret to avoid a panic?”

A cry from the trees to my right ended our conversation. I froze as the horrid call of the Meat Locusts sounded out, this one much closer than the ones I heard at the house. I turned to Madison for guidance, but her response was to back away from me, holding her rifle at the ready as she walked off the road and towards a small manzanita bush.

“Do not move, do not speak, and do not fight them,” she ordered before she disappeared entirely. I could only sputter at her sudden act of abandonment, wanting to lodge my protest but scared to speak with the beasts so close. Her actions made no sense; I could see part of her blue outfit through the shrubbery, and if I could then surely the beasts could as well. Then another round of howls rang out, and I suddenly felt very exposed, standing in the middle of the road like a deer awaiting a fatal rendezvous with a semi-truck.

I heard something moving rapidly through the brush and duff, several somethings in fact, smashing twigs and grunting with effort on their way up the hill. They were approaching like hounds on a rabbit hunt, coming directly my way.

Then they found me, and my fanciful imaginings on their appearance proved inadequate for the monsters’ true form. At first I could only see indistinct humanoid shapes, gray blurs that loped like animals on all fours, moving through the forest with alarming speed. As they closed in, the blurriness covering them faded away and revealed the horrid creature underneath. Thin as skeletons, their gray skin had a reptilian texture, like that of a python. Their hands and feet contained only three digits each, a long curved claw attached to each digit. I thought those massive claws would get in their way when they ran, but they moved with amazing grace and swiftness. I spotted four creatures approaching, and in short order they reached the road with only forty feet between us. They skidded to a halt, eight pairs of jet-black eyes locked on me, swimming with dark purpose.

My heart went into overdrive as I stared back, my limbs screaming at me to do something, anything. I could see them better now, with their broad faces, slits for noses, and wide mouths. Their bald heads carried no hair, nor could I see any ears or even holes where ears should be. Their lipless mouths opened and closed as if tasting the air, revealing two rows of needle-like teeth. How small they were, barely coming up to my waist. How thin as well, certainly too thin to have much striking power. But their black eyes showed the truth of their nature – they were killers, happy little murder machines. What stood out to me the most at that despairing moment was how identical they seemed. Their height, their build, their movements and faces – they all seemed so similar. Even their voices were the same, as they screamed at me with clear malicious need and I found I couldn’t discern one scream from the other.

They charged, all four sprinting straight at me. At that moment all I could do was stand and scream in abject terror, unable to think or react, expecting claws and teeth to find me before I could even take a step. Then a gunshot ran out, and the rightmost ML dropped, a puff of gray dust jetting from its head as it fell lifeless to the dirt. The other three skidded to a halt, only to have a second one go down as Madison nailed it. I saw confusion in their movements, as if they couldn’t quite understand what was going on, and Madison used that pause to kill ML Number 3. The last one finally zeroed in on Madison, screaming its version of bloody murder, and charged her instead of me. It got ten feet before a bullet tore its left arm away completely, the creature tumbling as it hit the ground. Then it was sprawled out on the road, as lifeless as the others.

It took me a long moment to recover from my terror, to be aware of the world again, to even realize that I wasn’t dead. That was the first time I’d ever felt like a Thanksgiving turkey, and if Madison hadn’t taken them out, it would’ve been my last. I stood there as she came from behind the manzanita and walked about the corpses, inspecting them with the same clinical detachment she exhibited with the body of Larissa’s dead boyfriend.

“Did… did you just use me as bait?” I asked, once I’d found my voice again.

She finished nudging the corpse at her feet with her boot, them looked at me and shrugged. “It was the only way I could save your life.” She gestured to her clothes. “They have a hard time processing the color blue. To them, it works like camouflage. Also, their vision is partly motion-based, so fast moving things attract their attention. That’s why cars are a bad idea when dealing with MLs. I didn’t have the time to explain all this to you, so… you were bait.”

I glared at her rather fiercely. “Don’t you think this information might have been important to share earlier?”

She shook her head. “You’re not a hunter or a soldier, Hector. Telling you all this would only have given you enough confidence to get yourself killed.”

It’s hard to stay angry with someone who had just saved your life, but I still didn’t like being kept in the dark. “You knew these things were coming after us,” I angrily declared, pointing at a nearby corpse, “but instead of staying at the house and standing our ground there, you dragged me out here.”

“Going on foot was the only chance we had, Hector,” she calmly replied. “You still don’t know what we’re up against here. If you’ll take a deep breath and chill for a moment, I’ll educate you. We’re safe for the time being.”

She motioned at me to come toward the bodies. I still wanted to be angry, but I wanted answers more. I approached hesitantly, more than a little unnerved to get any closer to these creatures, even the dead ones. The body at Madison’s feet had a bullet hole right through its forehead, but no blood leaked from it. Instead, the body appeared to be gathering dust at an absurd rate, a gray cloud slowly thickening around it. At the same time, the body seemed to be shrinking, growing thinner with each passing moment.

“You see this?” she said. “This is one of the reasons why no one knows about these creatures. In less than ten minutes, these corpses will be dust in the wind. Tell me, Hector, do you know of any animals that decompose so quickly?”

I believed her. Already the corpse’s right hand had crumbled into nothingness, and its left hand was about to follow. There was also not a drop of fluid to be found, as if their veins had been filled with dust and dirt. I didn’t think I could get more unnerved, but I managed it. These things were not of the natural order.

“Have you tried capturing one alive?” I asked.

“Yeah, and it never works. They’re immune to tranquilizers and they always find a way to either escape or kill themselves. And to answer your next question, there’s already video evidence of them, but people just mistake them for other cryptid legends like chupacabras and Jersey Devils, or they just call it doctored or fake footage.”

She looked off towards the woods, as if searching for more MLs, or perhaps just lost in thought. I kept staring at the body before me, watching, as bit by bit it disintegrated. I had wanted to believe they were just animals, some kind of aberration or mutant that had gone unnoticed all this time. One more small comfort yanked away from me.

When I looked at the fourth corpse, I noticed that it wasn’t decomposing as fast as the others. Curious, I walked over to it, and saw that outside of its missing arm, it looked fairly intact. It was face down, with no cloud of gray hovering over it, and I wondered if this was a rare instance of a non-decomposing ML. I glanced back at Madison, who still had her back turned, and I almost told her about the corpse when I heard a slight rustle in front of me. In a split-second, it hit me that the reason why the corpse wasn’t dissolving was that it wasn’t a corpse at all. It was all I could do to fall back from the thing as it rose up on three limbs and lunged at me, black eyes wide, mouth curled in searing rage.

But it proceeded to leap over me instead of into me, and as my butt hit the dirt I heard Madison swear in alarm, followed by a gunshot. By the time I could twist my body around to look, the creature was sprinting into the woods like a cat on fire, Madison firing once more and putting a new hole in a pine before the brush gave it cover. Madison swore again, then came over to me and helped me up.

“You’re damn lucky it was trying to escape,” she said. “But that’s not on you. I should’ve checked the body. Can you walk?” I nodded. Then she abruptly walked away from me. Not up the road, mind you, nothing sensible like that, but into the woods, in roughly the same direction as the ML. She motioned at me to come, and when I asked her rather emphatically why, she told me that she had to track the ML and that I was free to stay right here and take my chances otherwise.

As I followed after her, I considered whether my odds of survival were getting higher or lower the longer I stayed with Madison. Going toward the monsters did not seem like a smart move. But lacking other wilderness saviors, I kept up with her as best I could, dreading what new horror I would find at the end of this path.

There was no way to keep up with the creature, so Madison relied on her tracking skills to follow it, stopping periodically to inspect a print in the earth or a broken twig. I marveled at her hunting skills while at the same time questioning the logic behind it. The sun was heading for the horizon now, with maybe two hours of sunlight left. I hadn’t packed a light in my bag, and I absolutely knew that being out here in the dark would be the end of me.

At first it was all uphill, slow going through scratching bramble and up steep inclines. My lack of fitness finally caught up with me, and I struggled to keep behind Madison, sweat caking my clothes and my legs beginning to throb. We crested the hill and headed downward again, finding the start of a dry creek bed close to the bottom. Madison decided to break into a jog as she followed the dry creek, all but ignoring my protests to slow down. A great urgency had come over her, and at the point where the dry creek became wet I had to stop and rest for a moment. Madison kept going, practically sprinting now. I had no idea why Madison had all but abandoned me until my breathing slowed and I could now hear distant cries, ugly sounds similar to the hunting calls of the creatures but tinged with something akin to pain or alarm. There were many of them, and I did not want to get any closer. But my survival was chained to Madison, so I forced myself to follow.

I chased Madison’s trail along the creek, and it didn’t take long before the creek cleared the trees and entered a small clearing, stunted grasses and rotting logs littering the area. Madison was already at the center of the clearing, but I stopped only a few feet in. I could see the horrid gathering just fine from there, and I had no desire to get closer.

There had to be a dozen MLs in the clearing, almost all of them lying on their sides in the dirt, writhing and spasming as if they were having a collective seizure. Only one bucked this pattern, the three-limbed creature we’d been tracking. It stood on a log, acting as a sentinel for its brethren, and when it saw Madison it emitted a yell that came across as a warning to the others. But the other MLs didn’t respond to it, nor did they respond to the gunshot from Madison’s rifle that plugged the three-limbed beast in the head and sent it tumbling off its perch.

My initial thought upon seeing the pack writhing on the ground was that they were sick from some disease, maybe from something… well, someone they ate. If that was the case, Madison’s attitude suggested it wasn’t going to last long. She rushed through the clearing with renewed urgency, nearly tripping over a tree stump in her desperation. “Stay where you are, no matter what you see,” she called back to me, and as she reached the first Meat Locust and put a bullet through its skull I began to understand, with renewed horror, what was happening.

I focused on one of the MLs in the middle of the clearing, and I could see it had a kind of tumor or growth on its back, and it was growing rapidly. As I watched, the growth began to spread out, forming stick-like protuberances that widened and grew definition, like an invisible artist turning a lump of clay into a figurine. The protuberances sharpened into limbs, the ends forming into hands and feet. A neck emerged, then an oval-shaped head, and then the head shifted into recognizable features like eyes and a mouth. Spasmodic bursts of motion came from the growth as the new body, the new ML, grew to match its parent’s size and width.

They were all doing this. This was reproduction, akin to cellular cloning, but at a grotesquely fast rate.

Then it stopped just as grotesquely fast when Madison reached it and killed its parent, the unfinished creature as stone dead as the parent it was tethered to. Five more MLs and their spawn lay motionless behind Madison, and she quickly went to work on the remaining five. She didn’t make it to the last one before the budding process finished, the “infant” ML severing from its parent with a sickening tearing sound. Both parent and child reacted to Madison’s arrival by weakly standing and confronting her, but two final shots from her rifle put them back on the ground.

A gray haze slowing enveloped the clearing as the bodies decomposed, Madison double-checking each kill to avoid another playing-possum moment. I found a moss-covered log to sit on while she finished her gruesome business, my legs shaky and my mind whirling. I closed my eyes and held my head in my hands, breathing regularly and deliberately to control the anxiety building inside me. I had to wonder if this was what soldiers felt after their first battle, when the civil, normal life you were used to gets forever ripped away by violence and insanity. At that moment, I just wanted the world to fade away and leave me alone, let me process my experience in my own time. I wanted to mourn my ex-girlfriend and go back to my boring-yet-predictable job, pretending that today was only a sordid nightmare from which I eventually woke up.

I heard Madison’s boots crunch through twigs and grass as she came to my spot and quietly sat down on my log. She seemed to understand my reaction and gave me a few minutes before she tapped on my shoulder to get my attention.

“This is why we had to leave, Hector,” she said. “This is why we call them Locusts – they feed and they reproduce. They’re real good at both. If we’d stayed put, we’d have been cornered at that house and overwhelmed.”

She stood up and motioned at me to follow. “You good to get moving?” she asked. I lied and nodded to her. I wanted to root myself to that log, because every move I made today had led to somewhere worse. But I forced myself off the log and followed her away from the clearing. It was a hike we made in silence, and this time I was glad for the quiet.

*****

We weren’t going back to the road, I could tell that much. Madison had us take a parallel course through the woods, using a narrow deer trail through a great deal of brush and tall grass. This time I followed at her heels, watching the woods vigilantly, locking onto the slightest rustling leaf or cracking twig. I felt an odd combination of numbness and fear, surrendering myself to Madison’s leadership without any further desire to resist but deathly afraid of each step I took through the forest. I kept my mouth buttoned up, fearful of making noise and even more afraid to add more disquieting truths to my life. Madison seemed far more at ease, keeping a constant eye on our surroundings but with an air of confidence that, while failing to soothe me, was good for keeping me from bolting in sheer terror.

The sun was about to set, taking with it the last bits of light from our part of the world. Madison must have sensed my growing apprehension, for the one time she spoke was in reassurance that we were close to her sanctuary. Keep my eyes forward, my legs moving, and I’ll be okay.

I don’t remember how long that leg of our journey lasted, only a couple of hours at most, but by the time I laid eyes on Madison’s sanctuary I felt like I’d been walking for days without end. Her home turned out to be an unassuming log cabin, nestled between a cluster of tall pines and connected to civilization through a dirt path that led toward the main road. It reminded me of a groundskeeper lodge from a larger resort, a place one stays while you were on the job. I noticed that some of the trees had lanterns affixed to their trunks, a fuel hose running from each lantern back to the house. Madison told me to go on in while she prepared for the night, throwing me her cabin key.

I unlocked the sturdy oak door and went in, noticing the two large sliding steel latches on the door’s interior. All the windows had iron bars on them, though no curtains or coverings. Privacy must not be an issue for Madison, being this far from civilization. There was only the barest of furnishings – a cot, a simple folding desk and chair, a portable cooking stove, a pair of wooden cabinets, and a woodstove for heat. I put down my travel bag and looked for a light source. The cabinets had lots of different equipment and supplies, including several lanterns and flashlights, so I grabbed a flashlight for my personal use. Before I could use it, a soft blue glow began to appear through the windows, and I looked out to see Madison lighting up one of the tree lanterns. A few minutes later, the cabin was awash in a gentle blue aura, simultaneously making the world softer and yet more surreal.

Madison came in soon after and sighed in obvious relief, securing the door with the steel latches. “Home sweet home,” she said, placing her rifle near the cot and her backpack near a cabinet. “You can eat anything that hasn’t spoiled, and I’ll let you have the cot tonight.”

“What about you?”

She shrugged. “The chair or the floor. I can still rough it with the best of them.”

I moved to the cot and sat upon it, testing it. It was comfortable enough, but I wasn’t in any rush to sleep. Hell, I wasn’t sure if sleep was even possible for me. Madison went about taking off her boots and her heavier gear, going through her routine and chores as if I wasn’t present. My constant anxiety abated somewhat, and thus returned my desire for answers.

“Do you live here all the time?” I asked.

“Just when I’m working, which is almost always,” she replied. “Every time I think the area is clear, another sighting or missing persons case comes to my attention and I’m back to it.”

“Don’t you get lonely, doing this by yourself?”

She didn’t reply immediately, choosing to grab a nutrient bar from her cabinet stockpile and munch on it for a few bites before sitting down at the table. I thought I saw a brief look of pain or regret sweep across her face before it vanished, her stoic expression back in place. She looked at me and said, “I wasn’t always alone. I paired up with a guy named Dr. Lichen, more of a scientist than a survivalist. He wanted to understand the MLs more than kill them, though he did recognize that we couldn’t just let them run around free. Smart guy, great sense of humor, but didn’t have enough respect for nature, or the MLs. He was my partner for only six months. He tried setting up a series of bear traps to catch one. That’s how I found out they’ll chew through their own limbs to get free of captivity… and why you never get too close to a live Meat Locust, even a wounded one.”

The memory of my close encounter with the three-limbed ML was quite fresh for me. “I am grateful for you saving my life. But don’t you think people deserve to know what’s going on out here? Wouldn’t it make your life easier?”

She shrugged and took another bite of her dinner. “I honestly don’t know if it would, Hector. People like to think they’ll rise to the occasion when a monster comes knocking at the door, make all the right decisions, break out of their domestic behavior and kick ass. But there’s something primal within us that triggers when confronted with a predator. It makes us want to run and hide. Not many of us have a killer’s instinct. Instead, we make the quick choices, often the wrong choices. That’s why my strategy with people these days is to lie to them. The creature they saw was a kid playing a prank, or a starving bear killed their dead friend. I send them on their merry way, blissfully ignorant of the unnatural threat they’d encountered. I’m just a custodian, cleaning up messes, and right now we have a pretty big mess on our hands. You have my I-Pad in your bag, right?”

I did, and I retrieved it for her. On the device, she brought up the same topographical map from before and then beckoned me to come look. She patiently pointed out how the map worked, where the landmarks were in relation to our position, and then pointed to the red Xs. Those were the places where she’d seen evidence of active packs of MLs and the connecting red lines were their movements over the last five weeks.

“Most years, there’s never more than one active pack in this area,” she explained. “The most I’ve ever had to deal with is two packs in one season. A pack will have no more than twenty MLs before they split off to form a new one. But right now, I’m seeing evidence of five active packs.”

I felt my stomach tighten as she talked. I was amazed at how calm she was while talking about being surrounded by murder-monsters. “But we have less to deal with now, right? You killed the ones coming after us.”

She frowned and shook her head slowly. “I think that was only part of a pack. I’m pretty sure they’re the ones that killed your friend, but the rest of them probably heard all the commotion, and they’ll smell the corpse dust in the air. The packs are going to come investigate.”

“Then maybe it’s time to call in the cavalry.”

She sat back down at her table, laid down the I-Pad, and gave me an irritated glare. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that? Cell and radio service is terrible in this spot, so we have to go up to Cell Point. From here, it’s several hours of hiking. Not exactly a safe thing to try with all those packs out there.”

Realizing that this nightmare wasn’t ending any time soon, I wandered over to a nearby window and stared absently out into the blue-tinged night. I wasn’t sure if I was looking for approaching monsters or simply avoiding Madison’s gaze. “Are you sure we’re safe here?” I asked.

“Can’t be sure of anything,” she said. “You were going to ask me if this was a government cover-up, and yeah, it is. The government is afraid of these things, but they’re so few of them that it’s easier to play dumb than to tell the truth and panic the public. And I can’t blame them for being scared. These creatures, Hector… I’m not even sure they’re alive. They don’t age, they don’t get sick, and they don’t die from hunger or thirst. They don’t suffer from cold or heat. I’m pretty sure they’re fireproof because I’ve seen them run into burning homes to get at the people trapped inside, then come back out completely unscathed. They target exactly one animal: us. Sure, Nature shuts up when they’re around. But the Meat Locusts ignore all other animals unless one attacks them. The only flesh they’re after is human flesh. It’s like they’ve evolved, or were designed, to kill us. They eat flesh not to live, but to reproduce. The pack that killed your friend? The creatures that got their pound of flesh were in the process of budding. That’s what you saw in the clearing. I suspect the four we met on the road didn’t get enough meat to start the budding process, and were fixing that by going after you.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted. “These things are terrifying.”

“Not terrifying enough, if you ask me. The bureaucrats think they only need a few Wranglers like me to control the problem, but it’s hard to convince politicians to put more resources into ML control when all your evidence turn to dust and all your video is dismissed as deep fakes. And honestly, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to let the secret out.”

“How would it not be a good idea?” I asked incredulously. “You took out a pack all by yourself. The military would make short work of them.”

“The military doesn’t know how to deal with them,” she calmly replied. “I do, but that’s after years of studying and hunting them, and there’s still so much I don’t understand. Even then, we were lucky to get here in one piece. Wounded MLs usually run back to their packs for safety. If I hadn’t blown off that one creature’s arm by accident, we’d have twelve more MLs. If that pack had found us, with that many MLs, I doubt we would’ve survived.”

Feeling overwhelmed by all this information, my mind started to wander toward Larissa. If she had known, if she’d been warned, she’d never have come up here. Anger mixed with horror as a mental picture of Larissa’s final moments in the jaws of these monsters tried to invade my thoughts. I sat back down on my cot and concentrated on breathing to clear my mind.

“They need to warn the public,” I finally said. “We need to warn the public.”

“I hear you, Hector,” she replied with genuine sympathy. “I’ve seen too many people, whole families in fact, get ripped apart by these things. To the government, victims are just names you add to the missing persons record. To me, they’re people we might have saved if we weren’t keeping secrets. But would you want a bunch of inexperienced hunters and soldiers coming here, only to get slaughtered and create more monsters? Would you want the military to blow up the forest getting at them? Do you want the whole world, along with every amoral capitalist out there, to find out there’s a very unique and very dangerous creature living in the woods, something they could exploit? Secrecy can cost lives, but telling the public could cost more.”

I glared at her, not content with her reasoning. “Is this your way of telling me to stay quiet when I get clear of here?”

She gave me a slight shrug. “As I’ve said before, you can walk your own path if you want. Smarter people than you have tried to expose the MLs. Right now, all I care about is getting through the night.”

“What are we doing tomorrow?” I asked.

“Depends on what happens tonight. You should get some grub and some rest. You’ll need your energy.”

She made herself comfortable in the corner of the cabin while I raided her food pantry, finding some stale crackers and beef jerky for my dinner. Then I settled in on the cot, thinking sleep wouldn’t find me for a long time, if ever again.

*****

I don’t know how long I laid staring at the cabin’s ceiling, a hundred horrible images and thoughts robbing me of any peace of mind. But at some point I must have fallen asleep because time skips a beat or two and the next thing I know my mouth is covered by a warm, strong hand. My eyes shot awake and I made out Madison’s silhouette in the pale blue light. She knelt over me, her right hand over my mouth, her left hand holding a hoodie. Alarms bells went off in my head, erasing my grogginess. Madison took her hand from my mouth, satisfied I had gotten the message.

“Keep your voice low,” she softly warned, handing the hoodie to me. “Put this on. It’s probably too small for you, but it’s blue.”

I stood and took the hoodie, once again resisting the desire to ask what was happening. The hoodie was a tight fit, but I made it work. She motioned for me to follow her as she headed for one of the windows. She knelt down and pointed outside. It wasn’t hard to see the problem. Faint as ghosts and ten times as scary, the small outlines of loping creatures danced on the edge of my vision. A pack of MLs had found the cabin, some running right by and disappearing into the dark beyond the lanterns, others meandering and searching about in random patterns.

I watched them with macabre interest, pretending I was a wildlife photographer studying a pride of lions as they hunted at night. It helped dull the anxiety welling up within me. At times I felt like ducking away and hiding in a corner, but I only had to glance at Madison, who calmly watched the gathering with calm detachment, and the urge left me. As I watched, an uneasy, surreal sensation grew within me, like I was an actor in a horror movie, trying to act like the practical effects in front of me were actually real monsters. These things moved around well enough, but they didn’t sniff each other or fight one another, there were no acts of dominance or submission or play. No marking their territory or rubbing their scent on the trees. They seemed focused only on finding potential prey; like organic machines built to consume and simulate life but lacking the nuances that would make their behavior look authentic.

One of the MLs came up to the window and I almost ducked away, but it didn’t peer into the glass or even acknowledge there even was glass. I don’t remember any of them making contact with the cabin walls. It was almost like the cabin was invisible to them, yet they didn’t collide with it as one might do when mulling about an invisible structure. It was more like they were ignoring it.

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath the whole time until I saw the last one fade into the night and my breathing suddenly returned. Madison stood up and grunted once, looking quite relieved as well. “I counted thirty-nine, but there were probably more out there than we could see,” she stated. “They must have caught our scents and followed us here. But they couldn’t find us, so we should be safe for awhile.”

“Did the lanterns throw them off?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s weird how they act in the presence of blue light. Like they can see everything but can’t quite process it the same as before. My ex-partner came up with the idea to surround the cabin with blue-light lanterns. Definitely a better idea than his let’s-capture-one-alive plan.” She then gave me a knowing stare. “Before you ask the next obvious question, understand that the blue-light effect is very limited. If they had heard us in here, or if you’d turned on that flashlight you borrowed from my stash, they’d be tearing at the cabin like sharks attending a chum bucket banquet. It only really works if there’s no other stimulus for them to latch onto. And the lanterns are useless in the daytime.”

“Is this the first time they’ve ever been at the cabin?” I asked.

“No, but I’m usually prepared for them when they do.” She walked over to the opposite wall of the cabin, and that’s when I noticed that one of the floorboards had been pried up in that spot. Her backpack was there as well, various pieces of gear spread out on the floor. I made out a handheld radio, a satchel stuffed with a number of those glass beacons, a pistol lying next to its holster, and several ammo clips that went with her rifle. There was an electrical adapter poking out of the hole, attached to her I-Pad and charging it. So she wasn’t as low-tech as it looked; she just preferred keeping it hidden.

Either I had been so tired that I slept through all of Madison’s activity, or she was a pro at doing things ninja. She sat down on the floor and resumed checking and preparing her equipment. To me, it looked like she was preparing to go to war.

She glanced my way as she picked up a rifle clip and inspected it, nodding at the cot with her head. “If you need more sleep, now’s the time to do. It’s an hour to sunrise, but we need to give the MLs a couple of hours to move on before we go outside.”

I knew there was no chance of further sleep for me, so I went over to the cabin’s one chair and parked there instead. “You know, when I was younger, I used to enjoy donning a backpack and going on a hike around Crater Lake or Yosemite. Now all I can think of is how close I was to getting eaten by these things.”

“You were probably safe,” she replied. “We’ve only seen them in a half-dozen locations in the U.S. This is their sole habitat on the West Coast… that I know of.”

“Forgive me if I’m not reassured.” I found myself looking toward the window we had used to view the MLs. My lizard-brain was warning me not to assume the MLs were gone, despite Madison’s calm demeanor. “There’s a lot more of these things than there should be, aren’t there?”

She didn’t answer me at first, inspecting another clip of ammo instead. She then stopped and looked at me straight on. I couldn’t see her eyes in the dim light of the cabin, but I sensed there was genuine concern in those orbs of hers.

“You remember the Louisville fire, right?” she asked. I nodded. It was hard not to know about that fire. Louisville was, or had been, a town on the eastern part of Oregon. Roughly ten thousand people lived there. Last summer, the right combination of dry weather and excess deadwood generated a nasty forest fire that swept through it. Thankfully, there had been enough warning for the residents to evacuate in time. Unfortunately, not everyone had gotten the message or had been able to leave, and fifty-one people died as a result. Now most of the residents were refugees in their own state, living wherever they could find lodging.

“That town was only forty-six miles away, as the crow flies,” she said. “The MLs are adapting, Hector. I don’t think they caused that fire, but they might have used it to claim a few victims. The fire would’ve covered their kills, hid the evidence. They fed, budded, and then migrated here, their old hunting grounds, with greater numbers and a few new tactics to try out. I’ve never had to deal with this many MLs at once, and the smart move would be to stay here for a few days and wait for them to move on.”

“But we’re not doing that, are we?” I remarked.

She gave a short laugh. “Well, I’m not doing that. You’re free to stay here with the lanterns, or come with me. You’re taking your chances either way. But I’m going to Cell Point. I have to get the word out, before this spreads further.”

Through all the fear and terror that had flowed through me, through all the reality-shattering experiences I’d gone through in the last day, some ridiculous part of me, the same part of me that had been my motivation for coming here to help an ex-girlfriend out of a jam, absolutely refused to shut the hell up.

“How many people live in this area?” I asked.

“This is a remote part of Crusoe Lake, mostly vacation homes, but around two dozen people live here at any given time,” she said.

“You think they’re still alive?”

“Not for long.”

“Right. And every person they eat means more MLs.”

She nodded. “Just wait until they reach one of the campgrounds at the lake, or decide to follow the road to town. Crusoe has around a thousand people. ”

“So we’re going to be heroes, right? Because I can live with being a hero.”

She laughed lightly at my statement. “You can be a hero if you want. Just remember that heroes don’t have the longest life spans.”

The next two hours passed by uneventfully, the two of us sharing some hot instant coffee I managed to brew from her stockpiles while she finished her preparations. I wish I could say that we learned more about each other in that time, swapping tales about her military exploits or my misadventures with Larissa, but neither of us wanted to talk much. Though she wasn’t the type to admit when she was afraid, I could tell by the way she double-checked all her gear and paced around the cabin that real fear had found her. At least we now had that much in common.

She signaled that it was time by going outside and turning off the lanterns. Once I dared to come out myself, I found the world just barely visible, the sky brightening up but the sun hidden thanks to the forested hillside. I don’t know if the air had acquired a chill or my nerves were sapping the warmth from my body, but I found myself hugging myself more often than not.

I carried Madison’s spare backpack, filled with my clothes and her food supplies, enough for a week. It was a contingency in case the path to Cell Point was impassible and we needed to find a fortified location to wait out the MLs. She also gave me the satchel with what she called “flash balls,” the glass beacons that put out blue light. If a fight was upon us, I was in charge of blinding the little monsters while Madison blew them away.

We moved up the main trail from the cabin, Madison leading, her rifle at the ready. I kept a globe in my right hand as we hiked through the silent forest, the natural world hiding from the intruders in its home. I watched the environment with intense vigilance, fearing what might be hiding under the nearest bush, or wondering if that odd bulge jutting from a tree was one of them, waiting until I passed by. I felt like a thousand eyes were upon me, waiting for us to slip up even once. That feeling wears you down, makes you want to find a hole to crawl into, and if I’d been alone I surely would have.

We were closer to civilization than I’d thought, for it was less than an hour before the trail led to another cabin, this one with a gravel road leading away from it. I felt a surge on confidence as we approached it, hoping that there was reliable communication within. That confidence shattered when Madison waved at me to slow down, and in short order I saw why. Behind the cabin a fire pit had been built, a small plume of smoke rising from it, and the two people enjoying the fire last night sat there still, the flowery fabric of their camping chairs stained solid red, bits of their flesh scattered about.

Madison spent a few minutes checking the property while I focused on a RV parked near the cabin. I found it in good condition, though I wisely didn’t open it up, and when Madison came back to me I suggested that the vehicle might be a quicker and safer way to get to Cell Point. She pooh-poohed the idea. The engine noise would draw the Meat Locusts, and if they managed to disable it the best-case scenario was that we’d be trapped inside. Besides, Cell Point wasn’t accessible by vehicle.

As if to prove her point, we walked up the gravel road only a short ways before finding a Ford pickup in a ditch with a flat tire, the driver’s door ajar and a blood trail leading away from it. The trail vanished into some heavy brush. This poor soul probably intended to join the gathering at the cabin, only to share their fate instead.

I looked at Madison, about to suggest we make sure, but she shook her head and started walking again. I wanted to call her out on her callousness, but instead I quietly followed. I realize now that I was beginning to think like her. These kills were recent, within the last few hours, and that meant more Meat Locusts were soon to be born. We were rapidly running out of time, and we couldn’t afford to be humanitarians at every scene of carnage we came across.

The next few hours went by without further encounters, a mercy I was grateful for. Madison had us stop on the side of the road for a brief nutrient and hydration break. She seemed satisfied at our progress, confident we’d reach Cell Pont before dark, but the lack of conversation between us denoted her disquiet. The perpetual silence of the woods, the lack of human noises, and the constant vigilance required – it all felt like a twenty-pound weight strapped to my chest. I finally dared to break the silence by asking her how she got into this line of work.

“I kinda fell into it,” she explained. “I came here camping ten years ago, and I happened across an old Wrangler who had gotten careless. His right leg was almost completely severed, and he was crawling along the road, trying to get back to his camp. He told me it had been a bear, but his lie became pretty transparent when two MLs emerged from the woods, coming right at us. My combat instincts kicked in, I took his gun and nailed both of them. He was impressed, gave me a number to call, and one thing led to another.”

“Did he die?” I asked.

She nodded solemnly. “I got him to a hospital, but he’d lost too much blood. Wranglers are like heroes – not the longest life spans.”

“Ever thought about retiring?”

She shook her head. “Not gonna happen.”

I frowned at her response. “Why? Don’t think you’ve done your part, deserve some normal life?”

“Normal life? After my time in the Marines, I just couldn’t adapt to normal life. I kept thinking how arbitrary all our rules and laws are. In a normal life, you don’t get to shoot your problems. You have to be civil, compromise, play nice, and pretend that it couldn’t all just change in an instant.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Climate change, environmental degradation, social and cultural divides – such big, meaty issues that you can’t just shoot, and so many people just want to ignore them until it’s too late to change your fate. But out here, I can face down one problem. Out here, I can do something. Why would I want to retire from that?”

“Not getting eaten, maybe?”

She laughed at that, and I found myself laughing with her. It was good to break the tension.

Then we heard it, distant but clear as a bell in the silence of the forest. A ML hunting chorus had started up, echoing about the hillside. The tension returned and we both shot to our feet, donning our packs and moving along the road at a brisker pace than before. We had no way to know if we were on the MLs’ radar, but we weren’t going to wait around to find out.

At every turn we made and every hill we crested, I hoped that Madison would declare Cell Point was in sight. As the road eventually met up with a trail and we turned onto it, my feet began to complain. I hadn’t hiked this much in years, and I wasn’t conditioned for it. But every so often, the hungry cries of the Locusts would erupt behind us, always sounding a little closer than before, and I found the strength to push my growing pain away.

We moved steadily higher, winding around several small hills, and while I dared not ask if we were lost, I wondered the possibility. Getting lost out here would be a death sentence. But I felt a measure of relief upon passing another summer cabin, even if there was no sign of recent habitation around it. There were no signs of violence at the residence either, which I called a good omen. I’d take all the good omens I could get.

It was only a mile past the cabin that Madison stopped us and pointed at the top of the hill we were currently climbing, a clear spot filled with wild grasses and a few residual boulders. She looked at me and smiled. “That’s it, pal. Cell Point.”

“Hell of a hike,” I remarked. “Larissa must have been pretty scared to come here. She hated camping.”

“People can surprise you,” she said. “For better and for worse.”

Another Locust hunting call put us back in motion. They sounded closer than ever, and we jogged the rest of the way to the top.

As tired and afraid as I was, I still had the sense to appreciate the view from Cell Point. An endless vista of green and brown encircled us, a sea of trees with lumpy hills interspersed within their verdant bounty. I could finally see Lake Crusoe to the west, a small patch of dull blue underneath the waning sun. I felt a measure of disappointment that I wouldn’t get to see it up close, as I expected that, one way or another, I was never setting foot in these woods again.

As if to reassure myself that we had reached Cell Point, I took out my phone to test the reception. To my delight, there were bars, though not a very strong signal. I felt the instinctual urge to call the police, but I knew better. Madison was already diving into her backpack, retrieving a satellite linkup and orienting it on a nearby boulder. She knew whom we needed, and at that point I knew the police would be woefully unprepared for what we were up against.

It felt like an eternity, waiting on top of that hill, exposed and vulnerable, while Madison locked onto a constant signal and launched into a dialogue with an autonomous voice on the other end. I couldn’t follow all the authentication codes she used; they sounded like cooking recipes more than military jargon. I imagine that was for foiling any eavesdroppers listening in.

When she was done, she packed away her phone and looked out toward the lake, not even sparing a single glance my direction. She had been so matter-of-fact during the call that I hadn’t gotten a good read of how the call had gone. With Madison back to her stolid stance, I had the impression that there was bad news coming. At least she spoke up before I had to ask the obvious questions.

“Two hours,” she stated, still looking far away. “That’s how fast they can get a helo to us. Rescue chopper, by the way. No military backup. Bastards can’t spare a Black Hawk.”

I recoiled to the news. Two hours? That’d be after nightfall. Not that the MLs weren’t dangerous during the day, but at least we had a fighting chance in the sunlight.

“Maybe we should go back to the last house we passed,” I suggested. “Hole up there until the chopper shows.”

Madison shook her head, still determined not to look my direction. “If we did that and the MLs showed up, we’d be stuck there. Our ride would come and go and we’d probably be dead before reinforcements arrived. We have to stay here, Hector, no matter what.”

“We’re sitting ducks out here,” I said.

She finally turned to face me, and I could see the face she had been hiding from me this whole time, one of resignation and disappointment. “Tell me something I don’t know. That pack we’ve been hearing all day has to have our scent by now, and after feeding it’ll be bigger and more aggressive. They’ll find us before the chopper gets here.”

She found a small boulder to sit upon and did so, crossing her arms over her legs and staring at the ground. “I’m… sorry, Hector,” she said, her tone full of regret. “We should’ve stayed at my cabin. I zigged when I should’ve zagged. Our odds of getting out of here just got really bad.”

You’d think that seeing Madison looking defeated would have sent me into a panic, but my panic meter had been running high for so long that I only felt exhausted. And yet with that exhaustion came a odd sense of determination, the same kind of stupid, irrational emotion that had caused me to drive out here in the first place, seeking to help an old girlfriend when all better judgment said otherwise.

I came over to Madison and almost put my hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it. She didn’t seem the touching type. “I’m pretty damn sure I’d be in the stomach of an ML by now if not for you,” I told her. “So you have to be doing something right. Besides, if I have to die tonight, this is a decent spot for it. Under better circumstances I’d come up here and pitch a tent for a weekend.”

She looked up at me and gave me a smirk. “You always do these corny pep talks?”

I smirked back at her. “I think it’s one of the reasons why Larissa and I broke up.”

She shook her head with amusement and stood up. “Well, it doesn’t change our odds, but we might as well prepare as best we can.” As she stooped to open up her backpack, I gazed out toward the horizon, hoping that first thing I’d see moving was an approaching helicopter… and dreading that it would be a large group of approaching carnivores instead.

*****

I wish I could tell you that we prepared the grounds for an assault, like you see in stories about brave soldiers fighting against overwhelming odds. But Cell Point was incredibly barren of trees and brush, and the residual boulders were barely big enough to make comfortable seats. She didn’t have any explosives to plant, nor any wire or rope for making traps. We could have dug a pit or trench, but to what end? What counted for my combat training was Madison asking me if I’d ever handled a gun before. I admitted that I hadn’t, but she still gave me her backup 9mm pistol, instructing me on its basic functions such as the iron sight and the safety, and then warned me not to use it until I ran out of flash balls and I was about to be eaten, because if she was dying tonight, it was by Meat Locust and not by friendly fire.

She also explained how the rescue was going to work. Madison had never evacuated before, but she knew the protocol. Because we were in a ML hot zone, the chopper wasn’t going to land. It would lower a rescue basket, most likely a one-seater, something that could be detached if the MLs managed to board it. She was adamant that I go up first, and I didn’t have a problem with that.

The rest of our time was spent watching the countryside around us, listening to the distant howls of the Meat Locusts as they searched for their next meal. Sometimes they cried out in rapid succession, several times a minute. Other times the pause would be ten minutes or more. I tried to judge the distance of the pack by the volume of their cries, feeling bursts of relief when it sounded like they were further away, and spikes of terror when they sounded closer.

We reached the beginning of twilight without incident, and I started daring to think we might survive this. There were twenty minutes left before the rendezvous time, and the MLs remained absent. Yet every minute that ticked by felt like another pound of weight added to my nerves, the light gradually slinking away and with it our odds of survival if the MLs showed. Madison turned on a flashlight mounted to her rifle, and I had the one I grabbed from her cabin, but our meager lights were no substitute.

We sat back-to-back on the same boulder, Madison’s rifle on her lap, me with a flash ball in hand. It’d been some time since we’d heard from the MLs and I didn’t know if that was a good thing. I found my thoughts were on what I’d do when we got clear, and I didn’t see any clear path for me. Try to go back to my job as if everything was normal? Go to the media and tell my story? Would I even have a choice in my future if the government wanted to keep things quiet?

“So what do you think they are?” asked Madison right out of the blue.

I was shocked enough by Madison’s abrupt breaking of the silence that I wasn’t sure who “they” were at first.

“The MLs?” I replied. She nodded. “Well, they don’t strike me as natural. I think they’re somebody’s experimental bio-weapon.”

“I thought that too at first,” she said. “But I don’t think we’re advanced enough to create life forms like these things.”

“What do you think now?”

She groaned at my query. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

I laughed at her statement. “I doubt that. C’mon, tell me your wacky idea.”

She shrugged and said, “I’m not religious, but I wonder if there is some ethereal force out there, something that keeps the balance not for the sake of humanity, but for life itself. Whenever that balance gets too distorted, it does something to even it out again. It doesn’t exterminate or destroy the problem, it just levels the playing field.”

“So they’re some kind of divine equalizer?” I asked. “They’re here to put us in our place?” I paused as I mulled the idea around in my head. “I suppose that makes about as much sense as…”

I didn’t get a chance to finish. The MLs finally broke the peace by crying out once more. Madison looked about nervously, swiveling her head in different directions, and at first I wondered why this particular outcry bothered her more than the other ones. But when the howls erupted again, I realized they were much closer than before… and coming from different directions.

Terror seized me as Madison moved off of our boulder and began using it as a perch to steady her aim. She had the northern slope covered, which up until now was the opposite direction from which I thought the MLs would arrive.

“Did they split up?” I asked.

“Either that, or we have multiple packs converging on us,” she replied, her eyes fixed ahead. “Get ready with the flash balls. I’ll tell you when to throw.”

The wait had been nerve-wracking before, but now it was nigh intolerable. I stood there, watching for movement, praying for the rumble of a chopper’s blades, and cursing myself for wanting to play hero. I gripped the flash ball tightly, hoping it gave me courage. It gave me nothing.

Then the pack arrived, and at first I was more confused than terrified, because I saw only blurry figures loping through the darkness, the first of them cresting the hill and racing our direction. I had forgotten about the MLs’ camouflage ability. My God, how was Madison supposed to hit those indiscernible shapes in the dark if I could barely make them out myself? Fear robbed me of my wits for a long moment, and it took Madison’s harsh voice to knock me back to reality.

“Throw it!” she ordered. I pushed the ball’s activation button and threw the ball at the approaching pack, well ahead of them. There was a five-second delay, and those had to have been the longest five seconds of my life. A brilliant blue flare flashed out of the darkness, momentarily blinding me. Madison had warned me to look away after throwing one, and now I knew why.

Thankfully my vision cleared quickly as the blue burst wasn’t as intense as a regular flash bomb, but then my ears were buffeted by the loud reports of Madison’s rifle. It was an assault on my senses, and I coped by covering my ears with my hands and forcing myself to look past the blobby afterimages. My reward was to see the MLs’ charge come to a halt, the creatures fully revealed as they rubbed their eyes and meandered about in confusion, their horrid voices crying out in rage or, dare I say, even panic. One after another, a ML dropped to the ground or flew backward as Madison’s aim held true. I tried to guess the size of the pack and came up with around three dozen, but by the time the pack had recovered enough to flee back the way they came, it was much smaller.

I almost whooped in joy at seeing the bastards run, but then three raucous choruses of howls erupted out of the darkness, surrounding us. “Get another ball ready,” ordered Madison, as she reloaded her rifle and shifted her stance to the western approach. I did so hurriedly. The flash ball I’d thrown was now pulsing every few seconds, nowhere near as intensely as before but enough to keep the MLs from coming from the north for now.

The second wave did indeed come from the western slope, and I felt a surge of confidence as I let fly the second ball, this time looking away before it went off. I closed my eyes for extra protection, and after a few seconds Madison went to work thinning the incoming horde. When I opened my eyes again, I realized that I was looking south and, to my sudden terror, saw another pack approaching, the lead members caught up in the flash ball’s effect while the rear ones came onward. With growing dread, I glanced backward, towards the east, and saw a third pack advancing.

Madison was right. These things did learn. She was too busy killing them to see the others coming at us, or to hear me above her rifle.

I grabbed two more flash balls, armed them, and sent one sailing at the eastern pack, the other at the southern one. They went off almost simultaneously, and I swore as my eyes recoiled from the combined bursts of hostile luminescence. Madison swore much more vividly as the unexpected pulse hit her, and she gave me the kind of look you give a dumbass who may have just gotten you killed.

“What the hell?” she demanded. I only had to point in the general directions of the other packs for her to realize the shitstorm we were in. For now their momentum was broken, the creatures blindly rushing around, running into each other, tripping, and lashing out at anything they came into contact with. Madison swiveled and changed tactics, picking off the closest MLs to us. I pulled out the pistol I’d tucked into my belt and kept it at the ready. I still had half a dozen flash balls at my disposal, but right now they couldn’t do any further good, and there were dozens of half-blind and fully enraged MLs on the hillside with us.

Then I heard it. Above Madison’s gunshots, above the screams of dozens of murderous creatures, and above the pounding of my blood vessels reverberating in my ears, I heard it. I knew the familiar whomp-whomp of an incoming helicopter, and as I scanned the sky I saw the lights approaching from the west, distant at first but growing steadily larger. It had to be our rescue chopper, and it was mercifully early. With four flash balls going off on the ground around us, they’d have no trouble zero in on us.

“Madison, the chopper!” I yelled. She finished blasting one more ML and then scanned the sky as I had. She let out a whoop and added, “The cavalry cometh.”

Madison had picked off the closest MLs but the rest weren’t retreating. In fact, they only grew more frantic and determined as the chopper closed in, racing around the hill like witless piranha desperately searching for their dinner. The flash balls flared at irregular intervals, keeping the creatures off balance, but also increasing their ferocity. I watched as two MLs collided and ripped into each other with their lethal claws, pale flesh and clouds of dust flying in all directions.

Madison held her fire for now, grabbing a flare from her vest pocket and handing it to me. “Light it and start waving,” she ordered. I did so, a red glow now accompanying the blue flashes lighting up the night. I looked to the chopper and began waving the flare its direction. Soon enough, a white spotlight found me, and I became half-blind and half-deaf as the wind buffeted me and engine vibrations assailed my ears.

All this madness around me, and all I could do was wave the flare and hope for the best. Which was why I barely heard the warning from Madison, and I picked up on it too late.

The ML came at me from the side, screeching as it charged. It must have noticed the flare, and I was too disoriented to react quickly. But it never reached me. Madison charged ahead, swinging her rifle, connecting with the ML’s face and knocking it aside. Dazed, the creature turned its fury on her instead, and Madison used that brief moment to aim her gun, pull the trigger… and nothing. She was dry on ammo.

Not even missing a beat, she reversed her grip on the rifle and swung it club-like at the ML, right as the creature swept a wicked claw at her midsection. I heard the sickening results of their blows, Madison caving the creature’s face in, the ML slashing through her vest. They both collapsed, Madison falling on her side, her hands on her midsection, trying to stem the wetness that was already spreading over her torso.

I threw down the flare and went to her, trying to get a look at her wound. Even injured, she managed to push me back, yelling at me to keep waving the flare and then get ready to catch the basket when it came. She also demanded her pistol, but before I could give it up a wave of pain hit her and it was all she could do to just lie there and not scream in agony.

Luckily for us, we didn’t need to wait long. Into the spotlight came down the empty rescue basket on a silver wire, the helicopter hovering right overheard. I put down the pistol next to Madison and grabbed the basket, pulling it over to her supine form. I went to her and helped to stand her up. I still couldn’t make out the depth of her wound, but she grunted with every step she took, and she could barely stand at all. But instead of getting into the basket, she sat down next to it. I could see the sheen of sweat on her face now, the agony shining in her eyes. She shook her head at me, and I could tell where this was going.

“You’re still going first, Hector,” she said, her words strained. “Get in.”

I shook my head. “You’re the injured one.”

She managed a weak laugh. “You won’t last down here, Hector. Don’t waste your life… on someone… like…”

Her words trailed off and she started slouching forward. I caught her before her head hit the ground and tried to rouse her, but she was barely conscious now. She had to be suffering from blood loss or shock. In that instant, I admit the thought of leaving her behind crossed my mind. It was the smartest move in the end, and honestly, I wanted to live. I wanted to go back to my apartment, put all this horror behind me, and try to justify my survival any way I could. I just needed to get in the basket, and I’d be safe.

But instead, I put my hands under Madison’s armpits and with a combination of shoving and pulling, I got her secured in the basket. I waved frantically to the helicopter and the basket ascended into the dark sky. Madison quietly left me behind, and I was alone on the ground, comforting myself with my one act of true heroism to distract me from how screwed I was now.

The Meat Locusts learned. That truth was irrefutable. One of them was showing off that truth by picking up one of the glass flash balls and bashing it against a rock. The reinforced glass gave after several blows, the mechanism within a few more. I don’t know if the creature had deliberately sought the ball or had found it by accident, but there was now a hole in my defenses.

I grabbed another flash ball from my satchel and prepared to throw it when I looked around and saw another ML smashing at a second flash ball with a rock in its hands. I held my throw. They understood what was making all that terrible blue light.

I expected the basket to come back down in a few minutes. I didn’t have a few minutes.

Madison must have rubbed off on me during our brief time together, because I found myself reacting not with terror, but with cold calculation. My mind whirled as I grabbed up Madison’s pistol, plotted the direction back to the last cabin we had passed on our way here, and ran for it, hoping to God I was right. Gripping the gun in my left hand, I tossed the flash ball ahead of me, the orb emitting a new blue pulse as I sprinted past it. I left the hilltop, the helicopter, Madison, and all that chaos behind me. I ran past screaming monsters, all of whom wanted a literal piece of me.

I ran for my life.

Luck is a fickle mistress at the best of times. Luck got me into this insanity in the first place, but luck also saw fit to grant me a reprieve of sorts. You see, my navigational skills proved to be spot on – the cabin loomed ahead of me, a symbol of hope for a desperate soul on the run. I had five more balls on me when I started my last-ditch escape. I was forced to use four of them, because each one would only last a minute at best before one of the pursuing MLs smashed it. And then they were hot on my heels again.

The cabin door had been locked, which I had expected to be the case, so I ended up using the pistol not for self-defense, but as a cudgel to break a window. That was the worst part of it, smashing through the glass and squeezing through the narrow opening while under the short-lived protection of a flash ball. I wound up in a bedroom with a door I could bar on the outside, and that door gave me a few more precious minutes before the MLs figured out there were other windows into the cabin and began smashing their way inside.

What saved me, if you can call it being saved, was that the cabin had a cellar. Not just any cellar, but a cellar stocked with provisions and camping gear. The owner had apparently planned for a lengthy stay, just in case civilization fell apart while he was on vacation. I was able to get inside before the MLs breached, and thankfully the cellar door had a lock on the inside. It’s a sturdy door, but I don’t have the means to brace it further. I have one more flash ball and a pistol that I barely know how to use. If the door falls, I’m dinner.

I’ve listened to them scraping and clawing, ramming and smashing at the door. The first night was the worst, the racket continuing into the early hours of the morning. They’re still trying from time to time, perhaps when either new ones show up or they can’t find anyone else to eat and they come back to have another go at me. It’s been five days since I came down here, and they’re still trying.

Food-wise, there are lots of pickled and preserved stuff and a good supply of water. I’ve taken an inventory and I think I could last for two months down here, if need be. There’s a porta potty but nowhere to put my excrement in the long-term. It’s going to get messy at some point.

The bad news is that I lost my phone during my flight from Cell Point, and there’s no phone line down here. I can’t call out, and no one knows I’m here… except for the Meat Locusts, naturally.

There is an emergency radio at my disposal, useful for getting local radio stations but not much else. I use it to keep tabs on the world, hoping to hear news about little monsters and dead people and some sign that I’m going to be rescued.

Well, something is happening, but it’s nothing good. Last night, reports started coming in on a series of animal attacks in and around Crusoe. Fatalities are piling up, a curfew is in effect, and eyewitnesses are talking about strange creatures running about. I have a pretty good idea what’s going on, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse.

I think about Larissa a lot, and when I don’t think about her I think about Madison. For all my desire to come to the rescue, I don’t know if I’ve done any good. Certainly not for Larissa, or the people of Crusoe. I can only hope Madison is alive. She’s the only one I trust to come save the day. I certainly can’t trust the government. They knew there was a problem here, but all they did was slap a band-aid on it, relying on the good efforts of a few honorable individuals to contain the threat, then bleeding them dry and throwing them away like trash. Now the problem is out there and people are dying.

So here I wait, wondering if anyone will come looking for me, wondering what kind of life I’d be returning to if I did get rescued… and wondering how much more punishment that door can take before the Meat Locusts finally get to me.

I didn’t think I’d make it a week. I certainly didn’t think I’d be alive after two weeks. But there I was, still kicking after fifteen days. If I was a religious person I might have believed a divine will was behind it. But I’m not. I thank the solid basement door instead, and I thank the cabin’s previous owner for stocking the basement with plenty of MREs and pickled vegetables. Can’t say the smell stayed pleasant after the first few days, as I had to start storing my excess waste in canning jars when the portable toilet became full. I’ll spare you further details on the matter, but let’s just say that if you ever feel like building a survival shelter, keep in mind that food, water, and air aren’t your only biological imperatives.

If you need a refresher on my predicament, here it is in a nutshell – for the first time in my life, I was a romantic, heroic fool. Seventeen days ago, my ex-girlfriend called me up out of the blue, and in a voice tinged with fear she begged me to come pick her up. The location in question was by Lake Crusoe, in the eastern part of Oregon. I hemmed and hawed but ultimately threw caution to the wind and drove here, only to find her and her current boyfriend dead at the hands of a pack of creatures that had been living in the woods for decades. Those in the know called them the Meat Locusts, and there was only one kind of meat they liked. Their numbers were managed by a group of specialized hunters known as Wranglers. I met one such Wrangler, a woman named Madison, and I owe my life to her. I’d say she owed her life to me as well, except that at the time I didn’t know if she was still alive. The last I saw of her was her injured and bleeding form getting airlifted to safety as I ran from a pack of the beasts. I took refuge in a nearby home with a survival shelter, the creatures clawing and tearing at the door day and night, utterly obsessed with this one pitiful human that had gotten away.

As I had lost my phone escaping from the Meat Locusts, my only link to the outside world was a camping radio. It kept me appraised of the deteriorating situation in the town of Crusoe, which wasn’t all that far from my location. At first the reports focused on a series of murders and missing persons that suggested a threat of some kind, survivors and eyewitnesses talking of small pale humanoid creatures that you could barely see until they were right on top of you. Various politicians and government officials tried to sway the masses with a cover story involving a military accident and a hallucinogenic chemical that was affecting both the wildlife and humans around Crusoe. In other words, animals were attacking humans, and humans saw the animals as monsters. It was a really dumb story, and once independent video evidence of the Meat Locusts began to pile up, it died a quick death.

A week into my confinement the radio became useless. The shelter’s owner had bought the wrong-size replacement batteries for the radio. The last I heard of Crusoe was that twenty-one people were confirmed dead and another eighteen were missing, the town was under a full lockdown, and no one except essential personnel were allowed to enter or leave the area around Lake Crusoe. The good news was that the Oregon National Guard was being deployed to maintain order and deal with the threat. I allowed some hope to enter my mind, believing that my salvation was coming at last.

Eight days later, I was still in the basement. If salvation was coming, it was taking its sweet-ass time.

Night and day had become useless concepts for me, but the basement did have a conventional clock, so I kept to a basic schedule. Day Fifteen had been more of the same, with me eating a poor example of turkey and mash potatoes, walking a circle around the basement a hundred times over, reading a chapter in a survivalist manual involving turning your urine into drinkable water, and playing who knows how many games of solitaire with a deck of cards I had come across. That day, as with every day before, my routine was accompanied by the constant squeal of bony claws on the basement’s solid oak door. Either the MLs were taking turns or they really didn’t tire, because I couldn’t remember a single moment during my internment that the damnable things weren’t clawing at that door. I tried to block it out by picturing a serene valley filled with birdcalls and bright flowers, only to have the image switch to a river of murky water surging through my picturesque landscape.

Sleep was my only other enemy, one that I could fight for a time but not forever, and that night I lost my battle to it as I had the last fourteen nights prior, my pistol lying next to my sleeping bag, my eyes staring at the basement door as they closed, the endless scratching my lullaby. I could accept the boredom, the smell, and the lack of human contact. I could even accept the barely-edible meals at my disposal. But sleep just felt wrong to me. It was a vulnerability I couldn’t afford, not because I thought I could fight off the MLs if they breached, but because I could only use the pistol if I was awake, and I wasn’t planning on using it on them.

There was also the one dream, the same ugly dream that plagued me each night. I had a lot of horrid experiences to live with at that point, a plethora of nightmare material to darken my sleep for the rest of my life. Yet I was consistently dreaming of the door finally failing, cracking inward and spewing forth all those determined abominations. The dream ended just as I saw them coming, my limbs in their jaws, my life reduced to a simple statistic – one more victim of the Meat Locusts.

One gets into weird thought processes when your sense of time is distorted, when the world seems so close and yet so far away, and when you expect death at any moment. But that was where I was.

I was in the middle of the dream when the routine changed on me. In my dream I was watching the door buckle and tear as numerous claws punched through it. The next thing I knew I was wide awake, grabbing my gun and pointing it at the door, my heart hammering away in my chest.

It wasn’t what I’d heard; it’s what I didn’t hear any longer. The scratching had ended.

I laid there, gun at the ready, expecting something, anything, everything. This had to be bad news. They had to have found another way in. They couldn’t have just… stopped. It was possible that they had found a new victim to pursue, but then there should be screaming and thumping and all manner of violent sounds instead of silence. If armed resistance found them, there should be gunshots and explosions shaking the house. This quiet felt like the pause a lion made before pouncing on an antelope.

I breathed, listened, and aimed. But there was no other sound, no hint of what the MLs were up to now. I glanced at the basement clock – 2:33am. Hell of a time for the MLs to alter their routine, not that they cared about time like humans did. Long, nerve-racking minutes passed by, but no footfalls or thumps could be heard.

I finally got to my feet, deciding that I needed to get proactive. I went over to the door and put my ear to it. No reverberations came forth, but I didn’t dare allow myself any hope. I walked around the basement, inspecting ever corner and every dark shadow. I checked the air vent cover several times over. It was too small and too secure for a ML to use, but in my haggard state of mind I assumed death could come from any direction.

After that, I sat back down on my sleeping bag and evaluated the possibilities. Either they were all dead, they were all silently standing in place, or they were all gone. I knew that staying here was the safest option, and I could probably last a few more weeks if necessary. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the safest option. If the MLs had changed tactics, then something else in the world around me must have changed as well. Thoughts of the MLs fleeing from an impeding military air strike came to mind, and I hadn’t planned on surviving this long just to be counted as collateral damage.

Too many unknowns. The first trick was to solve a few of them. I didn’t have to leave the house, after all. Just getting upstairs and to a phone would be a major win for me. Of course, that meant opening the one thing that kept the MLs at bay. If they were being stealthy for a change, they’d be on me in seconds.

I considered waiting a few more hours for the sun to show up, but the MLs aren’t creatures of the night. They were just as deadly in the sunshine. And if they were gone right now, they could still return and take away my one opportunity to escape. The age-old question – should I stay or should I go?

A few weeks ago, the workaday person I used to be would have played it safe. But that person was gone, or at least heavily suppressed. The new me was in charge now, and that version went to the sliding bolt on the door and unlatched it. My right hand gripping my gun, I gently pushed the wooden door, my eyes scanning for movement, my ears cocked for the faintest sound.

The door swung open a few inches before it encountered resistance, the door complaining as I forced it wide enough for me to squeeze through. Five wooden stairs greeted me in the glow from the basement fluorescents, but the rest of the house remained dark and still. I waited just inside the door, watching and listening and fearing the next step I had to take. When nothing came at me after a minute, I went to the corner of the basement I used as a trash site and grabbed an empty can of Spam, my least favorite survival food. I walked back to the door, listened a moment longer, and then tossed the can past the top of the stairs, preparing to close the door if any reaction occurred.

The can hit the wooden floor above with a metallic clang, but that was it. Nothing else thumped above. Nothing else stirred. It was possible that the MLs were wise to such a feint, but I doubted it. At least this part of the house seemed clear.

I had managed to find a flashlight during my captivity, and I thumbed it on as I moved through the opening and onto the stairs, flashlight in my left hand, gun in my right. I advanced each step with grave hesitation, stopping and listening for any new noises. When I made it to the top, I swept the hallway and found it a mess – scratch marks, rips in the wallpaper, leaves and pine cones littering the floor. At least I could breathe fresher air now, though a noticeable chill had descended into the area. Or maybe that was just my mood.

I chanced a look back down the stairs, morbidly curious about the state of the door that had saved me all these days. I swore when I saw the state of it – ragged chunks of wood had been torn out, and there was hardly a square inch of wood not scratched or gouged. I doubt it would have held more than a few more days. I was amazed it had held as long as it had.

Okay, I was free. The plan remained the same. Find a phone or some other way to contact the authorities. Also, I wanted to use a real bathroom. My own body stink could’ve been mistaken for a mustard gas attack. But I had to be sure they were gone first.

I walked the rooms of the darkened cabin, half-expecting a ML to leap at me from any shadowed room and every blind corner. I have no idea how SWAT cops do it, entering a residence blind with an armed perp potentially around every door. I kept the room lights off despite my desire to dispel the darkness, since it might act as a signal to any MLs outside of the house that their prey was out of its cage. It seemed like every window in the cabin was smashed, the furniture torn or busted, the front door bashed off its hinges. I kept an eye out for a landline phone, but none were present. The cabin owner probably relied on cellular reception, which didn’t do me any favors. At least the well water still worked, and I gave myself a good cleansing in the cabin’s bathroom.

I found the living room and sat down on the mangled remains of a sofa, considering my next move. I still had no clue as to why the MLs had left. The outside view offered a lovely moonlight sky that I hadn’t seen in what felt like forever, but the trees around the cabin were menacingly silent. They could be outside prowling around for all I knew. There was no way I was attempting to reach civilization at night. Hell, I wasn’t sure which direction to even go at this point. It was starting to feel like I’d only succeeded in expanding my prison confines and nothing more.

I felt very alone and exposed at that moment. The temptation to return to the basement snuck into my thoughts, but all I had to do was remember the bad state of the door to bat away that notion. My only choice was to risk travel. I still had one flash ball, the clever weapon designed by the Wranglers for throwing MLs into confusion, but it wouldn’t save me if the MLs found me. Nor would the gun. Perhaps I could check out the bedroom and see if the owner’s wardrobe included a blue outfit.

Then I heard it. In the hallway nearby, out of my line-of-sight, a footfall came down and a floorboard creaked in response.

*****

I was on my feet instantly, the blood racing in my ears as I aimed my gun and flashlight at the hallway entrance. I cursed myself for my stupidity, going through all the possibilities in rapid-fire succession - this was a trap, I had lingered too long, I had drawn attention to myself, so on and so forth. Regardless, I had the hallway covered and I was going to shoot whatever came into my view… and hopefully it wouldn’t have friends.

The interloper was silent now, and it must have seen the beam of my flashlight. It didn’t come into view like I wanted, but instead started making rustling sounds. Maybe the creature knew about flashlights and knew better than to step into the beam. Was it looking for another path into the living room? Was it waiting for its pals to catch up?

Then something flew into the light, something small and cylindrical. I’m sorry to tell you that I didn’t commit myself well at that moment, for I freaked and pulled the trigger on the pistol. The fact that the trigger didn’t move one iota informed me of my newest mistake – I hadn’t taken off the safety.

The cylinder crashed to the ground out of the light, and I had enough presence of mind not to follow the object with my flashlight. Keeping the gun trained on the entrance, I thumbed the safety off and readied myself for whatever came next. The thrown object was a distraction and I wasn’t going to fall for another…

BAM! My enlarged pupils took in the fierce blue-white blast, my ears deafened by the sudden roar. I recoiled and fell backwards on the couch, unable to see anything through my pained eyes, attempting to get my bearing enough to defend myself. In my disoriented state, I barely registered something large rushing around the corner. I tried to bring up my gun, but a human hand grabbed my wrist and twisted hard. Fresh pain assailed me and the gun slipped from my hands, thumping to the wooden floor.

“Put your hands on your head right now!” ordered a gruff voice, a deep male tone that brooked no dissention. I actually felt somewhat relieved – this was no ML. As my eyes cleared, I saw that my blurry attacker was a large muscular human clad in black fatigues, wearing a balaclava and bulky high-tech goggles that I assumed were designed for night-vision. In his arms was an assault rifle with a mounted flashlight, pointed right at my head. I was getting a serious case of déjà vu at this point.

“Did… did you just flash bang me?” I asked shakily, now realizing what the cylinder had been.

“Hands,” he ordered again, and I complied. My cooperation seemed to put him at ease as he carefully reached down to grab my gun and then backed off several feet, rifle always aimed my direction. He placed the gun on a nearby lamp stand and looked around the room, checking for other threats.

“You alone?” he asked.

“Yes. I was in the basement. I was stuck down there for…”

“Don’t need your life story, pal,” he said, cutting me off. “Have you seen any MLs since you got out?” MLs – he was using the Wrangler term for the little rampaging monsters. Was this another Wrangler, or had the lingo caught on with others?

“I wouldn’t be out here if I thought there were still around,” I answered. “I think they left several hours ago.”

The masked man finished his survey of the room, then turned all his attention back to me. “Here’s a wild question – is your name Hector?”

I was surprised enough by the question that he had to ask it again to jog me out of my amazement. The implications – they were too good to be true. This was a legitimate rescue. My nightmare was finally over.

“Yes, uh, Hector Delacroix.”

He laughed at my response. “Pal, you just lost me fifty bucks, but for once I’ll be glad to pay it.”

I had no idea what he meant by that at the time, but rather than explain he put his left hand to his left ear and started quietly talking to himself. I inferred he had a radio under his balaclava and was communicating with someone. I wanted to ask him if I could put my hands down now, I wanted to ask him a lot of things in fact, but I politely let him finish his radio conversation first. His demeanor was more laid back now, making me hope that there was more good news coming.

“The area’s clear for now,” he explained. “Third Eye just did a sweep and the pack that has been staking out this spot is moving onward. Can you stand a short hike?”

“If it gets me out of here, I run the Boston Marathon,” I replied. I was curious about this Third Eye he’d mentioned, but I was more curious about our exit plan. “We are getting out of here, right?”

“We’re going to our base camp. We’ll have further decisions from there.” He then removed his goggles and balaclava, revealing a dark-skinned man with a shaved head and a short beard. He was a far less menacing figure without the face covering, and I was glad for that.

“Theo,” he stated. He went over to the lamp stand and grabbed the gun off it. He hesitated before coming back to me, and instead of handing me the gun he said, “I don’t want you walking around without protection, but I was told that you’re a civie with no combat experience.”

I smiled at the comment, mostly because it meant that Madison had to be alive, and healthy enough to tell them about my uselessness on the battlefield. “That is true. I do have one flash ball with me, though. You can keep the gun.”

I threw out the term as a way of gauging his ML knowledge. He seemed to know it as he nodded and tucked the pistol in his belt. “Grab what gear you need before we go. We’re still a long way from safe, and the MLs could come back this way if they wanted to.”

I spent several more minutes down in the basement, gathering some clothes and portable food supplies into my backpack. Even though I felt very much rescued, the last two-and-a-half weeks had taught me that when life puts you on a twisting path, you can never be sure how long the path will continue before it straightens out again… or, in fact, if it ever does.

Stepping out of the cabin for the first time in days felt like an act of pure freedom, as if I’d been given an extension on my lifespan. That feeling faded quickly as I took in the shadowed land. The pale moonlight lit up the treetops but it mostly created more dark spots than it dispelled. Theo had stepped out with me, totally at ease with circumstances despite the fact that we were very clearly all alone. I then picked up on a distant whining sound coming from above us. I looked about and spotted a green light centered within a dark insectile silhouette. Theo pointed to it and said, “Third Eye. It’s keeping watch on us. It’s how I know we’re safe for now.”

So we had a drone escorting us. I can’t say I was happy about that. I’d rather have a dozen soldiers keeping us safe than a drone that did nothing but watch us. Still, considering that someone had bothered to show up at all, griping felt like an act of ingratitude.

Theo began leading us through the gloom of the forest, flashlights on and probing the woods around us, heading steadily downward toward what I hoped was a throng of well-armed Locust-killing badasses. I knew the drill – follow his lead, no talking. I couldn’t help but feel anxious as we passed large patches of bramble and thick copses of trees. Yet the night air did smell wonderful and felt even better after all that time cooped up. After a time my anxiety diminished to a dull fear, where every step we made took me further away from the nightmare my life had become. After walking for close to an hour without any incidents, I gave myself permission to feel something like hope again.

That was also the point when I spotted lights through the foliage. Theo pointed to them and said, “Just through those trees.” I was picturing something out of the TV show M.A.S.H., a sea of green military tents and combat vehicles with men marching about. Why else had the MLs taken off if not out of fear of an army?

Then we came through the trees and… M.A.S.H. it was not. It was no army camp, that was for sure. There was a solitary vehicle parked on a dirt road that I would have classified as the offspring of a large RV and an armored personnel carrier, surrounded by a ring of blue-tingled floodlights. Clearly designed as an all-terrain vehicle, it was fashioned with six huge tires that came up to my chest. I got the impression that this thing was designed to take all the trappings of modern living with you while you went sightseeing in war zones and wastelands.

“So… no soldiers?” I remarked, unable to contain my disappointment any longer.

Theo stopped and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, we’re not exactly the cavalry. But trust me when I say that this is the safest place for miles around.” Oh, I definitely trusted him about that, but I still wanted a platoon standing between the monsters and me.

Our drone tagalong settled into a slow circle around the vehicle as we approached the camp. There were no guards to greet us, just the omnipresent blue glow enveloping the site. Theo walked right up a nearby metal ramp and knocked three times on a steel door on the side of the vehicle. The door unlatched and opened, and a man of light skin and light build greeted him, a tired expression on his face. This new man gave Theo a quick hello and then looked at me, scratching his shaggy brown hair as he scrutinized me.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered. Then he looked at Theo. “You owe me fifty bucks.”

“I know, man,” replied Theo. “You’ll have to wait ‘till payday, though. Too many wild nights.”

This apparently struck them as funny as they laughed and gave each other a quick fist bump. Theo looked back at me and pointed at the other guy. “This is Abbott. If he gives you a hard time, let me know and I’ll set him straight.”

Theo moved past him and into the vehicle. Theo came out to greet me with a handshake. Unlike Theo, he was wearing civilian clothing, and his Hawaiian shirt was especially loud and colorful. “I guess you were expecting a more professional outfit, huh?”

“I… was expecting a lot of things,” I said.

Abbott had a disarming smile, and despite the lack of firepower around me I felt oddly at ease. “Welcome to the Oasis,” he said, waving at the vehicle. “It’s 100% Locust-proof, even when parked. The lights are just our first line of defense. But just in case, let’s continue this conversation inside.”

The interior continued the theme of some wild engineer’s fantasy to combine living quarters with military preparedness. The back half contained a cramped kitchen, bunk-bed section, and lockers for supplies and personal effects. I figured a bathroom was somewhere in there too. The front half was full of logistical equipment, the crown jewel being the desk with six separate LCD monitors sporting all kinds of video footage, charts, tables, and graphs. Most of the gear was bolted down in one fashion or another. No wasted space and no windows, and little in the way of decoration. I started to feel like I had traded on survivalist shelter for another. I immediately missed the cold air of the outside, and there was a certain pervasive odor wrinkling my nose, the kind of sweat stink that comes from perspiring people stuck together in close quarters for a long time. Complaints aside, I did feel safe again, and considering that I hadn’t felt that way in days it was the best gift this group could’ve given me.

Abbott was busy sealing the main door while Theo relaxed in the kitchen area, putting up his feet and downing a bottle of water. I was about to ask if there was only the two of them when I almost stepped on the third member of their team, lying prone on the floor halfway into a compartment positioned under the computer desk. At first I could only see green pants and a pair of boots, but the body quickly crawled back out. She didn’t notice me as she moved to stand, holding what appeared to be a mousetrap with a very-dead mouse stuck to it. She also shared Abbott’s disdain for uniforms as she wore a blue tank top and a multicolored beaded necklace, topped off with long brown hair streaked with bright strands of lavender.

“Third one in a week,” she said absently, her pleasant voice unable to mask her disgust at the dead thing in her hands. “You’d think a vehicle that’s Locust-proof would be rodent-proof as well.” She then noticed me at last with a start, and I realized how young she really was, no more than twenty. Thanks to Madison, I had carried this idea that Wranglers were old veterans with scars and wrinkles. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be younger blood in the ranks.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I knew you were coming, but I didn’t think you’d get here this quickly.” She walked over to a sealed metal garbage can, opened it, and deposited the dead rat. I caught a whiff of strong decay from the container – it was where the rodent corpses abided.

Abbott came to my side and pointed at the third member of their party. “This is Lazlo. She takes care of tech and pests.”

“Still can’t get rid of you, though,” Lazlo joked at Abbott, resealing the can. She made to shake my hand, then realized it was the hand that had been holding the mouse, so she detoured to get a sanitation wipe.

“So, up for a debriefing?” Abbott asked me. “Any information you could give us might be helpful here.”

“Abbott, give the guy a break,” chimed in Theo. “He’s been stuck in a basement for two weeks.”

Abbott frowned and looked Theo’s way. “We don’t have time for him to detox, Theo.”

“You can give him hospitality, though,” said Lazlo. She held a water bottle and a protein bar and offered them my way. I took the water bottle and drank deeply of it.

“I’m up for it,” I said. That wasn’t bravado on my part. I was too wound up by my rescue to sleep. “Do I get to ask questions too?”

“In time,” Abbott said, and then glanced at Lazlo. “What’s Third Eye saying?”

“Pack’s still in the trees,” she replied. “When they come out, we’ll lock on again, but it’s been three hours since they went in there. We’ll need to send a replacement soon for Voyeur Two.”

I had no idea what any of that meant, but thankfully Lazlo noticed my confusion. “Third Eye is our drone system specially tailored to monitor Meat Locusts,” she explained. “The bastards don’t have much of a thermal reading, so we use a program designed to detect their shape and movement style. It’s a good thing they’re so identical.”

Abbott frowned at her. “Laz, it’s my job to spill our secrets. Go monitor the situation and tell me if anything changes.” She rolled her eyes and sat down at the computer desk with exaggerated exasperation.

Abbott turned to me and motioned at a pair of folding chairs. As we took our seats, Theo came over and leaned on a wall near us. He must have wanted to hear my tale. Lazlo was also sneaking glances my direction.

“Forgive me, and us, if we’re a little rusty on interpersonal skills,” said Abbott. “We’ve been doing our own thing for some time.”

“No problem,” I said. “I must admit, I thought all you Wranglers were the lone wolf hunter types.”

“Many are,” he admitted. “Some of us do things different.”

“We fight monsters with science,” Lazlo commented in a singsong voice.

“Pretty much true,” Abbott confirmed. “I think you deserve to know that we weren’t here for you specifically, Hector. I did make a promise to Madison that if the opportunity availed us we would search the area you were last seen in, but only if it didn’t jeopardize our bigger priorities. It just so happens that the pack we’re pursuing came your direction. For what it’s worth, Madison painted you as a potential survivor, which is why I made my bet with Theo.”

“I usually win these bets,” chimed in Theo.

“Madison saved my ass,” I told them. “I’m no survivalist.”

Abbott showed a thin smile. “Hector, the MLs dine on survivalists regularly. Nobody does well against these things unless they’re willing to change paradigms. You did, and here you are.”

There was definitely charm to the guy, and he made me feel like one of the gang despite the fact that I’d just met them. “So how is Madison? She’s okay, right?

Lazlo practically flew over to us as I finished my question, holding an I-Pad in front of me as she scrolled through a series of pictures at lightning speed. With a wide smile she finally stopped at a photo showing a hospital room with a supremely annoyed occupant in a hospital bed looking at the camera and scowling. I found myself laughing, mostly out of relief, with Lazlo joining me in the mirth of the moment.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a person more angry at getting photographed than Madison,” said Lazlo. “This picture is from three days ago.”

“She suffered a pretty bad abdominal wound and major blood loss,” added Abbott. “She’s a tough one, though. Always has been. Doctors want her in the hospital for another week. We’ll see who wins that battle.”

“Sounds like you know here pretty well,” I said.

Abbott shrugged. “We have… conferences of sorts. Meetings where Wranglers get together to share data and techniques. We’ve talked. Can’t say we see eye-to-eye on much. She’s old-school and I’m the opposite. But she did contact me after she regained consciousness. By then, Crusoe was almost a week into its ML infestation.”

“God damn monsters,” spat out Theo.

“The MLs?” I asked.

“The government,” he clarified. “They should’ve contacted us on Day One. They let this thing go on for six days before they got other Wranglers involved.”

“How many of you are here?” I asked.

“Besides us three, there’s two others back in town,” Theo replied. “They’re in an advisory role, making sure the police and the National Guard know what they’re up against.”

I didn’t really want to know the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I asked it nonetheless. “So how bad is it?”

The three of them exchanged looks, probably trying to decide who gets to tell me the news. Abbott was ultimately overpowered by the stares of the other two. After all, he was the one in charge. He sighed helplessly.

“I’ll make you a deal, Hector,” he said. “We do have a ongoing situation, and I need your intel more than you need mine. You give me your gory story, and I’ll answer every Locust-related question you want to ask afterwards.”

“He means it, too,” said Lazlo. “He loves the sound of his voice.”

“It’s the only voice here that doesn’t give me a headache,” he joked back. The others laughed, and I admit that I laughed with them. I certainly could think of worse fates than being stuck with these three. At least we all knew how to laugh. I don’t know if laughter is, in fact, the best medicine, but it does help to shield one from the horrors.

*****

So I told them all of it. My stupid and heroic trek to save my ex-girlfriend, the horror and carnage I encountered, my fateful meeting with Madison, and our ensuing attempt to reach safety. I half-expected to bore my listeners, considering how much more massive their experience was to mine concerning the Meat Locusts, but all three of them seemed attentive to my story. Perhaps they were starved of alternative viewpoints – I would learn later that all three of them had spent a rather inordinate amount of time together in distant locations, bereft of human culture and contact. They might have been socially starved. Then again, it might have been intelligence gathering. Lazlo zeroed in on the effectiveness of the flash balls, while Theo critiqued Madison’s hunting strategy. Abbott just took it all in, never giving away any preference or interest in any one piece of data I reported.

I talked for a long time, and when I was done I felt drained, as if telling my story had released all the tension bottled up inside me. Despite my growing fatigue, I resisted asking for a bunk. I told Abbott to start in on his part of the deal. Abbott happily obliged. Abbott asked me where I wanted to start, and I told him to tell me about his group. In particular, how was it that Madison was so starved for support and equipment while Abbott’s team seemed to have Batman levels of tech and preparation. Abbott confessed that he was, in fact, cheating when it came to funding. In fact, what he was doing was technically illegal. Abbott was actually a professor; Doctor Ben Abbott from Yale, out on a very long sabbatical. Some funding came from the college, which Abbott routinely fed extremely long and detailed research reports that would eventually be publicly disclosed once the government could no longer keep the MLs a secret… which, considering recent events, was about to occur. He also had a business deal with a gun manufacturer who fed Abbott money through a few off-shore accounts, on the grounds that once the MLs went public, they’d be positioned to sell specialized equipment to a now-paranoid public and, pardon the pun, make a killing. Abbott figured that at least a few government officials knew about his alternate funding arrangements, but as long as he produced results and didn’t cross any lines they looked the other way. I can’t say I approved of all that under-the-table dealing, but as Abbott put it, having the funding to properly study the MLs was paying off in spades. His group’s research was helping other Wranglers track and kill MLs far more effectively than before, which meant more lives getting saved in the process.

Yes, Abbott’s group was mostly about research. Before Crusoe, they were stationed in the Midwest, following packs that kept to the flyover parts of America. With fewer people in harm’s way, the team had more time to track and monitor the monsters’ behavior and patterns. The isolation also helped to keep their work hidden from prying eyes and social media. Abbott and Lazlo did most of the scientific work, while Theo was in charge of defense and hunting.

“Don’t you get bored working with researchers?” I asked Theo at one point.

He laughed lightly at my question and said, “Pal, keeping these two alive is a full-time job. Boredom doesn’t enter into it.”

Indeed, researching the MLs meant getting uncomfortably close to them frequently. The team also took out packs heading for human habitations. Theo boasted that they had one of the highest kill rates of any Wrangler team, though he grudgingly confessed that Madison had the highest individual total.

“That’s why were out here and not on defense,” Abbott told me. “The behavior we’re seeing now from the MLs is… well, I think word unprecedented gets way overused these days, but it’s definitely appropriate here. They’ve got enough guns for Crusoe. What they need is intelligence. That’s where we come in.”

And just like that, we had segued into the Crusoe infestation. An infestation is what Wranglers called it when a pack of MLs takes an interest in a particular human settlement. Most of the time it was a small town or village, sometimes a campground or resort. The little monsters would attack people on the very outskirts, slaughtering a group of campers or an entire household in the wilderness, then run off to expand their numbers. When enough humans were present, MLs had a tendency to get into a feeding frenzy and lose any sense of cover and furtiveness. It made them easy to pinpoint – just follow the carnage and you’d find them eventually. Infestations rarely got past the remote-kill stage before a Wrangler caught wind of their killings and went in to clean things up.

This time was different. They were using hit-and-run tactics against one or two individuals, dragging the victims away instead of eating them right then and there. They were letting their victims call for help before killing them, causing family members, friends, and would-be rescuers such as the police to go out and find them, only for some of them to go missing or become victims themselves. It had gotten bad enough that the state government was now frantically urging people to not leave Crusoe’s city limits, and that anyone who did was on their own. The current casualty total was at twenty-seven dead and forty-seven missing, some of whom were police and emergency responders.

“That’s just the ones we know about,” Lazlo had commented. “People on vacation, loggers and road workers, transients and homeless folks, thrill seekers wanting to see the mess for themselves – I’m sure there’s more than a few of them that have become Locust chow.”

“Every person the MLs take down can feed at least eight of them,” said Abbott. “We used to take it for granted that they were too sloppy and impatient to pull off a more methodical strategy, but here they are, doing it. They’re avoiding armed confrontation, choosing to pick off the weaker elements of the town and then run off to bud. I think you see the problem, Hector.”

I nodded, and the certainty of that realization hit me like a sledgehammer. “They’re growing an army,” I said.

“They’re well on their way to doing it, too,” said Abbott. “Our best estimate is there was at least three hundred MLs in the area now. They’ve taken losses from our defenses, but the only thing that is slowing down their growth rate is the government lockdown order. Fewer people moving around means fewer lunches.”

“So what’s the game plan?” I asked. “Why isn’t the military involved now?”

Theo grunted at my question. “I’m in touch with a few military contacts. Being ex-Navy does have its perks. Trust me, they would get involved, but the current administration still wants to keep their part of the cover-up under wraps. Military involvement would all but ensure that the MLs go public. So they won’t support military action unless we start seeing a serious increase in deaths. God knows what that threshold looks like.”

“As for our game plan,” answered Abbott, “we’re still working on that. Our main focus is to figure out why the MLs have changed tactics.”

“That’s why you’re up here, then,” I said. “Not to find survivors, but to study the MLs.” My words came out colder than I meant them to be. I surely did appreciate my rescuers, but shouldn’t saving lives be the priority and not studying the newest antics from a bunch of murder-monsters?

“We were searching homes for any survivors as we went, Hector,” defended Lazlo, “but we didn’t expect to find any. You’ve seen how the Locusts work. It’s why we’re frankly amazed you survived out there. The odds of your average layperson encountering a pack and living to tell the tale is… well, let’s just say you’re better off going up against lightning.”

I gave her a grim nod. I did understand the logic, but I doubt anyone likes to hear how little the world cares about their welfare. The politicians looking out for their careers, the military putting a carnage number to their intervention, the people of Crusoe hunkering down while hoping for salvation, and I get saved by a team of wandering researchers.

Lazlo must have decided that her words had been less than reassuring as she then found a reason to avoid eye contact with me by glancing at her monitors. Abbott motioned at me to come with him toward the back of the vehicle while Theo headed for the kitchen nook. Sharing time had just come to an end.

“You’ll have to forgive Lazlo for her bluntness,” Abbott explained, gesturing to an empty bunk that I could use during my stay. “We don’t get to comfort survivors very often.”

“No big deal,” I replied. “She’s better at it than Madison.”

Abbott laughed at my statement. “In any case, you should probably get some sleep while things are quiet. I can’t promise you that we can head back to Crusoe soon, but if you stay with us you’ll be just fine.”

I went and sat on the bottom bunk, testing out the mattress. It was definitely better than the cement floor I’d been sleeping on for the last two weeks. “Do you have any idea why the pack around my house left like it did?”

Abbott shook his head. “That’s the mystery, isn’t it? We were following another pack going this direction, which was unusual in and of itself because it’s away from the feeding grounds of Crusoe. I figured if a pack would willingly give up on their hunting, they had to have another objective in mind. That’s when we saw them merge with the pack surrounding your cabin. Hours after that, they all just left. They went into a large copse of trees and… they’re still in there. They haven’t eaten anyone since we locked onto them with Third Eye three days ago, so I’m pretty sure they’re not budding in there.”

Abbott then told me that I could eat or drink anything in storage, he showed me the bathroom, and he reminded me not to leave the vehicle without running it by him first. Finally, he told me that while I was free to roam for now, this was technically a military team and if I attempted to interfere with their operations or endanger the team in any way, they did have a brig of sorts in the very back. Namely, it was a closet and it was very cramped, but it did have air holes.

He left me to get what sleep I could. I wondered if the others were ever going to sleep, but I didn’t wonder for long because as soon as my head hit the mattress all that weariness that I had struggled against for days on end finally won the battle and sleep took me. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt safe.

It’s a shame that feeling safe and being safe are two separate aspects of life. When we confuse the two, bad things always happen.

If I did dream the rest of that night, I don’t remember it. I was happy for that. I was less happy for how I woke up, though. A trio of voices echoed off the walls, their tones raising my anxiety level. My instincts remained alert, cultivated from days of living in fear of sudden death. I sat up and listened to the team arguing with one another as they stood next to Lazlo’s monitors.

“I’m telling you, Third Eye is working just fine,” said Lazlo defensively. “I inspected Voyeur Two just yesterday.”

“Then how the hell did it miss them?” Theo spoke this time, his voice laced with accusation.

“How should I know?” she shot back. “I’m the tech, not the Locust Whisperer.”

“This is not helpful, you two,” said Abbott, attempting to mediate the situation with a calm voice. “The why and how will have to come later. Theo, get on the turret. Lazlo, go prep Voyeur One for interception. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the situation.”

Abbott turned my way as Theo stormed by me, the big man not even looking my way as he found a set of rungs to climb and proceeded into a narrow hole in the ceiling. Lazlo bolted from her chair and rushed outside, barely remembering to seal the door behind her. Abbott looked at me with a face that suggested that his reassurances about my safety had been premature.

“You might as well come and look, Hector,” he said quietly.

I got up and did so. Abbott pointed to the top-center monitor, the one showing a sketch-like video of the woods. I was vaguely familiar with thermal imaging, where heat sources showed up as white or greenish pictures, but this showed the outlines of images, such as the tops of swaying trees or rustling grass or barely-visible scurrying things on the ground. It took me a moment to clue in – this was the motion detection camera in action. Once I adapted to its format, I could make out a forest through the incomplete images.

Far easier to make out were the humanoid figures moving toward the bottom of the screen, the camera shifting along as they traversed the forest. I hadn’t laid eyes on the MLs since going into the basement, but they were seared into my brain so deeply that I’d recognize them from any distance away. They lopped in a massive group, their indistinct outlines masking their hideous intentions but not the energy of their movements, and my mind fell back to my terrified flight for survival. I felt hunted and helpless again, even though I knew I was in the company of experts, and I had to breathe carefully to keep the panic within me from rising.

“I don’t know how much you heard, but we didn’t see the pack coming,” explained Abbott, his voice remarkably calm considering the threat on the screen. “Normally Third Eye can see through their masking abilities, but somehow these ones got past the drone camera and… they’re about ten minutes away and heading right for us.”

I had lots of questions right then, but mostly I was attempting to look brave when what I wanted to do was find that closet Abbott had called the brig and willingly step into it. “Are they the same ones you’ve been tracking?”

Abbott nodded. “MLs may seem virtually identical, but they do have a few physical variations that can be tracked. The system can tell them apart, even if we can’t. It’s the same pack – except less of them.”

I gave a questioning look, and he elaborated. “They went into the copse with forty-four MLs. They came out with thirty-four. I’m never seen a pack lose members to anything other than combat. Those ten might still be in there, or they might have shaken us. Regardless, we have to kill the pack now. They’re in full hunt mode.”

“Can… can I stay here and watch?” I asked. My instincts still wanted me to hide away, but I wasn’t about to do it. What I really wanted was some more flash balls, but I’d settle for knowing what was going on.

Abbott nodded to me as he took the desk chair and began working with the keyboard, switching monitor displays to brand new programs. “Just don’t ask me questions right now. Theo, you in position?”

I couldn’t hear the response through Abbott’s earpiece, but I did hear Theo’s muffled voice echo down to us from the hole in the roof. Abbott then asked Lazlo the same question and seemed satisfied by her response. He brought up a new screen displaying data concerning Voyeur One. “Lazlo, once Voyeur One is up, get back here immediately. I need five minutes for Shock and Awe to come online.”

Hmm, Shock and Awe. I had a couple of ideas about what that meant come to mind, but I was going to obey the don’t-ask-questions rule for now. Then, almost as an afterthought, Abbott reached into a desk drawer and handed me an item shaped like a white teardrop about the size of a human tooth. I stared at it helplessly until Abbot realized my ignorance. “Stick it in your ear pointy-end first, then push the button on the top. It’s our radio. Normally I wouldn’t let you eavesdrop, but you’re in harm’s way and you might need the information.”

I’ve never been a fan of those little mini-radio devices. I also have a problem with sticking things in my ear. At the very least, it’s distracting. But I took the device and inserted it as instructed, wincing at the feel but otherwise not complaining. I could hear Lazlo’s voice echoing in my ear canal, her tone implying a measure of excitement or perhaps even fear.

“Voyeur One is ready, coming back in,” she said. A second later, I hear the piercing whine of a drone engine revving up. A minute later, she hurriedly came through the side door and latched it tight. Abbott let her have her desk back, standing behind her as she worked her tech magic. The smile on her face answered my earlier pondering – she was obviously getting a kick out of this moment.

One of the monitors switched to a static camera position, most likely from a camera attached to the Oasis itself. This one was night-vision, showing a green-tinged hillside that I wagered was the one I had trekked down hours ago. A number of blurry humanoid shapes were bounding down it, and my blood cooled a little more at the sight of each approaching creature.

“Do I have clearance?” asked Theo on the radio. The cold state of his voice gave me flashbacks to Madison and her matter-of-fact tone. She had kicked all kinds of ML ass before we had parted. I hoped Theo could do the same.

“Let Voyeur One do its thing, then open fire,” ordered Abbott.

“I don’t think this is the time for a field test,” Theo replied, now sounding a tad annoyed.

“That’s why we call them field tests, Theo,” said Abbott. “We can’t always pick the moment. Sometimes it picks us.”

The monitor showing Voyeur Two’s camera stopped tracking the main cluster of MLs and instead locked onto a flying object with four circular fan engines. I assumed that was Voyeur One. We watched as the drone made a dangerous dive toward the heart of the cluster, then veered up a second before plowing into the ground. An object fell from it, landing just ahead of the pack. They didn’t seem to notice or care about the drone or the object it had dropped, and they ran onward.

Then the picture blurred as a massive burst of heat, debris, and smoke filled the screen. The picture retracted as Voyeur Two repositioned to show a wider view of the carnage, and while I couldn’t personally determine how effective the explosive had been on the MLs, there was definitely a lot less movement than before. Smoke obscured much of the blast sight, and that made me nervous.

Lazlo laughed and let out a short whoop of victory. “Look at that,” she said. “We’ve just witnessed the future of ML warfare.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Abbott, clearly not as sold as she was. “Theo, what do you see?”

A shot rang out from above, followed by two more in quick succession. Mercifully it wasn’t relayed through our earpieces or else I suspect the noise would have blown out my eardrum. When Theo finally spoke, I noted the edge in his voice this time. “I just picked off two of them. They’re still coming our way. You did some damage, Lazlo, but not as much as you think.”

He was right about that. When the smoke cleared enough to give us a better idea of the results, we could see a number of still forms on the ground, some in pieces. Others were moving, a few missing body parts, a few limping, but the pack was still advancing.

Lazlo’s smiled faded as she counted the casualties. “Damn it. I think we only got eight of them, and they’re not retreating. What the hell is motivating these guys?”

More shots sounded out, and we watched as a few more MLs bit the dust as they came on. They were spreading themselves out now, dodging behind trees and brush wherever available. Theo must have had sniper training because even with their speed and the cover of night to aid them he still made them pay for every inch of their advance. But it took less than a minute for the remaining MLs to reach the edge of our camp. Voyeur Two showed an overhead view of the Oasis as a dozen figures tightly encircled us.

“Theo, button up,” Abbott instructed. The shooting ceased and I heard metallic clanging, as if a door or hatch was being closed and latched. Theo came down the rungs shortly after, carrying a sniper rifle and looking like he’d been called away from his favorite pastime.

“Lazlo, power down the lights and get ready to use Shock and Awe,” said Abbott. He then looked directly at me. “You’re safe where you are, Hector, but I advise you not to touch the walls of the vehicle, just in case.”

I looked at him with confusion. “Is this vehicle electrified?”

“It’s about to be,” said Lazlo.

“I thought MLs were fireproof,” I observed.

“Electricity doesn’t burn them, but it still wrecks them,” said Theo. He moved to a weapons rack and traded his sniper rifle for an assault rifle. He also handed out two pump-action shotguns, one to Abbott and one to Lazlo. He looked at me as if debating whether to arm me as well, but a quick shake of my head disabused him of the notion. Now was definitely not the time to field test my gun skills.

Lazlo put her shotgun to the side and held her right hand over the Enter button on her keyboard. “We wait for the MLs to climb on us, then hit the juice. Twenty-thousand volts running through them for twenty seconds, and they’re usually in a very bad state afterwards.”

The MLs were quick to oblige, as I soon heard the pitter-patter of terrible feet on the roof of the vehicle. Then the overhead lights flickered off, leaving us with only the computer monitors as reliable light sources, and for a brief moment I was back in the cabin basement, a prisoner awaiting execution. I put a thumb to my mouth and bit my nail to stave off my desire to make noise, to talk away my fear as the footfalls increased in number. I wanted to have faith in my protectors, but true faith is something earned, not given.

Abbott finally gave the order by nodding to Lazlo, and she plunged a finger onto the Enter button. I held my breath, waiting for some kind of light show or sizzling sound, or even the rancid smell of burning wires. Some proof that Shock and Awe was underway. Indeed, I ended up experiencing all three signs, but they came from under the computer desk, from the compartment that Lazlo had emerged from when I first met her. Scattered light lit up the interior, accompanied by brutal fusing sounds. Theo and Lazlo swore as the compartment smoked up with acrid fumes, the unexpected light show dying out a few seconds later. The ceiling lights came back on as Theo went to grab a fire extinguisher hanging on a wall. Abbott stood there calmly and then walked to the weapons rack, opening up an unmarked drawer and rooting around inside. Lazlo kept swearing as she hammered away at her keyboard, and I decided not to ask any obvious questions at that point.

“God damn all of rodent kind to hell,” Lazlo colorfully cursed as she worked. “I knew those bastards were chewing on something. Why can’t they go after the food like normal pests?”

Theo knelt down and brought the extinguisher to bear on the compartment. Abbott finished his search and came over to me. I was amazed by his calmness, as if all this was more a minor inconvenience than a life-and-death struggle. Perhaps that was why he was in charge – the cool head when the crap hit the fan. He handed me a spherical object, and I almost laughed when I recognized it as a flash ball. It was a different model than the ones Madison used. It had a plastic clip attached to it, and I noticed Abbott’s other hand held a bandoleer with several more flash balls hanging off it. The Wrangler version of a grenade belt, apparently.

He managed to get Theo and Lazlo’s attention and then outlined the new plan, such as it was. They were going to do this the old-fashioned way – get up close and personal. Open the door, toss a flash ball, then rush out and blast every ML they could see. I was staying put – the flash ball in my hand was just a precaution. Theo seemed to approve of the plan, while Lazlo appeared sickened by it, remarking that there were reasons why they killed MLs from a distance. But she took up her shotgun and got into position just the same. I understood the reasoning – no help was coming, the Oasis couldn’t move in this state, and the MLs had the patience of a redwood – but the idea of opening that door felt like the kind of stupid move done in horror movies that got protagonists killed.

I could see the nervousness in Abbott’s face as he gave Theo the order to open the door. I had the feeling that this team was used to doing its death-dealing from safer positions. I saw Lazlo bite her lip as Theo threw the door wide. Beyond it, I saw a faint tinge of dawn in the sky above a shadowed world of forested hills. The command vehicle did have a few external lights activated, enough to illuminate the surroundings, and I saw the little nightmares in the flesh once again. Every single time I see them, I still marvel at the unreal degree of similarity between them -the same bald scalps, the same lipless mouths, the same ebony eyes that sucked in the light around them. I counted four within my line of sight, and they shrieked with desire upon seeing a path to their prey. Then they were shrieking a different tune as Theo’s flash ball went off, blinding them with a wave of blue. One little bastard was mere feet away from the door when Theo came out with calm, methodical ease and plugged it in the head. Abbott went next, his shotgun roaring at other targets that I couldn’t see from my vantage point. Lazlo said a quick prayer to the Virgin Mary as she ran out, disappearing from my sight as she covered the backs of her teammates.

The air was congested with screams and gunfire as the MLs came on, flashes of blue and burst of white throwing a strobe light effect over the battle. I glanced at the monitor depicting Voyeur Two’s overhead camera, showing that the MLs on the other side of the vehicle had joined the fray. They didn’t charge the team like the ones that had gone after Madison and me – these ones like to use protection, move from cover to cover. I heard Theo yell out in frustration as his shots missed more than they hit. These MLs appeared to understand their prey better than before. But they were still driven to attack, and one by one they fell to bullets and pellets.

I forced myself to look away from the monitor and back at the door. There was a cold comfort in watching the action from a drone’s perspective. It detached you from reality, even if reality was right in front of you. But a ML wasn’t going to burst through the monitor. If it came for me, it would be through that door.

My timing proved prescient, for a Meat Locust chose that moment to charge up the ramp, aiming right at me with maddening rage creasing its face. I had just enough time to panic-bolt out of my seat before a shotgun blast went off and the ML’s face disappeared in a puff of gray dust, the body collapsing just inside the door. Lazlo was on the ramp behind it, wearing a frantic face and panting from exertion. She looked at me and then pointed at the monitors.

“Tell me if it’s clear, Hector,” she asked. It took me a moment to obey as I still felt a tad freaked from the monster’s suicide-charge, but I finally looked and saw no more MLs in the area. Only their bodies remained.

“We’re clear,” I told her.

“Then grab the first-aid kit on the second rack to your right and get out here,” she ordered hurriedly. “Abbott’s hurt.”

*****

One lesson I was beginning to learn from my continuing experiences in this crisis was that victories never felt like victories. No matter how many times I’ve escaped death, I never quite get clear of it. And someone always pays for my survival. This time around, it was Abbott. Not that I could’ve done much, but I still could’ve done something. The flash ball in my hand wouldn’t have done much more than the one already flashing outside. If I had known how to shoot adequately, I might have been of use. Instead, I was just like the drones the team deploys in the field – just another voyeur.

Abbott was now lying on a lower bunk with a sizeable bandage on his right leg, one that was close to soaked through. The way Theo told the story, two MLs had come in blindly charging Abbott, one going high and one going low. Abbott managed to blast the one aiming for his head. The low one got a nasty swipe at his leg before Theo took it down. The claws must have nicked his femoral artery, as he’d been bleeding badly but not spraying. I had gone out and helped apply pressure to the wound as he groaned in agony, and we got the bleeding under control. But his wound was long and deep. There was no way we could fix it in the field.

I sat next to him to keep an eye on his condition as Theo and Lazlo passionately argued over their course of action. He occasionally liked to smile my way as if to say, “These two, right?” Even in pain and in a precarious situation, he still kept his calm.

“We need to pack up and go now,” Theo demanded. “He needs surgery.”

“No argument from me,” Lazlo shot back, “but we can’t leave without the drone.”

Theo made an exasperated face and shook his head. “You and your tech. It is not worth Abbott dying over it, or anyone else.”

“You know that’s not it,” Lazlo countered. “If we leave here without knowing what’s going on, all this is going to be for nothing.”

I was really tired of having to play catch-up in the conversations, so I raised my hand to get their attention. “Okay, what drone are we talking about here?”

They looked at each other as if debating whether I was entitled to an answer, but it was Abbott who replied, his voice more strained than before. “While you were sleeping, Lazlo sent Voyeur Three into the copse that was hiding our pack. She decided we needed to know what they were doing, and I agreed.”

“How many drones do you guys have?” I asked, more of a rhetorical question than one expecting a response.

“We have four,” Lazlo replied. “Our Third Eye system was designed to have constant surveillance when we’re tracking a pack. So we have three drones programmed for overlapping coverage over a twenty-four hour cycle, and one for backup. I reprogrammed Voyeur Three to go in under manual control. It was transmitting fine for the first two minutes, but then it hit some weird signal interference. Almost five minutes in, the signal was lost. The drones are programmed to land if they break contact, and its internal hard drive can save up to twenty minutes of footage, so…”

“So it might have recorded something important,” interrupted Theo, “or it might be a wild goose chase. It’s not a reason to risk our lives any further.”

“I… disagree, Theo,” said Abbott. “We’re missing ten MLs, and they were doing something in that copse that they don’t want us to see. The pack’s attack on us wasn’t typical ML behavior. It was deliberate and coordinated and nigh-suicidal, as if they saw us as a serious threat and were willing to die coming at us than let us interfere with what they’re doing up here. We need to know what that is, and our best chance of knowing why is Voyeur Three.”

Theo sighed in frustration, then looked straight at Abbott and said, “By we, you mean me of course.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Abbott replied.

Theo laughed. “You sweet talker. But it’s not going to work this time. I can’t carry back a drone and defend myself at the same time.”

“Well, I can come,” offered Lazlo.

“No, you can’t,” Theo insisted. “You need to keep Third Eye running and watch over Abbott. We don’t leave Abbott alone, or I don’t go.”

I had a feeling that I knew what Theo was after, but he wasn’t about to come out and ask me. I knew he wouldn’t ask any more than the others would have asked. They were about saving lives, not endangering them. But my overdeveloped hero complex was already poking me to speak up. It was almost like destiny was determined to keep throwing these moments at me over and over until I got it right or finally died.

For the record, I don’t believe in destiny. I do believe that you can’t do nothing and then expect a happy ending.

“I can go,” I blurted out.

All three of them looked at me skeptically, but none of them outright denied me.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I can hike, and I can carry, and I know my way around flash balls.”

Theo nodded, a grim smile on his face. “I can’t guarantee your safety, Hector, but…”

“C’mon, you’re not serious,” said Lazlo. “By his own account, he’s never even fired a gun.”

Theo gave her a hard stare. “Which is why you’re staying here and why he can go. You can defend the camp, I can defend him. It’s either this or we bug out.” Lazlo looked like she wanted to protest further, but then changed her mind and merely shook her head quietly.

“You sure about this, Hector?” spoke Abbott as he sat up, wincing as his leg shifted on the bed. “It’s still dangerous out there.”

“Believe me, I’d rather not,” I replied. “But you guys need the help. Besides, I hate unsolved mysteries.”

I expected further protest from Lazlo. Instead, she gave me practical travel advice and tips on how to spot ML activity as we packed up the camp and prepped the Oasis for travel. Abbott wanted the vehicle ready to leave the moment Theo and I returned. We also decided to wait until daylight, which was only a couple of hours off. There were no real tactical advantages to daytime, since the MLs were no less dangerous in the sun than in the dark. But humans are creatures of the light, and our morale would improve with the sun in the sky.

They gave me a blue-tinted Kevlar vest for protection, the flash ball belt with eight balls attached, a backpack that held a digital camera and a sample kit for any potential “unknown anomalies” we might run across, and a pistol with a holster. Theo insisted on the pistol – even if I had never fired a gun, it might save my life. I almost felt like one of the team now. I certainly looked the part.

Lazlo reminded me that while Third Eye would be watching us the whole time, we’d be out of sight once we entered the copse. If I did everything Theo asked of me, I should be fine. She also told me not to screw this up and make them look bad for letting me do this. She smiled as she said it. I could think of worse people to be watching my every move than Lazlo.

Abbott gave me a farewell address from his bed, more a speech than advice: “We don’t normally trust civies for this kind of mission, Hector. But we will with you. Not because we’re desperate, but because I see an important quality in you. When you do this job long enough, you learn to spot it in people. You don’t go through what we do and go back to a safe life with a safe family in a safe community. You know better, and you’ll carry that knowledge the rest of your life. But there is still a place for you, if you want it.”

He never did tell me what he saw in me. I realize now that this was not just a desperate move – it was a test. Even now, I don’t know if what he thought he saw in me had been real. Every coach knows to give the team a pep talk before a game, even when you know somebody has to lose.

I felt an eerie sense of calm as I followed Theo up the hill, the kind of peace I used to get when I hiked in the woods. Seeing the sun after days of solitude might have had something to do with it, feeling its warmth on my cheeks and seeing the night’s lingering darkness melt away. Or maybe it was the constant whine of the drone hovering above the trees and our heads, knowing that Lazlo would give us an instant warning via the radio in my ear if a Meat Locust showed up. I had felt on edge with Madison, not because I didn’t trust her but because no one person can cover all dangers, no matter how much of a bad ass they were.

That said, my calm was never far from collapsing. My hike started by moving through a wafting dust cloud of gray, the lingering residue of dozens of dead MLs decomposing rapidly. My outfit carried some of it along, and no matter how much I wiped it away I never felt completely clean. A constant reminder that there were hundreds of these monsters around Crusoe, and who could say how close the next pack was from our position. Not to mention the ten missing MLs – more than enough to take Theo and me down if we got too complacent.

Regardless, I chose to enjoy the picturesque view and the smell of pines and the freedom of movement I finally had. Theo seemed less enthralled and more focused on keeping us in the right direction. We were skirting Cell Point this time, aiming for a small valley two miles past it. That valley held the copse that the pack had disappeared into, and where the lost drone was now.

“You guys are boring, you know that?” spoke Lazlo in my ear at one point. “No dirty jokes, no nervous comments. I knew Theo had no sense of humor, but I didn’t think you’d be a killjoy, Hector.”

“At least I can turn off the radio when you tell your bad puns, Laz,” said Theo.

“Silence the chatter, you two,” ordered Abbott. “We may have hostiles in the area.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Even after last night’s frantic battle and Abbott’s injury, the group still held onto its camaraderie. It also disturbed me somewhat. How many run-ins with the MLs did you have to rack up before you became desensitized to their horrors?

It was close to two blessedly uneventful hours before we came to the edge of the copse. It was a tight cluster of pines that had grown too close together, their upper boughs plentiful with needles but their lower limbs starved of light, their bare branches twisting and drooping towards the ground. If I had been a superstitious type I might have deemed it a cursed place. The sun had less power in there, the trees turning the copse into a shadowed realm where monsters hid and awaited the unwary.

Theo must have been feeling nervous too, as he held his assault rifle at the ready and thumbed off the safety. I grabbed a flash ball from my belt and held it in my left hand, content just to be holding it. I figured if the MLs attacked us, I’d do exactly what I’d done with Madison. Let Theo do the killing and me the distracting.

“Follow close behind me and watch our backs,” instructed Theo. “We won’t have Third Eye in there. We go in, find the drone, and get out. No diversions or distractions. Got it?”

I nodded to Theo and he started in, failing to see me hesitate. I knew what I needed to do, what I had volunteered to do, and here we were about to do it, but now that I was at the mouth of the lion’s den my earlier convictions were less convicting. It’s hard to overcome those pesky survival instincts within us – they’re present for a reason.

“Hey, Hector, don’t you puss out now,” scolded the voice in my ear. Lazlo could see me hesitating, and it was enough to get me moving. Besides, I definitely didn’t want Theo getting too far ahead.

To be fair to the trees, the copse wasn’t any more macabre or menacing than the rest of the forest. In fact, there was precious little brush and grass since the trees hogged up most of the sunlight. Still, I studied every tree for the telltale signs of enigmatic fungus or distortion, the favored camouflage of the MLs. Every crunching branch under my foot felt like a gunshot going off. We swept through the copse in a slow, wide pattern, hoping to spot the wayward drone while hoping not to spot anything else.

Every few minutes Lazlo or Abbott chimed in to check up on us. I was a little surprised that we hadn’t lost radio contact. After all, Lazlo had complained of some kind of signal interference with the wayward drone. She was even surprised at the clarity of our communications. I wasn’t going to over-think it, though. Dealing with malfunctioning tech was her territory. I was just the mule in this mission.

I lost track of how long we spent searching the copse. It was certainly long enough for me to start feeling a little bored. We were almost to the other edge of the copse when I spotted it – a metallic object resting on a bed of broken branches. “I think I found it,” I told the team, and Theo confirmed my catch. Lazlo whooped with joy as we went over to it, Theo telling me to keep an eye out while he made a quick inspection.

I scanned the trees as I had for the last half-hour, knowing not to let my guard down despite my elation at this meager success. Theo talked on the radio with Lazlo, describing what appeared to be damage to the drone’s forward-right propeller. She moaned and said that it wasn’t going to fly back with a propeller down, so I still had to carry it back. Well, I hadn’t come out here for nothing.

Then I noticed something… odd. I was pretty sure I could make out in the distance some strange rock-like structures. There were a lot of trees in the way, so I couldn’t make out much. But I could easily tell that the structures weren’t natural. They were also pretty small, and the more I stared at them the more they reminded me of… statues. Statues of what, I wasn’t sure. Who would bring statues out here?

Theo had said no diversions, and part of me agreed with him. I didn’t want to press our luck. But I was getting an ominous vibe from looking at those statues.

“Theo, there’s something over there,” I said. Theo stood up and looked where I was pointing. He was silent as he stared, his face unreadable. Then he looked back at me with a frown. “I said no diversions and I mean it. Whatever’s over there isn’t our priority.”

Abbott spoke up on the radio, asking for clarification of our current conversation. Theo groaned and said, “It’s an unknown anomaly, roughly seventy meters away. We’d have to go investigate for more info.”

“You know, the drone did go down right there,” pointed out Lazlo. “It might be…”

“Hush, Laz,” said Abbott. The radio then went silent for a few beats. When Abbott spoke up again, his tone was for more serious. “Theo, do you think it’s safe to investigate?”

“I don’t think any of this is safe, Abbott,” Theo replied. “But… I think we can divert with minimal added risk.”

“Then go check it out. But if anything starts moving, get out of there.”

“Roger that,” finished Theo. He looked at me and added, “Let’s get the drone and get moving.”

He helped me rig up a harness to the drone with some straps taken from my backpack. This way I could carry the drone with less effort, even keep one hand free if the need arrived. Once that was done, I fell behind Theo as we hiked the short distance to the unknown anomaly. We moved past the cluster of trees that had obscured our vision, and what we saw made things both clearer and murkier simultaneously, as well as making my heart accelerate.

The small statues occupied a very small clearing within the copse, a group of ten figures in a circular formation with each figure spaced an equal distance from the next. Their appearance was unmistakable – Meat Locusts. They were the same size and shape, but their skin resembled bleached-white chalk or calcium instead of their typical snake-like texture. They were all kneeling down as if kowtowing, facing outward from the center of the circle. A line of dust led inward from each figure, meeting in the center and forming a large circular mound, with pieces of the same substance littering the ground around it.

“Jesus,” said Theo. “Hector, don’t touch anything.” He continued around the circle, inspecting the figures carefully. I stood in place, unsure of what else to do.

“Uh, can somebody start talking?” asked Lazlo in my ear. “Also, start taking pictures. We can’t see what you’re seeing.”

That jogged me into action. I put down the drone and extracted the digital camera and sample kit from my backpack. As I powered up the camera, I watched as Theo poked one of the figures with the barrel of his rifle, eliciting a puff of dust upon contact.

“I think we found the remains of the missing MLs,” he said.

“Remains?” asked Abbott incredulously. “As in corpses?”

“Not exactly.” Theo gave Abbott and Lazlo a cursory description of the sight before us while he gestured at me to bring over the sample kit. I did so and then began taking pictures of the entire scene. Theo extracted a plastic container and a pair of tweezers from the kit and began carefully plucking material from the nearest corpse, and having most of it crumble away. I was in agreement with Theo – I believed these figures were once MLs. I stooped to stare into the face of one of them, and I saw hollow eye sockets and a mouth empty of teeth or flesh. It was as if we were seeing only their outer skin, hardened by some bizarre process of petrifaction.

“It’s like something hollowed them out and left behind their skin,” continued Theo. “The remaining matter seems to have undergone some kind of calcification.”

“It’s like they were doing some kind of ritual,” I offered, taking a picture of the emptiness beyond the corpse’s eyes. I should have taken more, but being so close to even a dead ML ruined my calm. I stood back up and continued my picture taking with the next ML corpse. “The posturing, the organization – it’s almost religious in nature.”

“These things don’t do rituals,” Theo remarked. “They sure as hell don’t worship anything.”

“How do you explain these poses, then?” I said, waving to the figures. “You think someone killed them, positioned them, and then turned them to stone?”

“Folks, let’s leave the conjecture for later,” spoke up Abbott. “Theo, Hector, five more minutes of data collecting and then get out of there.”

I was almost disappointed to have to leave, emphasis on almost. I felt like we had stumbled onto a deep dark secret that no other human had ever discovered until now. MLs holding rituals and corpses that didn’t dissolve? This had to be something huge. Why else would the MLs hide the act in the first place? But I also had a pattern of learning intriguing and hidden knowledge right before life’s bounty of horror found me once more. As I was about to find out, that pattern wasn’t changing anytime soon.

*****

Once we cleared the copse, Lazlo walked me through the process of transmitting the camera’s pictures through its wi-fi, using her watchful drone as a signal relay. Lazlo didn’t want to wait another two hours to get the data. Theo wasn’t happy about the delay, wanting us to get moving. He was more on edge now, even though we had accounted for the missing MLs. I couldn’t blame him – I felt out of sorts after our discovery, like the world had found yet another way to warp my sense of reality. But I didn’t think we were in more danger than before. Whatever the MLs had done had occurred hours ago, and the team had killed the only pack in the area. As long as we got back to camp and disembarked before another pack showed up, we’d be home free.

The day remained sunny and cheerful, and while I felt like a beast of burden as I carried the recovered drone I was kinda enjoying the moment. I knew I wasn’t really cut out to be a soldier, but I might make a good researcher. I no longer felt like such a tagalong. I knew I was a long way from being at the same level as the rest of the Wranglers, but at least I was walking the path.

It was that moment that I realized that I was seriously contemplating this life. Madison hadn’t made it look real appealing, what with the lonely hunts in the woods and the constant threat of death. But Abbott’s team made the experience feel almost like an adventure. Maybe it was all about how you approached it. Not everyone had to do it like an old-fashioned safari. There was a high-tech way to do the job - modern technology against the monsters.

Then I found myself getting angry, because once again the proof of the government’s malfeasance was on display. If they had just thrown even a tiny percentage of the federal budget into solving this crisis, there wouldn’t be dozens of dead innocents and a swarm of monsters to contend with. I made a mental note to ask Abbott a lot more questions when we were back in Crusoe. I wanted to know how we’d gotten here, because I wanted to help make sure we never got here again.

The reason I was having these long bouts of cogitation was because Theo had all but clammed up during our trip back. He watched the trees with keen interest, as if he couldn’t trust Third Eye to cover us. I thought about asking what was bothering him, but I knew better than to disturb a vigilant soldier.

Lazlo had been quiet until we were halfway to the camp, then she piped up with her initial analysis of the ML circle ritual, as she was calling it. I think she named it that just to poke Theo, who still maintained that MLs don’t do religion. She admitted that she didn’t know what the bowing was all about, but she did believe that these MLs had done this process to themselves. In fact, it looked like they had created something in the center of the circle.

“Some of those fragments remind me of… well, eggshells,” she said in an unconfident tone.

“Eggshells?” I asked. “Like they laid an egg?”

“Built one, perhaps,” Abbott remarked. “Or it was just excess material that their creation cast off once it was ready. I’m starting to come around to Lazlo’s thinking. The whole process reminds me of some kind of joining ritual - the many coming together to create the one.”

“The one?” spoke up Theo for the first time in an hour. “So you think we’re not alone?”

“Theo, I know you too well,” Abbott replied, his tone growing more serious. “You get quiet when you think we’re in trouble. You think something’s out there too, don’t you?”

Theo grunted in acknowledgement. “Call it Wrangler’s intuition, but yeah, I haven’t felt right since we started back.”

“MLs bud on a one-to-one basis,” I pointed out. “I saw it in action. Why would they sacrifice ten MLs to make only one… thing?”

“That’s a good question,” said Lazlo. “And… I don’t like any of the potential answers. I’m going to put up a second drone, just to be safe.”

I joined Theo in scanning the wilderness, unsure of what I was looking for but assuming I’d know it when I saw it. We passed by the cabin that had once been my sanctuary, but I barely gave it a glance. Suddenly I really wanted to be away from here, or at least in the Oasis with a lot of steel between the outside world and me.

We were maybe twenty minutes away from the camp when I heard the radio crackle in my ear, Lazlo’s voice interspersed with burst of static that obscured her words. Theo and I instinctively stopped and tried to contact her, but if she could hear us we weren’t able to tell. I could make out Lazlo’s tone as heightened and growing more frantic, as if she was desperately trying to get a hold of us, or her own situation was rapidly deteriorating.

“Lazlo, Abbott, someone come in!” Theo demanded, but again the answer was more static and barely-audible voices. Theo then took off at a fast jog, not even bothering to warn me of his intentions. I tried to keep up as best I could, but I didn’t have his physique or conditioning, and he left me in the dust after a few minutes. By that time, the radio no longer crackled. It no longer did anything except relay Theo’s occasional frantic calls to his friends.

I understood Theo’s concerns, but I felt rightly abandoned during the long minutes I jogged after him, hoping that I knew the path back to the camp well enough to not get lost. Then again, I was also afraid of what I would find at the camp. I grabbed a flash ball from my belt and held it as I ran. It gave me enough confidence to keep moving.

I could hear Theo yelling out to Lazlo and Abbott as I neared the camp, and I spotted him just outside the Oasis, holding his rifle up and slowly advancing up the ramp. I switched to walking as I entered the camp’s perimeter, panting and unable to get a word out but still moving forward. I dropped my drone load to the ground and took out my pistol, remembering to switch off the safety this time. Theo disappeared through the doorway as I closed in, and his yells ceased at the same time. Then I spotted the trail of crimson on the ramp, bright and shiny and recent. Adding to the horror was that the solid metal door was hanging off of one hinge and had taken several cruel dents, as if something massively strong had attacked it and ultimately won.

I spotted a drone parked on the ground near the ramp, perhaps the one Lazlo had been preparing for launch. Voyeur Four was still in the air, its incessant whine now a unwelcome distraction. Pistol in my right hand, flash ball in my left, I went up the ramp and stopped just before the entrance. I wanted to help the team, even if it meant walking into a lion’s den. But I wasn’t an idiot.

“Theo?” I yelled. “Are you okay?”

There was no immediate answer, and I was about to throw the flash ball inside when his voice spoke up at last. “God… yes, Hector, I’m okay.”

I knew I wasn’t going to like what was in there. I went in just the same.

The first apparent change to the interior was the small pool of blood congealing next to the bunks. That… and the human leg lying in it. Considering the large soaked bandage wrapped around it, I could easily identify its previous owner. Abbott – my heart froze up at the revelation.

Theo was standing near it, looking like he’d just been kicked hard in the ribs. Beyond the pool of blood and severed limb, there were a few splashes of blood on the bunk Abbott had occupied, a bloody handprint here and there, but little other damage. No random destruction of property. It was not like the MLs to ignore an opportunity to destroy humanity’s work, or be so tidy. Then again, how the hell did the MLs get past a solid steel door?

“They… it… dragged him away,” Theo muttered in a low, deadly voice. “Tore off his leg and dragged him away.”

Even though he was the military veteran of the group, I think my shock wore off quicker than his. Abbott had been his friend for who knows how long. I knew him for less than a day. “Theo… what about Lazlo?” I managed to ask.

“I… I don’t know. She’s not here. They must have…” He trailed off, gripping his rifle and moving past me to the door. He started looking into the forest, probably hoping to scope out a trail to follow. I became afraid of his next move.

“Theo, tell me you’re not going after them.”

He looked at me with unmistakable rage shining in his eyes. “They got them, Hector. I wasn’t here and they got them. They might still be alive, and even if they aren’t…”

“If you go after what did this, you’ll end up like them,” I insisted. I couldn’t believe I had to be the voice of reason, but here I was being it. “I still need your help, Theo. I can’t make it back on my own, and we have information that could save lives. Please tell me you’re staying here.”

I wasn’t sure if he was buying what I was selling. He looked out again at the forest, his conflicted priorities battling it out on his face. Then he closed his eyes and said, “I’m securing the perimeter. I won’t… I won’t leave you, Hector. But I can’t be in here right now.”

He went down the ramp, ending our conversation. I had to trust his words. I’m not sure what I’d accomplished, though. I wasn’t any better off than Theo. That brief window of friendship and safety that I had occupied was gone, and I had no idea what to do. God, what were we up against now? What had the MLs unleashed on the world? And how the hell were we…

I heard the noise in the back of the vehicle, what they called the storage section as it had little else but cabinets and drawers for personal effects, supplies, and equipment. It came off as a soft metallic rap, almost like something banging gently on a metal cabinet. My sorrow switched to fight-or-flight, heavy on the fight. Theo hadn’t searched the vehicle. In his shock, perhaps he had made a mistake. I wasn’t in the mood to run from this particular fight.

I raised my gun and moved down the length of the vehicle, stepping up to a large closet that Abbott had declared their improvised brig. I thought I heard a soft shuffle inside there. A ML preparing for an ambush, perhaps, though the better part of me must have thought otherwise. I held my gun at the ready and used my free hand to open the door, prepared to fire at a moment’s notice.

In that otherwise empty closet, a wide-eyed Lazlo greeted me with a pistol aimed at my chest, and it was pure providence that neither of us shot the other at that moment. She lowered her weapon and broke out into a combination of laughter and tears as she came out of the closet and gave me a tight hug, as if we were best friends. Once she detached from me, she asked me about Theo. I assured her he was okay, but she didn’t believe me until she went to the exterior door and called out his name. He came running, and she gave him a tight hug as well.

“It wasn’t a pack, Theo,” she managed to say between soft sobs. “It was something… something a lot worse.”

I didn’t have a frame of reference at the time to judge how anything could be worse than a pack of Meat Locusts. Now? If anything, she may have underplayed the threat we were facing.

*****

Obviously Theo and I wanted answers, but we needed to secure the vehicle first. Despite their deep grief over Abbott’s death, Theo and Lazlo fell back into their respective roles as we finished preparing to leave, Lazlo swapping out drones while Theo stood guard. I gave the living section a hasty cleaning and wrapped up Abbott’s leg in a plastic tarp for storage in the rear closet. I feared it was the only part of him we’d ever find. As I did the task, I told myself over and over that it was only flesh now, not the remains of a good man I had been talking to less than an hour ago.

There wasn’t much we could do for the main steel door other than use a bunch of straps to close it and keep it from banging around. Its use as a protective shield was now very limited.

Once we secured the door, we huddled inside and voted on our next move. The smartest plan was to get the Oasis moving and head back to Crusoe. We were down a Wrangler, our resources were significantly depleted, and we were up against an unknown threat that had penetrated our defenses with little effort.

But instead, we unanimously voted to hear out Lazlo first. Maybe it’s the human part of us that wants to know the answers even when it puts you further in jeopardy. Or perhaps we needed to know because there was a good chance that this new monster wasn’t all that far away and might come at us again. Better for us to have some idea what we were up against rather than encounter it in ignorance.

“I was outside installing a new battery in Voyeur Four when I saw it,” she began, sitting down at her computer desk with a bottle of water in her hands and a haunted look in her eyes. “It wasn’t very far away, maybe fifty yards at most. It hadn’t tripped any alarms from Third Eye or the vehicle cameras. It looked humanoid, but it was using the same masking ability the MLs use. Except it’s not the same. They look like forest flora. This one looked like a walking, flowing mound of dirt. It had multiple limbs, but how many I can’t be sure of because its arms appeared to grow and recede from its body at regular intervals. It was also bigger, at least my height. It was walking toward me at that rate serial killers use in slasher movies. You know, where the killer doesn’t feel like running because he knows he’s going to get you eventually and he has all the time in the world. I tried to reach Abbott and you guys on the radio, but there was suddenly some kind of major interference scrambling the signal. Three guesses as to who was likely causing it.”

She gulped down a drink of water and then continued, her hands gripping the bottle tightly. “Abbott saved my life twice in ten minutes. He insisted I take my shotgun with me. I told him the MLs were all gone and that Third Eye would warn me otherwise. He said to humor an injured man and do it anyway. Like an idiot, I had put down the shotgun several feet away, so I had to race to get it, fearing that thing would rush me while my back was turned. But that overconfident bastard didn’t speed up at all. It was twenty yards away when I brought up the shotgun, and I let it get to ten yards before I opened fire. If that thing had been scared of my gun, it never showed it.

“I’m pretty damn sure I hit it. Kinda hard to miss at that range. I emptied the entire shotgun, but it was like I was shooting wiffle balls. The whole time it maintained its masking. I’ve never seen a ML that could keep up its masking while it attacked. Then again, I’ve never seen a ML that could withstand several shotgun blasts.

“Not enough time to reload, so I ran back into the vehicle and locked the door. Abbott was demanding answers because he couldn’t reach me on the radio and it was hard to miss all the gunfire. I was about to start talking when the thing began wailing on the door, pounding it hard enough to leave dents in the metal. It must be damn strong to do even that much. After a few blows, it started wrenching on the door and working the hinges. I used the time to reload the shotgun and I was about to load another shotgun for Abbott when one of the door hinges pulled free. The thing was about to get in, so I stood in front of the door with my gun at the ready. I didn’t think my odds were good, but we weren’t going down without a fight.

“Abbott must have seen things differently, because he told me to give him the shotgun and go hide in the back. I tried pretending that I hadn’t heard him say that, but he repeated himself and added that it didn’t make sense for us to both die. I argued that I might still stop it, and he said that if that was possible, then it was his turn to do the heroics. I remember looking at him and seeing the lie on his face. He knew he couldn’t stop it. He was giving me the best chance possible of surviving.

“He then gave me a direct order. Told me that if I didn’t obey and he made it out of here he’d strip me of my Wrangler status. I knew he wasn’t serious, but somehow it worked on me. I gave him the shotgun, told him he was a jerk, and grabbed a pistol before I hid in the closet. I felt ridiculous, like I was a little girl pretending that the monster wouldn’t see me if I hid under my bed and closed my eyes. Then I heard the door give way with a big grating shriek. The shotgun went off three times before I heard Abbott scream. It was a short scream – I guess that’s better than a long one. I heard some thumping and sliding sounds, and then I heard nothing. I thought about opening the door and rushing the monster a dozen times over, but each time I just had to recall Abbott’s scream and… I just sat there.

“It killed him, Theo,” she softly stated, more tears falling from her eyes. “He told me to hide. He ordered me to. And damn it, I listened. I let it kill him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Theo replied sincerely. “He was right, Laz. You were right to listen to him.”

“You don’t know that,” she shot back. “Maybe I wounded it. Maybe a few more blasts might have done the trick.”

“If it could take eight shells and still wreck a steel door, it was nowhere near wounded,” Theo replied. “Abbott understood that, Laz. He made the call.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” she muttered.

“I came up here trying to rescue my ex-girlfriend,” I said, making my own attempt to console her. “She was dead before I arrived, but I still think about how if I had called the cops or left earlier I might have saved her. I don’t think the doubts ever leave you entirely. I don’t think you ever feel better.”

She gave me a slight frown. “I take it you don’t write Hallmark cards for a living.”

I shrugged. “I’m not known for my pep talks.” To my credit, her frown became a slight smile.

Theo stood up and went over to Abbott’s bloodstained bunk, looking at it as if visualizing his friend’s final fate, or merely morning his end. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Laz, but what bothers me is why it didn’t come after you after killing Abbott. It wasn’t like you were well hidden.”

“Well, I don’t have my guidebook on weird monsters with me,” she replied. “So your guess is as good as mine.”

I thought about it myself. The MLs really had only one goal in life – feed to reproduce. This new creature, besides clearly being more powerful, also had different tactics and priorities. Despite going after Lazlo, it had been satisfied with Abbott. How long would it be satisfied, though? A paranoid part of me wondered if we had already pressed our luck too far, and that this creature was on its way back to finish us off.

Thankfully, we were all in agreement that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Theo outlined the plan – Lazlo would drive Oasis while he did guard duty in the roof turret. I would man the computer desk and keep an eye on the monitors. I had enough computer knowledge to work Third Eye at an amateur level. Lazlo told me that Voyeur Four would follow Oasis on its own and that it should have enough battery power to last the trip to Crusoe, which was roughly one hundred and ten minutes away at a reasonable speed. As long as we kept moving and stopped only if absolutely necessary, we should make it back okay.

I doubted any of us thought it would go smoothly. But we kept our misgivings to ourselves as Lazlo maneuvered through a small opening that led to the driver’s seat and Theo went to his turret. I managed to get in a question about how safe the driver’s cab would be if we got attacked, and Theo casually mentioned that all the windows were ballistic glass. Good enough to thwart your average Meat Locust, but definitely not the other thing.

Riding in the Oasis reminded me of a time back in my childhood when my older brother owned a van and I would ride in the very back of it, parked on a cushioned bench seat without the slightest safety feature available. Sure, it was fun to be so free and wild until you realized you’d be sailing through the car at sixty miles per hour if there was ever a serious accident. At least Lazlo’s desk chair was bolted down and had a seat belt; it was better than nothing, but not by much.

Right out the gate, Lazlo nearly got us hung up on a fallen tree just turning us around, and I clenched my teeth every time she got close to the edge of the road, a steep slope awaiting a careless misjudgment. To ease my mind, I got familiar with the surveillance system. Lazlo had password-protected anything I wasn’t supposed to tamper with, but that left me plenty of archived footage to look through. I found the video footage timestamped to the arrival of our new predator. Lazlo had predicted that the video would be scrambled or too static-filled to be useful. She called it, all right. She believed the beast had to be putting out some kind of radiation in an electromagnetic spectrum, interfering with radio signals and video equipment. The last clear image captured was Lazlo outside Oasis fitting a drone with a battery. Then nothing but distortion for several minutes until the picture cleared up to show an empty perimeter and a blood trail. I was disappointed that I couldn’t see the creature for myself, but at least we’d have a clue to its presence – video static.

We traveled down the gravelly road in silence for the first forty minutes of the trip, all of us contemplating the nature of our new adversary or trying not to think about Abbott. I appreciated the way Lazlo and Theo could push away their emotions and stay focused. I found it hard to do, even though I had barely known Abbott. It was easier to stare at Voyeur Four’s surveillance footage and slip into my role as a warning bell ringer. But I found the silence of the group growing oppressive. Dark thoughts began to slip into my mind, doubts about our chances of getting back, or what kind of reception we would find back in Crusoe. And naturally, I still had a lot of questions to ask.

“Have there ever been this many MLs in one area before?” I asked.

“Which one of us are you asking?” Lazlo replied.

“I didn’t have a preference,” I said.

“Then you might as well talk to me.” Lazlo’s voice carried much fatigue. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any of them sleep since they’d rescued me. How long had they gone without it?

“Theo tends to clam up when he’s on the job,” she explained. “As to your question, the largest cluster I know of was the Kentucky pack of 1976. That one clocked in at ninety-seven confirmed.”

Ninety-seven? The group around Crusoe was three times that number. We really were in unprecedented territory, then.

“Keep in mind, we’ve only known of the MLs since 1958,” she continued. “They may have been out in the wilds a lot longer than that, and perhaps living in other countries.”

I hadn’t even considered the idea that MLs were a global problem, and I asked her whether that was actually a thing. Lazlo snickered. “They’re like rats and starlings – they find ways of getting around. There’s an unconfirmed account of MLs running around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. Bet they love it there… not too many people to munch on, though. The Russian Wranglers have gotten pretty tightlipped…”

“Don’t drone on and on with the radio,” cautioned Theo. “We need to stay focused.”

“Aye aye, Skipper,” she joked in a nautical voice. I felt an abrupt swerve just then, as if Lazlo was reminding Theo he didn’t have all the power.

“I’m not trying to beat a dead horse here,” I said, “but could there be a connection between the size of the group and all the behaviors we’re seeing?”

“As Abbott used to say, that’s the mystery,” Lazlo answered. I could hear a tinge of sadness as she mentioned him. “Correlation versus causation. Do we have a bigger group because these MLs are smarter than average, or are they acting differently because they’ve reached a certain numerical advantage and are getting more coordinated? And what does any of it have to do with them performing a ritual and creating a brand-new type of monster? I got nothin’, Hector, and that scares me more than anything else.”

Lazlo silenced after that, and I was about to let it go since my questions were causing more discomfort than I intended. But it was Theo who picked up the thread by uttering two oddball words.

“Beachhead species,” he said.

“What what?” replied Lazlo.

“Abbott’s idea. I asked him one time where he thought the MLs came from. He told me that he had a working hypothesis that suggested the MLs were a beachhead species. He admitted that it was a little out there, but after today… Well, he may not have been so out there.”

“Explain,” insisted Lazlo.

Theo cleared his throat and began to do just that. “Imagine you’re a species that figured out how to manipulate genetic codes and the building blocks of life, but you’re not so good with computers and robotics and rocket science. You still want to do space travel, though. Either you want to expand your species, or your planet is about to get destroyed through some global or cosmic event. However, space travel takes too long and eats up too many resources for you to send your own species through space, and there’s no warp drive in the cards. Instead, you use what you got – you create some kind of simpler life form that could survive centuries or millennia out in space, put them in a bunch of space-going containers, and launch them out towards inhabitable planets around distant stars. Places where life like yours could take root.

“Abbott believed that the MLs target humans by design, because we’re the most advanced species on the planet. They’re designed to do that on any world they arrive on. They don’t just eat us, they process us, perhaps even analyze our DNA. Then they make more of themselves. Once certain conditions are met, like reaching a population goal, they switch gears. They would have created a beachhead on the new world, and at that point they would begin to prepare it for their true masters. Abbott didn’t know what that would look like, but he did end his explanation by suggesting that if the MLs were advanced bio-factories capable of cloning themselves, they might be able to do more.”

I had no idea how to respond to all that, other than just not respond. Lazlo paused before she added her two cents, and she sounded more rattled than before.

“Abbott didn’t seem all that surprised by the thing that attacked us. Maybe… maybe he believed it was the next step in their development. Dear God, what if the rest of them do the same thing?”

“It’s just Abbott’s wild-ass idea, Laz,” Theo cautioned. “Remember his rule? Wild-ass ideas stay in the wild unless the data proves otherwise.”

“I like that rule,” I remarked. “We should definitely stick to…”

I trailed off abruptly as the video monitor showing Voyeur Four’s camera feed emitted a series of bleeps that I interpreted as alerts. I focused on it, apprehension coiling around my heart. Voyeur Four wasn’t just following the Oasis; its camera was also positioned to see the road ahead of us, to give us some warning of potentials obstacles. The gravel road ahead predictably wound its way through dense trees and steep hills, though it would soon link up with a paved section that would finally lead us to a highway. Lazlo would have to go slower for the next few miles to keep us safe. That wasn’t what triggered the system. That honor went to the motion blips coming into frame as we neared that section, the ones dotting the hills and trees along the road. The ones shaped like our old unwelcome friends.

I didn’t bother to count them. I didn’t have to. Third Eye did it for me. Eighty-four confirmed motion blips. Eighty-four of them, and most of them were ahead of us, the rest closing in.

Somehow I managed to get this blood-chilling information imparted to the others. Lazlo cursed the MLs’ non-existent mothers. Theo grunted and then ordered me to grab the loaded shotgun he’d left by my chair. He had given me an extremely brief rundown on how to use the shotgun – pump, point, shoot, repeat. I had eight shells. Also watch for recoil. Nowhere near adequate training, but at least I’d be less likely to miss with this weapon.

“You two call them as you see them,” Theo instructed. “And Lazlo, no matter what, you keep driving. You don’t stop for anything. Understand?”

“Yeah,” she replied, not sounding convinced. I didn’t blame her. I knew she was the most confined of us, stuck in the cab with only a pistol and a few flash balls for defense while trying to keep the Oasis from crashing. If Theo and I didn’t keep her safe, none of us would be making it out of the woods.

We closed in on the cluster of blips, and I glanced at the steel door, held in place by nylon straps that looked too fragile for my comfort. I told myself that we were moving too fast for the MLs to latch on and that Theo could deal with any who tried. As long as we kept moving and kept on the road, we’d be safe.

I didn’t believe it for a second, and I gripped my shotgun tightly as the Oasis began rounding the curves of the road.

“Two on our right,” called out Lazlo, her voice focusing me back to the monitor. Sure enough, I spotted two humanoid blips closing in from the right side of the road. A shot rang out and one of the blips went sprawling. The other one sprinted away from the road in response. I didn’t hear any more gunfire, so I figured Theo was only interested in getting us to safety, not scoring kills.

I saw a group of three lingering on the left side of the road. “Three on the left,” I called out, hoping that was the proper way to report sightings. I felt the vehicle swerve as Lazlo tried to give us distance from the group, and another gunshot sent the three MLs scurrying for cover.

As we rounded a bend, I almost swore at the sight before me. We were heading into a serious cluster of the bastards, at least a dozen, and I couldn’t tell if they were on the ground, in the trees, or both. “Monkeys in the trees!” Lazlo yelled. Theo responded with several rapid shots, and I could hear something thump onto the roof, followed by two more thumps as the blips on the monitor converged on our vehicle. Another rapid burst of fire and a lot of frantic movement from the ceiling told me Theo had his hands full removing intruders.

Then I spotted another group rushing the road, coming at us from the hillside to our left. I tried to get out a warning, but the cacophony occurring on the roof drowned out my words. I saw the blips take flight as they hurled themselves at the vehicle, and I could hear the bangs as they made contact. I couldn’t tell if they were hanging on or if they had fallen away until Lazlo confirmed the worst.

“Shit! We got clingers. Three of them, on the left side! One’s at my window!”

Theo didn’t reply unless you counted the bullets flying above us. The bastards knew what to target, and they were either distracting Theo or attempting to overwhelm him. I was still free, though, and the steel door opened out to the left side.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and moved to the door, keeping my thoughts fixed on loosening the straps and not on how exposed I was about to get and how this door wasn’t getting closed again once I did this. I was in pure reaction mode. The team needed me, and I wasn’t about to lose anyone else if I could stop it.

I worked loose the first strap very quickly, then had the second one get snagged and fight me briefly before I cleared it. The door didn’t need much prompting to swing outward, smashing loudly against the side of the vehicle and then hanging at an odd angle. A parade of foliage and duff-covered hillside sped on by in the distance. I grabbed up my shotgun, predicting that an ML would come to exploit this opening. For once, my fears proved completely accurate.

It popped its head into view from the right side of the door, its jet-black eyes staring at me, its mouth agape with wicked teeth. It seemed flummoxed by its luck, and it hesitated. Usually when I found myself face to face with these things, I felt like a chicken dinner awaiting its fate. This time around, I was just so tired of these damn things.

My shotgun roared, and I was surprised by the recoil and thunderous noise of the weapon. But my aim was true, and the horrid black eyes disintegrated before the blast, the body losing its grip and falling off onto the road below.

My first kill. Was I an official Wrangler now? I made a note to ask Lazlo about that when I…

Shit, Lazlo. I rushed to the opening and poked my head out; a move I now know to be far too reckless. Looking towards the cab, I could see two more MLs clinging to the driver’s side door. One had a rock in its claws, pounding away at the reinforced window with it. Finding a handhold to brace myself with, I raised the shotgun at the two monsters one-handed… and clicked on an empty chamber.

Damn it, forget to pump the gun.

The MLs noticed me. The good news was that they abandoned their efforts against Lazlo. The bad news was their efforts were now on me. Like a pair of swinging chimps they maneuvered toward me, screaming with desire. Suddenly I didn’t feel so apathetic about them, pumping the shotgun as I backed away from the opening.

These two came through the doorway simultaneously, one going low, one leaping to the side. A smart move – I couldn’t target them both. The low one came at me fast, but my shotgun proved faster, and its midsection turned into a cloud of dust. I pumped the shotgun immediately and tried to bring it up in time, but the second one was already leaping at me, sounding out a wailing war cry. It crashed into me, knocking me against the computer desk, forcing me to drop my shotgun as I grappled with it. Pain laced up and down my back from the impact, my arms grabbing its thin arms as it tried to rake me with its claws, its lethal mouth snapping away inches from my nose. I had expected it to be stronger, but I found I could keep it at bay at that moment. It writhed and twisted in my grip, but it got nowhere… until it remembered its feet.

It plunged all six of its toe-claws into my thighs, and it felt like nails punching into my skin. Pain drove away my fear, and I tapped into my well of anger once more. Only one move I could think of – I head butted the thing right in its forehead. I was rather surprised by my own aggressiveness, and so was the ML. Stunned, it couldn’t stop me as I pushed it off, grabbed up the shotgun, and turned its face into a vacant hole.

I stood there, panting, my head growing sore, my back aching, and my thighs bleeding from six puncture wounds. At least I remembered to pump the gun again as I sat down at the computer desk, training it at the opening in expectation of more company. I could then hear a voice in my head trying to get my attention, and it took me a second to remember it was the radio.

“Hector? Respond, damn it!” Lazlo sounded desperate. How long had I been unintentionally ignoring her?

“I’m… I’m here, Lazlo,” I finally said.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, relief in her voice. “You weren’t supposed to come to my rescue.”

“I won’t make it a habit,” I commented, watching the air grow thicker as the MLs corpse began to dissolve. I couldn’t hear any more gunfire above me, so I glanced at the Third Eye video. It seemed clear ahead of us, the only lingering blips falling behind the vehicle.

“Theo, you okay?” I asked.

I heard a grunt and a colorful metaphor. “A little banged up, but the roof is clear,” he reported.

I then spotted a group of blips on a downward slope to our left. The road was bending away from them, so they didn’t appear capable of intercepting us. “Well, keep an eye to our left. There’s…”

The picture on the monitor suddenly dissolved into an avalanche of wavy distortion. At the same time, I heard a light static noise drone through my head. My heart revved up again – our new adversary had entered the fray.

“Guys, the thing’s back,” I said to the air. “Guys?” No use. The radio was scrambled. But I could get to Theo through the ladder. At least I could warn him. I ached all over as I got up and moved to the rungs. Looking up, I could see his boots as he moved about the turret, no doubt searching for more hostiles. It was poorly lit inside the turret and I couldn’t see much else.

I yelled up to him, and at first I didn’t think he could hear me. Then he repositioned and looked down at me with a questioning glare. “Why aren’t you using the radio?” he scolded.

He must not have cottoned onto the static. “Theo, it’s…”

Suddenly there was a massive squeal as the turret’s interior grew much brighter. Theo reacted instantly, trying to twist and bring his gun to bear against the thing attacking the turret, but the thing got a hold of him and yanked him clear. I was abruptly staring at the sky, with no sign of Theo or his attacker.

As if I had a secret death wish, I slung my shotgun and found the strength to climb the rungs into the turret. I was in wild pursuit, with no thought outside of somehow saving Theo if I could. I passed through the wreckage of the turret, which now resembled a peeled orange. I squeezed through the serrated opening in the steel, the jagged metal ripping at my clothes as I climbed onto the roof.

It was still here. So was Theo. It was much like how Lazlo had described it – a pile of humanoid dirt with legs and multiple arms that emerged and receded from its central mass. Two of those limbs gripped Theo, one at his throat and one holding his right arm out wide. Theo gritted his teeth and pounded against its grip with his free hand, but it was like pounding a cement wall. They stood on the edge of the roof, the thing deciding whether to kill Theo here or take him away for future consumption. It was clearly unconcerned by my arrival.

I noticed Theo’s rifle was missing, probably over the side and lost. Just me and my gun, but I knew I couldn’t shoot without hitting Theo. Hell, if Lazlo was right, I wasn’t sure the shotgun would be enough. I felt equally stupid and helpless, coming to Theo’s aid just in time to watch him die. What the hell had I hoped to accomplish?

But then an epiphany hit me, or perhaps just a desperate thought. This thing, whatever it was, was a product of the Meat Locusts. It was born of their DNA and their bodies. Surely it still had some similarities with them. Surely it still shared a weakness.

I was still wearing the flash ball belt, and in one smooth motion I pulled a ball off, pushed its trigger button, and held it up in my right hand. I looked away and prayed that I was right.

The ball went off with a brilliant flash, but my eyes avoided the lion’s share of the light. When it cleared, I found a very different scene before me, as if the flash ball had shifted reality. The dirt-thing was gone, replaced by a different brand of monster. This thing was thin and lanky, covered in the same gray reptilian skin as its brethren, four long arms jutting from its skeletal torso. Two arms were covering its face, the other two lashing out wildly, suggesting it was either in pain or disoriented. It had released Theo from its grip, and he was using the opportunity to crawl away from it along the narrow roof, nursing his right arm as if it was injured.

It stopped flailing about all too quickly, lowering its arms away from its face. Like your typical ML, it had the same basic contours – no hair, no ears, slits for a nose, and a ghastly wide mouth. But its teeth were different, more akin to shark teeth than rows of needles. And its eyes… those eyes were not the black holes used by the Locusts, but almost human, solid black irises swimming in a sea of white jelly. They locked onto me, penetrated me. If there were any lingering doubts that this thing wasn’t the next step up the ML evolutionary chain, sharing a hard stare with it wiped them away.

It seemed to be waiting for me to try something, go for my gun or reach for Theo. Instead, I mentally counted the seconds to the ball’s next flash and closed my eyes as the ball flared once more. I opened my eyes again, preparing to bring up my gun and gun down my blinded enemy, but it only stood there patiently, a slight smile on its face. Panic and confusion battled for supremacy within me as I looked straight into its unholy orbs. There was a blue sheen that hadn’t been there before. Some kind of built-in eye protection. The damnable thing had adapted. I must have caught it off-guard and ruined its focus, making it drop its masking power. But it was ready for me now.

Desperation guided my decisions now, as I threw the useless orb at the thing and then tried to aim my shotgun. It came right at me, the flash ball bouncing off its emaciated chest as it stepped over Theo and reached for the shotgun. I got off one shot, but the blast went wild and hit only air. Two gray arms gripped the weapon and sent it flying out of my grip and over the side of the vehicle. I froze up, out of ideas and too terrified to think straight as one arm grabbed my neck while two others restrained my arms. I couldn’t believe that something so thin held so much strength. I was pinned in place, its patronizing smile turning sinister as it pulled me close.

We were passing another hillside and out of my peripheral vision I could see a pack of MLs surging toward the road, screaming in an oddly harmonious tone that struck me as a cheer or a show of solidarity, of triumph. They were still too far away to catch us, but they didn’t need to, and they knew it. They were watching their leader punish the ones who had hurt their brethren. They were here to watch me die.

The thing finally opened its mouth, expanding it unnaturally wide, and I could see past its rows of carnivorous teeth, into the back of its throat where a round orifice rimmed with a set of fanged teeth awaited my face. I’m pretty sure I was screaming at that point. All I saw was my worst nightmare preparing to envelop me.

A burst of gunfire broke me out of my paralysis, and caused the creature to close its mouth and recoil away. Baffled, I chanced a look downward and saw Theo holding a pistol in his left hand, yelling in pain and anger as emptied his weapon into the creature’s right knee. The joint held together even as bullet after bullet smashed into it, but the knee quickly grew dented and damaged. Something like pain finally penetrated the creature’s demeanor, and it backed off to cover its wounded leg with two of its arms.

I remembered my own pistol, and in a proud moment of actual competence I pulled it from its holster, flicked off the safety, and opened fire at the creature’s face. I definitely missed more than I hit, but a couple of rounds found its cheeks and caused it to recoil even further, disorienting it. Then the vehicle did a sudden turn as we rounded a steep bend, causing me to topple onto Theo and the creature to topple off the roof.

Theo and I took a long moment to get disentangled from each other, exchanging incredulous looks as we sat up and stared at the road behind us. The creature was already standing up as the rest of the MLs sprinted onto the road and surrounded it. Every one of them stopped in their tracks, giving up pursuit and watching us recede into the forest. Perhaps they were instinctively protecting their leader, or perhaps their master decided it wasn’t worth the effort any longer.

I shared one final stare with the four-armed monstrosity as we cleared another bend and the pack vanished from sight. Despite our successful escape, I felt no cheer. The romantics in life like to believe one can see into the soul of another through their eyes. I don’t know about that – I certainly couldn’t detect souls that way. But I know hate when I see it. I knew that thing hated me, and that it wasn’t ever going to forget my defiance.

I don’t know how far it will carry its hate, but I doubt I’ll ever sleep soundly again.

I’m going to skip past some of the less interesting parts of the final leg of our trip back to Crusoe. Rest assured, we got back without further incident. We met a road block manned by well-armed policemen who had no idea what to make of us until one of them called it in and got us cleared to continue. It wasn’t exactly a hero’s welcome, but I did breathe a sigh of relief as we crossed over the town line and into actual civilization again.

Crusoe itself had that ghost-town feel to it now, with only scattered patrols of police and National Guard walking about, watching us go by with suspicious glares. Lazlo had contacted what passed for Wrangler Field Headquarters and was told to come park at a shopping plaza near the town hospital, its parking lot converted into a field hospital. We needed medical attention for sure – Theo had a dislocated shoulder, I had minor wounds… and we had Abbott’s remains to deliver.

The only other casualty hadn’t been human. Voyeur Four had gone dark during our battle. It was back in the forest along the road, and that’s where it was going to stay. We were not going back to retrieve it.

The next several hours was lot of waiting, debriefing, waiting, debriefing, medical attention, and waiting. I was so tired that I fell asleep every time I sat down, barely getting any food in me between meetings. I didn’t see Lazlo or Theo much, as they were busy with their own meetings and affairs. The authorities weren’t sure what to do with me – was I a survivor or one of these Wranglers that they were supposed to give deference to? Civilians had to stay home or at a shelter, and by all rights I should have been sent away. But I’m pretty sure Lazlo and Theo had pulled a string or two so the authorities let me have some freedom of movement. I knew it wasn’t going to last, so I used it to go run one very important errand.

I went to the hospital proper, passing by rooms and hallways filled with patients and the relatives of said patients, most of them wearing stricken expressions, some crying over the lost, some staring off into space as if haunted by their memories. I moved passed doctors and nurses who looked even more tired than I felt, having seen more than their fair share of injury and death in the last two weeks. I don’t think anyone could hear my story and think I had an easy time of it, yet somehow I felt luckier than these fine people who had been dealing with the nonstop human misery.

Up to the 2nd story I went, where the patient I was out to see remained housed. When I finally found Room 235, she was alone in her room, sitting in a wheelchair, clad in a navy-blue bathrobe, looking out her room window into the twilight sky. She didn’t notice me until I knocked on the doorframe. She glanced my way, did a double take with wide eyes, and let out a sincere laugh.

“I really didn’t believe it until now,” Madison said, turning her wheelchair to face me. “Lazlo emailed me, gave me a heads-up, but I…well…” She was genuinely tongue tied for the next few moments, then her smile switched to a scowl. “You bastard. You were supposed to get in the rescue basket.”

I smiled and shrugged. “Well, as you liked to point out, you didn’t have any actual authority over me.”

She grunted, though there was still merriment in her tone. “I suppose you came up here to gloat about being a hero.”

“I came up here to see you, that’s it.” I motioned to her wheelchair. “You’re not stuck in that thing, are you?”

“I’m doing rehab,” she replied. “A few more days of it and I should be able to leave this stupid place. Then I can… get back in the fight.” Her tone didn’t convey much confidence. I knew better than to point out how broken bones robbed sports players of their careers. I didn’t believe she could go ML hunting like before. I don’t think she believed it either.

She changed the subject by motioning to her bed as a place for me to sit. “So… you and Abbott’s team kicking ass and making earth-shattering discoveries.” She looked out the window as I sat down, trying to hide her emotions from me. “Don’t ever tell Theo and Lazlo this, but I actually respected the hell out of Abbott.”

I sighed and nodded. “He saved my life, just like you did.”

She scoffed and looked at me again. “I was trying like hell to get you out of there. He throws you into it. He didn’t know when to quit. Still, he didn’t deserve to get killed by…” She gave me a curious look. “Did you guys ever name it?”

“I think we’re leaning towards Flesh Reaper,” I said. “Lazlo’s idea.”

She frowned. “Really? Well, it goes with the theme.”

“What has Lazlo actually told you?”

“Just a bunch of conjecture. She thinks the signal interference the Reaper puts out might be a form of communication, how it commands the other MLs. She thinks that it acts like a general rather than a queen. Perhaps there have always been Reapers hiding out and calling the shots from a distance. Or maybe they’re brand new. Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that the one you fought isn’t the only one out there.”

“It tried to eat my face, by the way,” I calmly brought up.

“When you’re a Wrangler, something is always trying to eat your face,” Madison replied. “Lazlo mentioned that she thinks it wasn’t after your face, but your brain. She thinks that’s why it took Abbott and left her alone. It was after information… and that’s how it gets it. Personally, I think she’s watched too many zombie films.”

I cringed at the thought of Abbott’s fate, and at the thought that I had almost shared it. I decided to change the subject. “Please tell me the military is finally getting involved.”

She nodded, and I felt better at the news. “That’s not all, Hector. The story’s broken wide open. We might get some real help and real funding. Best of all, we have drone pictures showing the packs around Crusoe are leaving the area, heading deeper into the forest. The siege looks like it’s over.”

“That is good,” I said, though I didn’t feel all that happy. Truth was, I was dreading the phone call I was going to make to my ex-girlfriend’s parent, the one where I was going to somehow explain what had happened to their daughter, and why they would need to have a close-casket funeral.

“Yeah… and that’s all the good news,” she added sourly, and I looked at her questioningly. “The world knows about the MLs now. People are scared and angry. Many of them aren’t going to take it well. Others are going to see nothing but dollar signs. Then there’s this.”

She wheeled over to a nightstand and grabbed her I-Pad off it, then gave it to me. She guided me through the reports from the Internet, the ones about ML attacks that weren’t based in Oregon. I felt a growing unease as she rattled off the other incidents – a village in Mexico, a safari in Zimbabwe, a campground in Colorado. All within the last two weeks, all over the world.

“It’s like a switch has been flipped,” she said. “No more hiding. Whatever they have planned, they’re putting it into motion.”

I put down the I-Pad and stared off into the darkness beyond the window. “So… I guess they’re going to need more Wranglers like us.”

She caught the implication. “So you actually want to do this? No way to save you from this life?” Despite her words, I could tell she wasn’t all that surprised… or even disappointed.

I kept staring out in the night, knowing that I could still tell her that I was out and she wouldn’t argue against it. I would be looking forward to many more times like this, with people dying around me and horror battering away at my sanity. I doubted that my odds of survival were good, or that my lifespan would be long. Did one have to be crazy to be a Wrangler? The jury was out on that.

Crazy or not, I knew what I knew. I couldn’t live a nine-to-five life knowing that as I was staring out into the shadows, hundreds of eyes were staring back at me. Staring back at all of us.

“If you want to save me, teach me how to shoot,” I told her. “I kinda suck at guns.”

The Meat Locusts were out there, and all I could do was play the waiting game again. I played the game a lot on our missions. The why of it changed, but the waiting game stayed the same.

It’s the unsexy part of the Wrangler life that doesn’t get discussed in the news reports or on social media. We share with the public our tales of close calls and tragic fates, but it’s the waiting game that wears us down the most. Waiting gives you nothing to do but think, and thinking almost always leads to fear.

This time around, the game was playing out upon a moist grassy hillside, looking down upon a homestead ringed by rows of rotting cabbage, its dingy buildings covered in peeling paint. The farm had been abandoned by human occupants months ago. It undoubtedly had a number of new animal residents, but it was the unnatural ones I was keeping an eye out for. One of the local ML packs had traveled through this area earlier in the week, and while there was no sign of activity on the property we now had regulations requiring that we treat every human domicile in an active ML zone as potentially infested until a Search-And-Secure Team came in to sweep the area.

We weren’t happy about babysitting duty, as the team called it, but it was a necessary evil. Despite operating as pack animals, MLs would occasionally leave behind individuals in the homes they invaded, usually by accident. Now they weren’t doing it by accident. The MLs had continued to evolve their tactics. The development that had our country’s leaders the most concerned involved a particularly odious form of attack known as Lone Terrors. A single ML would creep into a random home and attack the weakest resident they could find. The elderly, the sick, the young, the very young; no mercy and no subtlety. Most of the time the Locust wouldn’t even attempt to eat. And it wouldn’t stop with just one victim. A Lone Terror would go on to kill as many people as it could until someone finally took it out. They were the monstrous equivalent of suicide bombers.

It was a new reality for the once unsuspecting public. Suddenly the monster hiding in the closet or under the bed was real, and it would try to fucking kill your child. Governments were forced to divert resources to guard neighborhoods. That meant less people and gear to go on the offensive. Lone Terrors suggested that a cold calculated mentality controlled the MLs, using our desire to protect the helpless against us.

In this instance, we were reasonably certain the property was clear, but rules were rules. We were just going to stretch the rules a tad. Normally I wouldn’t volunteer to stand alone in hostile monster territory, but my team was attached to a squad of trainees who needed to rack up some ML-hunting experience if they were going to live longer than a few months. There was no point in having the squad wait around for hours when they could be killing MLs. I figured I’d be okay – the nearest SAS team was stationed at a National Guard base only a couple of hours away. Unfortunately the SAS team was now running an hour late. I wasn’t nervous yet, but I was already filing away this decision in my don’t-be-dumb-like-this-again category of experiences.

I had found a nice rock to perch on as I babysat the site, resting my FN P90 submachine gun on my lap and humming a nonsense tune to keep my mind from wandering too far off the job. Yes, I finally had some gun skills under my belt. Hell, I could even identify a few guns by name now. But I hadn’t racked up much of a kill record over the course of my fourteen months as a Wrangler, mostly because I still dreaded combat. Besides, my purpose for joining the organization was to save lives, and while every dead Meat Locust meant more lives saved, I didn’t care how they died or who did the killing.

Fourteen months. The world had changed a lot in that time. A US administration brought down by scandal, a global panic and recession erupting from the revelation that rabid man-eating monsters had been living on our planet for decades, and human society experiencing various states of discord. Borders closing, trade diminishing, accusations flying and trust failing. The cold I perpetually felt in my bones wasn’t just from the soggy Washington State weather.

Still, some things had gone in our favor. The new administration was moving fast to supply funding and personnel for our once meager band of monster hunters. New Wrangler teams were training hard, the global flow of information had been unchained, and we now had National Guard and military backup. People were rising to the occasion, and I chose to stay an optimist about humanity… at least for now.

“You bored yet, Hector?” chimed in Lazlo, her welcoming voice reverberating from the radio in my right ear.

“I don’t get bored,” I replied, attempting a badass boast. When Lazlo asked anyone about boredom, it meant that she was the bored one. “Anything on Third Eye yet?”

She sighed. “I swear that the bastards know we’re watching them. I have three Voyeurs up and a Sky High en route, so the pack shouldn’t stay out of sight much longer. Still…”

She trailed off without finishing her thought. I had never known Lazlo to have much patience, but she had even less of it these days. She had access to all manner of surveillance equipment as well as long-range drones that she referred to as Sky Highs. She talked with experts schooled in all manner of biological and military knowledge. She conducted research on all the data we accumulated when we weren’t out of missions. You’d think boredom wouldn’t be a word in her vocabulary, which was why I was thinking something else was eating at her.

I waited a few seconds, then finally took the bait and asked what was up. “Oh, just having one of those feelings today,” she admitted. “Like we’re overdue for a new bout of insanity.”

“You always feel that way before a quarterly review,” I commented. I was referring to one of the less-pleasant additions to our lives – government evaluations. Lazlo had never had such oversight before, and no matter how many positive marks we got on the paperwork she never relaxed about it. She preferred facing down a pack of MLs over those meetings.

“Or are you missing Theo?” I added.

“Missing him?” she replied. “He’s not gone, Hector.”

“But you don’t have his cool, sexy voice to comfort you, either,” I joked.

She snorted in mock denial of what everyone knew. I was tempted to let loose the dreaded “Thazlo” label, but I nobly restrained myself. She was right – Theo wasn’t gone, but he was currently incommunicado. This current operation involved field-training the new Wranglers without all the fancy surveillance that we normally deployed. No radio contact with Lazlo, no drones overheard. This way, they’d be prepared to handle a pack that had a Reaper attached. Lazlo was using her drones to ensure there were no surprises, and she had a direct line to Theo in case of emergency, but otherwise she was not to interfere with the mission. And like the heroic idiot I was sometimes, I hadn’t requested a drone to keep me company.

“I can handle a little distance from Theo, Hector,” she replied, “and I can handle a few questions from middle managers. What gnaws at me is the lack of Reapers these days.”

Personally, I was content to not have any contact with Flesh Reapers, which most of us just called Reapers. I still had nightmares over my close encounter with one all those months ago. “You’re itching for a rematch?” I asked.

“God, no!” she shot back. “But don’t you find it strange that all the packs we’ve been pursuing lately have no Reapers? It’s like they’re all at some convention and their kids are off playing while they’re away. I hate not knowing what they’re doing.”

“I’ll worry about Reapers when we have a reason to. Right now, I’m going to enjoy the relative peace and quiet of the…”

It was my turn to trail off this time, as the ranch suddenly had visitors. None of the ones I expected, either. An unmarked moving truck was driving casually up the one gravel dirt road into the ranch. I stood up from my rock and watched as it came along with nary an indication that it had entered an active zone. This did happen from time to time, with residents attempting to come back home or reclaim forgotten belongings, or even squatters or thieves moving in.

“Laz, we got civs in a truck incoming,” I said, keeping an eye out for any ML activity. A vehicle engine would definitely attract the bastards if they were less than a kilometer away.

Lazlo swore over the radio. “Here I thought all the idiots had either smartened up or gotten eaten by now. Do you need me to swing a drone your way?”

“Hold on the drone, but tell the SAS to speed it up. I’m going to investigate.” It wasn’t the job of a Wrangler to force civs to leave active zones, but most Wranglers had the heart to intervene when they could. In the few times I’ve had to confront civs, every one of them saw the light when I told them they had come into an active ML zone. Either the threat of getting eaten alive did the trick, or they didn’t want to argue with a well-armed Wrangler.

I watched the truck approach as I moved down the hill towards the ranch. I was yet a fair distance away when it came to a stop next to the main house, the driver and passenger getting out and moving to the cargo door at the rear. They were both clad head to toe in blue, complete with sport caps and garish boots. I noticed pistol holsters on their belts. My danger instincts kicked in and I altered my route so that I found cover behind a condemnable barn instead of walking directly up to them. They were unchaining the rear door of the truck, and they finished by the time I reached the barn.

I was resisting calling in a Voyeur until I was sure I needed the support. Diverting a drone to me would open up a hole in our other operation. But if I was right, I now had a serious problem on my hands.

One of the figures threw open the cargo door, and I immediately heard the frantic, high-pitched cries of distressed people. I couldn’t see into the cargo bed, but I figured the “cargo” was most likely women and children. The two figures, both men, stepped back and started waving their guns around, whooping and laughing as loudly as they could manage. Some of the “cargo” screamed along with them, and that only made the two men laugh harder.

“Come on, folks, make a joyous noise onto the Lord,” taunted one of the men. “Y’all be loud enough for long enough, and I promise that we won’t shoot you. So you keep yellin’ or else we’ll be back to give you a bigger reason to scream.”

That confirmed it. Shit, I mused. I watched the two men move to the front of the truck, the air filling with fearful noise behind them. I ducked back a few feet and raised Lazlo on the radio.

“Laz, we have baiters.”

Lazlo let loose a colorful invective right in my ear. I quietly shared her rage. If you wanted proof that humanity might be not be worth the effort, baiters supplied it in spades. One of the ongoing goals of every major government and corporation in existence was to take a ML alive, and none had succeeded. Reward bounties were abundant despite the international outcry to have them outlawed, as many despotic regimes, criminal organizations, and unscrupulous individuals were attempting to fulfill this demand by using live bait. At least it was considered an official crime against humanity if you were caught “baiting,” punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty. It also meant that baiters were typically the worst of the worst.

“I’m swinging Voyeur Seven your way,” she said. “SAS is still a half-hour out. I’m trying to get hold of Theo. Just… hold your position and don’t do anything stupid.”

I held my tongue as I returned to my vantage point, watching the two baiters talk amongst themselves in low voices at the front of the truck. I couldn’t overhear them, especially not with their hostages screaming their lungs out. I had no idea how smart these men were, but I had severe doubts that they had planned this operation very well. For starters, where were they going to hide if the MLs came? In the unprotected truck cab? In the rotting house? Most likely they would die with their hostages if the MLs showed up.

I started my stress-breathing, attempting to keep my head clear as I considered options. A half-hour was a lifetime in these conditions. I had no idea how far off Theo and his trainees were, nor did I know if the ML pack was close enough to hear the hostages screaming. Shutting these baiters down would definitely make things safer for everyone, but I doubted that it would happen without gunfire, which was the last thing this situation needed.

Then I noticed the hostages abruptly cancelling their screaming session. I tensed up immediately. From what I’d heard of other baiter incidents on American soil, the “bait” was typically illegal immigrants conned into paying for transport to their families or supportive communities when in fact they were being taken hundreds of miles in concealed containers to active ML zones. Maybe this group had finally caught on to the depth of their peril.

The two baiters noticed the quiet as well, the larger of the two loudly proclaiming his unhappiness as he walked to the cargo hold. He pulled out his pistol and began waving it around, yelling about how he would start putting holes in people if they didn’t start screaming again. He spat and cursed and came off like a man seconds away from losing control. Even his companion seemed worried by this display of unbridled rage, coming to join him but wisely keeping his distance. I certainly believed this snarling man was about to start shooting.

Lazlo told me to not do anything stupid. If you’ve been keeping track of my continuing trials and tribulations, then you know I have a chronic condition that makes me do the exact opposite.

I flipped off my gun’s safety and moved out of cover, aiming my weapon at the two men. “Freeze where you are and put your hands up!” I ordered in the most authoritative voice I could muster. I think I intimidated the second man, who started at my reveal and put his hands up almost immediately. His companion, the one I was actually concerned about, froze with his gun pointed at the truck. He then swiveled his head and glared at me as if I had just said something annoying. I could see an inhuman gleam in his eyes, and it reminded me of the dark impulses behind the gaze of a Meat Locust. He then smirked and moved his pistol slightly, now aiming squarely at the back of the truck.

“Drop the gun and raise your hands!” I ordered, taking a few more steps towards the scene, hoping my more assertive move would get his compliance.

“How about you listen to your own words?” the man shot back. I could see his face better now, especially the tattoos on his neck and forehead that resembled angry skulls and blood-stained blades. He kept his narrow eyes on me, but there was no doubt that he had his gun aimed at someone’s head.

The other man glanced at his unstable companion with nervous eyes and said, “Jack, he’s got the drop on us. Don’t…”

“Shut the hell up, Linkler!” the gunman bellowed. He switched his gaze to the unseen hostages, baring his teeth in a determined snarl. “Blue man, drop your gun or I’ll start wasting these idiots.”

My heart revved up as I took direct aim at the gunman. I was too far away to ensure I would take out the gunman before he could shoot. Moreover, I had never shot a human before. It was a line I had hoped to never cross, and that additional anxiety made my arms quiver too much for my comfort.

“Don’t throw your life away over this,” I shouted. “You can still walk away.” The words felt pathetic as I spoke them. We both knew better. I wasn’t about to let this piece of garbage go free, and he knew it.

“I counting to three, then I starting shooting,” he replied. “One…”

I tightened my grip on the gun. I knew I couldn’t drop my weapon – these two would kill me as soon as I did. The hostages wouldn’t be long for the world after that. I had only one choice.

“Two…” The gunman averted his gaze and focused on his impending shot.

The actual gunshot that came a second later caused the gunman’s skull to violently rock to the side as a burst of red erupted from it, his body tilting and then collapsing to the mud. His gun hand must have tensed because his pistol went off mid-collapse. I heard multiples cries from the truck while his pal swore in surprise, panic making him take a few confused steps. I shouted at him to freeze and get on his knees. I breathed a sigh of relief when he complied, patting myself on the back for having developed some trigger discipline.

The source of our conflict resolution came from behind an old shed on the other side of the ranch. She moved swiftly despite having a slight limp, her assault rifle at the ready as she checked over her kill for any signs of life. She spoke a few sentences of Spanish to the people inside the truck and then came toward the other man, her rifle aimed his way, her face suggesting she was perfectly ready to do a repeat performance if he gave her a reason.

“Zip his hands, will you?” Madison asked, throwing me a plastic zip cuff. I wasn’t real surprised by her arrival, even though I hadn’t seen or heard from her in over a week, not since she had gone on one of her solo trips. I had questions to ask, but instead of asking them I nodded and set to the task at hand. Months of her tutelage as well as my continuing respect for her made snapping to her commands an unconscious act. Her faded blue hunter outfit had mud spots all over, and she had a few more fresh scratches on her face, but otherwise she seemed okay physically. She hadn’t let her injuries from our time at Lake Crusoe slow her down, though many argued that she really should slow down.

I had never zip-cuffed someone before, since Wranglers still weren’t law enforcement and thus such training doesn’t get touched on, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. As I secured the baiter’s hands, Madison stopped in front of him and pointed at the truck. “Keys to the chains – on you or on him?” she asked. I looked up at Madison, wondering what chains she meant. She glanced my way. “These two bad-ass entrepreneurs have the hostages chained up inside the truck.”

She looked down at our captive, who hadn’t answered the question. “Buddy, let me spell this out for you,” she said in a low sinister voice. “There are definitely Meat Locusts in this area. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You thought you could drive up with some live bait, troll some MLs, and slam the door on them while they were feasting. So you have two paths out of here. The first one involves my friend taking you to the authorities. The second is where I chain you up and leave you to experience a cruel irony. You only earn the first path if you don’t piss me off. So… keys?”

The man grudgingly revealed that his partner had them. She looked my way. “Hector, I’m going to ask this man a few more questions. The hostages could use your help.”

I took the hint and went to the dead gunman. Once I could see inside the cargo hold of the truck, I understood Madison’s disgust with these men. I counted nine captives inside the shadowed cargo hold – four women, two men, three children. They had all been chained to the walls, my nose recoiling for the reek of unwashed bodies and even less pleasant odors. They looked at me with equal measure hope and fear, the children crying loudly and the women attempting to reassure them with strained words.

I felt like kicking the dead man before me, but I settled for searching his pockets. I found a set of keys in short order and then climbed into the cargo hold. I spoke reassuringly to the captives as I removed their chains, but the last thing any of them were was calm. Particularly the children, who began to wail as they found their parents’ arms. I motioned at them to stay quiet, but while the adults understood the danger the children had a harder time of it.

I was about to start ushering the captives out of the truck when Lazlo’s voice butted in, her tone more frantic than before. “Hector, you better not have done anything stupid while I was away,” she said.

“The situation is safe, Laz,” I reassured. “We have nine civilians, all safe. One baiter down, another neutralized. We’re in control.”

“We?” asked Laz.

“Madison.”

Laz made a high-pitched chirp that counted as her expression of incredulity. “I thought she was hunting down another pack.”

“I… I haven’t debriefed her yet,” I said, moving out of the truck so I could have some privacy. “She showed up out of the blue to save my bacon. You know how she works.”

Lazlo sighed tiredly. “The way she works raises my blood pressure, but at least you’re safe. Good news, though – the SAS group is twenty-five minutes out, so you and Madison can sit tight and hand off the problem when they show. Theo is swinging his group your way, but I don’t have an ETA on him.”

I understood Lazlo’s exasperation. Madison’s addition to our team hadn’t gone as jovially as I had hoped. When Homeland Security officially took over Wrangler activities from whoever had run the organization previously, they decreed that the days of solo hunting were over. Madison wanted back in the action, but she couldn’t do it her way. So I had cajoled her into joining Team Abbott, the official name of our group and an honorific for our fallen member and founder, Ben Abbott. She agreed on the condition that from time to time she could go on short forays on her own. Officially we counted these forays as reconnaissance. Unofficially, she was hunting. I didn’t like it, Lazlo didn’t like it, and Theo really didn’t like it, but the alternative was to have her quit, do her own thing and undoubtedly die in the process. With the current arrangement, we could be there for her at least some of the time.

I was about to thank Lazlo when I happened to look out at the gravel road leading away from the ranch. It cut through the grassy landscape a fair distance, ultimately disappearing between a pair of low hills. That’s when I spotted two vehicles coming from between those hills, still a few miles away. The lead vehicle was a camouflaged Humvee, the other a gray military cargo truck. It had to be SAS group, well ahead of their timeline, it seemed.

“Looks like the cavalry has already shown up,” I informed Lazlo on the radio.

The lack of an instant response from her made my heart start to rev up again. “What do you mean?” she said, sounding perplexed.

“The SAS group is here,” I replied. “I can see them.”

“They’re still twenty-four minutes out,” she informed me. “You can’t see them.”

“You’re sure?” I asked lamely. Part of me already knew how this was going to go, but I really needed Lazlo to be wrong for once.

“I have their official GPS location on my screens,” she insisted. “Whoever you’re seeing isn’t SAS.”

“You might be wrong about that, Lazlo,” injected Madison over the radio. I turned my head her way and saw her walking toward me, pushing our prisoner before her. A small stream of blood was running from his nose, a fresh cut below his left eye. I hadn’t been watching her interrogation of the baiter. I didn’t think I needed to. Despite everything this man was, I cringed just the same. His former hostages were less sympathetic, understandably so, as they sneered and pointed at the man as they climbed out of the truck. I instinctively stood between them and him and waved them to keep their distance, not because they didn’t deserve to serve some justice on him, but because we needed the peace kept.

“Nice of you to join us again, Madison,” Lazlo replied in a rather sour tone.

“Save the wisecracks for later,” said Madison, her voice even and very much in military mode. “Get in touch with Theo and tell him to get here ASAP. Then tell Command we have a rogue event in play and the local SAS is compromised. And if it’s not too much trouble, a drone or two overhead would be nice.”

Lazlo understood the direness of Madison’s orders, as she affirmed the communication and then broke off to muster what help she could get. Madison immediately faced the civilians and began rattling off a series of sentences in Spanish. I couldn’t follow much of it, having spent my high school years learning French and never using it, but I gathered that it involved having them go hide in the main house because that’s where they all headed. One of the men looked to disagree with her, but a hard scowl and harsh wave toward the house convinced him otherwise.

Madison then came close to me and quietly whispered into my left ear. “I came through this property two days ago. There’s a fruit cellar in the house. They should be safe down there for now.” She then whirled on our own captive and in the most menacing voice I’d ever heard from her told him to walk down the road until she said otherwise. I kept quiet as he did so, his boots crunching down on the gravel. He went several dozen yards before Madison ordered him to kneel down and stay there.

“He’s our human shield,” she explained. “If they open fire, they stand a good chance of hitting him.”

I was aghast at the idea, and did a bad job of hiding it. “Madison, we can’t do this.”

She pointed to the distant Humvee coming our way. “That thing is packing a 50-calibur gun, Hector. That by itself makes us severely outgunned, and that’s not counting all the men coming in that truck. We need every advantage we can get right now.” She shifted her finger to our human shield. “He sends a message to them that their plan is now caca. That should give them pause. And hopefully they still care about not killing their own.”

I waved at the cargo truck next to us. “Why don’t we get everyone back in the truck and get out of here?”

That finger of hers shifted to the truck’s left rear tire and how utterly flat it was. The dead baiter’s bullet had gotten lucky. A groan escaped my lips. Without comment, Madison moved her finger to the shed I had hidden behind. “Take position there and keep out of sight. We’ll need them guessing at our numbers.”

You’d think I would be used to this routine by now, namely how I kept getting roped into life-and-death battles with little knowledge of the situation. At least these days I was conditioned to go along with it, trusting that should I survive I would come out of it wiser. So I hid behind the shed as instructed while Madison found her own hiding spot. I calmed myself with reminders that I was a member of a well-trained squad supported by the U.S. military. But then I considered how far away our backup was, and when my guts started squeezing I decided to distract myself with questions.

“Did you know there were baiters in the local SAS squad when you went hunting?” I radioed Madison.

“No, but somebody did,” she replied. “I received digital intel on them three hours ago. My Deep Throat somehow knew I was in the area and sent this location to my I-Pad. So here I am. But I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Surprise,” I said with a lack of enthusiasm “What about the MLs? Did the local pack move on?”

She paused way too long for my comfort. I knew I wasn’t going to like what she said. “They’re still in the area, and I’ve seen signs of other packs.”

“How close?”

Another pause. “Close enough to hear a lot of gunfire.”

I got her meaning. “So what do we do?”

“We hope that our incoming friends aren’t complete idiots,” she said coldly. “Beyond that, we hold out until help shows up. We don’t surrender. These types won’t spare us. Now cut the chat and get ready. They’re almost here.”

I managed to find a gap in the shed that allowed me a small peephole directed at the road. The incoming Humvee soon came into view, approaching slowly, like an executioner arriving to do his dirty work. They must have seen our human shield as the Humvee slowed and eventually stopped a hundred yards from the ranch, the truck pulling up right behind it. I half-expected our captive to start yelling for help, but he kept ominously quiet. I suspected he was as scared of his so-called friends as I was.

A full minute must have gone by with all of us stuck in that moment of silence and stillness. I liken it to two sides gathered around a chess board right before the game begins, the players eyeballing the board and each other, afraid to make a move and afraid of the move the other side was about to make. In that moment, I felt a hope spot arrive. If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to a point in a story where the protagonists catch a break or the situation seems to improve. The trajectory of the story goes up instead of down. I dared to hope in that moment that our rogue SAS members realized the folly of their actions and were about to turn around and leave. As I clutched my gun and steadied my nerves, I dared to believe that there was still some sensibility left in these men, that some of their humanity or self-preservation still existed.

The reason why it’s called a hope spot is because it’s just that – a spot of hope. Then the Humvee’s 50-cal opened up, and hope was abandoned.

Our human shield ceased to exist as the machinegun walked up its stream of bullets and cut him down, the man blowing backwards onto his back as bits of him spattered around him. To my left the gunfire met the truck and the air screamed with metal burrowing into metal as the front half of the truck took the hits, tires shredding and glass shattering. In a fit of panic I hurriedly knelt down behind the shed, hoping not to attract the gunner’s attention. I still had enough of a gap in the boards to keep an eye on the Humvee, and I could see the gunner rocking in rhythm with the gun he commanded.

After several seconds of withering fire, the 50-cal silenced. The man swiveled the gun as he scanned the ranch for new targets. Meanwhile, the military truck abruptly jerked into action, veering to my right and off the road. It quickly moved out of sight, and I dared not shift my position to find it. When it didn’t reappear I realized it wasn’t turning around but trying to find a place to park and dislodge its occupants. They had to be pulling a flanking maneuver while the Humvee’s gunner suppressed the ranch.

As I considered my options two shots suddenly rang out. I couldn’t see the shooter, but it sounded like Madison’s rifle going to work. I looked back at the Humvee and couldn’t see the gunner any longer. He must have ducked back into the vehicle. Two more shots later and the Humvee’s windshield had sizeable cracks on the driver’s side. The front doors opened and two more men got out, both outfitted in hodgepodge military gear and Kevlar jackets. Using the doors as cover, they brought to bear assault rifles, opening fire at a location beyond my sight.

“I’ll keep the Humvee busy,” Madison radioed to me over the din of the bullet play. “I can see seven men moving in from the south. Keep them occupied.”

“Sure, seven against one,” I replied unhappily. She had made it sound like I had it easy.

I crept to the edge of the shed, keeping out of sight of the Humvee as I looked southward. The truck had already parked and disgorged its passengers. I confirmed seven figures running towards the ranch, all of them outfitted for combat and carrying rifles of various types. They were moving through the cabbage rows and would reach the perimeter fence in half-a-minute. They either hadn’t seen me, or didn’t care. I had to make them care.

I had signed up as a Wrangler to save human life, not take it. Even then, with a bunch of baiters charging us, I wanted to maintain that distinction. I killed monsters, not people. So as I raised my carbine and sighted on the lead solider, I told myself that these people were prepared to feed the innocent to horrible creatures just to earn a buck. I told myself that they had murdered one of their own without hesitation. I told myself that these were monsters, not men.

My gun spoke, a short burst at center mass, and all of Madison’s training paid off as at least one bullet plowed into the lead man. He cried out and dropped while the rest of the men hit the ground and hid behind what cover they could find. I ducked behind the shed as they opened fire, bullets gouging and splintering the wood. I had brought them to a halt, but there was no way I was getting another shot off thru all that incoming fire. They’d be advancing in short order.

These were monsters, not men. This was my new mantra, and weirdly enough it gave me an idea. From my fanny pack I extracted a flash ball, one of Lazlo’s new-and-improved versions that had a variable light setting. We could now set them to deliver a massive burst of blue light that could even blind human eyes for several seconds. The tradeoff, besides the possibility of self-blinding, was that it burned out the ball’s battery in only a few seconds. Lazlo had been hoping to try it out on a Reaper. She’d have to settle for these human misanthropes.

It took me several long seconds to prep the flash ball, the ruckus of gunfire proving painfully distracting. Finally I pushed the activation button, took a deep breath, and lobbed the ball out of cover, aiming it in front of my assailants. I looked away and counted. I got to five when I saw the flash ball’s light shine on the shed, accompanied by a drop in gunplay and a few curses from the baiters. I dared poke my head out and saw most of the attackers covering or rubbing their eyes. One of the attackers didn’t seem as affected, and we saw each other at practically the same time. Like a pair of synchronized swimmers we raised our guns at the other and fired. My bullets found his shoulder, spinning him around as he screamed. His bullets found the shed to the left of my head, and I felt flying splinters slap my face.

I dodged back out of sight, cursing and feeling up my face for damage. I quickly determined I hadn’t taken anything serious, though my left cheek throbbed near my ear. The distraction robbed me of my momentary advantage as more bullets began slamming the shed. I took solace that one more baiter was down, but I doubted my flash ball trick would be as effective the next time. Still, it was the only option I had at my disposal.

It was right then that I heard a new sound – a high-pitch whine that was rapidly growing louder and louder. Elation hit me as I knew that to be an incoming drone. Further improving my mood was Lazlo’s voice in my ear: “Heads down, you two. Delivery from the sky!”

I heard the drone approach from the direction of the road as I ducked down to my knees. I tensed in anticipation. The drone came on a few more long seconds before it was drowned out by the hard deafening crack of the explosive it had just dropped, dirt and pieces of random debris raining down around my location. I crouched a few seconds more while my ears rang, then stood up and looked through my shed’s peep hole. At first there was too much smoke and dust to see more than the outline of the Humvee, but the scream that came to my ears told me that Lazlo’s drone-bomb had found at least one victim. Soon enough I could make out the scarred and deformed front of the vehicle, its 50-cal blown off its pivot mount, one of the men rolling on the ground in obvious agony. I couldn’t see the others.

The sound of renewed gunfire drew my attention back to the south. I saw Lazlo’s drone speed away from the ranch, with one of the other baiters standing and moving into my line of sight. This one had dared to move in closer during the explosion. Now he was frantically firing after the drone, probably to avoid the same fate as his companions at the Humvee. He had forgotten about me. My bullets jogged his memory as they ripped into his right thigh and took him down. He dropped his gun as he gripped his leg and cried out.

Somewhat out of a sense of mercy, somewhat to conserve ammo, I held further fire and waited for the remaining baiters to make the next move. With the Humvee out of commission, I dared to think we had the upper hand. Madison shouldn’t have any problems finishing off the soldiers at the Humvee, so all I had to do was hold them off until…

The next thing I knew, someone had a sweaty hand around my mouth and a second hand holding a hunting knife to my throat. A deep voice in my right ear told me to hold still or else he’d carve me wide open. My poor heart, already working overtime, sped up even further. Damn it all, how the hell did this guy sneak up on me?

“Drop your gun,” he ordered. My carbine clattered to the ground. He then directed me to turn around and walk. Left with little option while cold sharp metal was pressed to my neck, I did so. We advanced in unison toward the main house but only got a few steps before Madison materialized like a grim specter from behind a decorative patch of sage brush near the front of the house. Her rifle aimed right at us, I couldn’t discern her intentions from the hard mask her face had become.

“All I have to do is swipe right, bitch,” the grizzled voice of my captor yelled out. “Tell your government pals controlling the drone to back off if they want him to live.”

“You’re on video now, asshole,” she shot back. “My government pals know who you are. Doesn’t matter what the drone does now. Stand down and you’ll live.”

He made a rueful laugh and increased the pressure of his blade. I could barely swallow now as he forced me to take another step. “Stand down? So I can live out a life sentence? No thanks. I’ll take my chances out here with the Locusts.”

“Really? Well, I hope that’s what you want, because that’s what you’re getting.”

“What do you mean?” my captor asked. I wasn’t sure what she meant either until I heard the calling. Faint, barely perceptible, but growing. My dreams were haunted by the sound - the raspy high-pitched warble of the inhuman and the unnatural, announcing their hunger. Their cries went on and on, like a music tune stuck on repeat. If I could hear them, then they were less than a kilometer away. If they were continuing this long, then there were lots.

I felt the pressure on my throat lessen. Madison shrugged in the direction of the cries. “You know that sound. I’ve seen the videos you SAS types get briefed on. But you don’t really know these things, pal. You haven’t watched them like I have. They know our vital spots. They’ll take off all your bits and pieces and keep you alive as long as they can. They like us fresh.”

“She’s not kidding, pal,” I added. Technically, Madison was in half-truth territory. The MLs really weren’t picky eaters, so long as it was human and less than a few hours dead.

Madison then surprised me by lowering her rifle and taking a step back. “Two choices here. You can kill my friend, but then I’ll shoot you in the leg and leave you for the Locusts. Or you can drop your knife and run for that truck of yours. You might just make it out of here if you go now.”

Our standoff continued for a few more seconds, my thoughts reciting a repeating mantra asking the powers that be to not slash my throat today. They must have been in a good mood as my captor suddenly dropped his knife and shoved me forward. He was already running away by the time I turned around, yelling at his remaining comrades to get to the truck. Those that could move under their own power did so, leaving at least one of their wounded writhing and shouting curses at them as they sprinted for their getaway vehicle.

I felt no relief. We’d gone from the frying pan to the fire. I instinctively ran for my carbine as the cries of the MLs intensified in volume and quantity. “Lazlo, we need eyes on the incoming pack,” I said as I grabbed my weapon.

“Uh… yeah, Voyeur Six is already on station,” she replied, her tone implying the news was clearly bad.

“How big?” Madison asked

“Hard to say.” She sounded genuinely alarmed now. “We have multiple packs doing a convergence event. Damn it, I should have saved the bomb.”

“Focus, Laz,” I calmly remarked. “Ballpark us.”

“It’s… it’s swarm-level.”

“Dead God,” I blurted. Swarm-level was a title reserved for a ML gathering numbering over two hundred.

“Hector, the house,” ordered Madison. The front porch creaked as we raced over it and through the front door. The musty interior air greeted us, the gloomy hallway and adjacent living room offering sparse furnishing and little tactical cover. I couldn’t see where the hostages had gone, but there was no time to look as I secured the door with a heavy recliner. Madison disappeared briefly while I staked out a vantage point at a living room window. When she returned, she took position at a window in the hallway.

“I secured the back door as best I could,” she explained. “The cellar door is in the laundry room. That’s our fallback position when we need it.” I didn’t argue her use of the word when; we both knew we wouldn’t be able to hold the house for very long. I focused on watching the baiters struggling to escape. It looked like they were stuck on a patch of mud, the truck’s tires spinning futilely. Four men were pushing on the rear and getting nowhere for their efforts. The noise would attract the MLs for sure.

“This feel like old times,” I remarked, mostly as a distraction from the carnage to come.

“I suppose so,” Madison replied in a quiet tone. “Already had to save your ass twice today.”

“I believe I saved your ass too, Mads,” chimed in Lazlo.

Madison grunted. “It only counts if I live. Speaking of which, any good news?”

“I’ll have an Eye in the Sky overhead in two minutes. We have one Hellfire at our disposal. Still don’t know Theo’s E.T.A. Don’t expect the rest of the SAS to show – they just got detained under suspicion of collusion with enemy combatants; you know, our baiters. Another squad is getting prepped, but…”

“Don’t expect a quick response,” Madison finished. “Story of my life.”

“Right,” agreed Lazlo. “And you should be seeing MLs anytime now.”

Indeed, I was seeing them. To the northeast was another grassy hillside leading to the edge of a forest of evergreens. Normally it would make for a nice bit of scenery. But the horde of gray-skinned things running out from between the trees and down the damp slope forever ruined that image. I could hear their distant cries through the walls of the house. I didn’t bother trying to count them – the number would only terrify me.

The MLs soon converged on the farm, and they went right for the baiters. The bodies of the dead and wounded offered no resistance as the creatures found them and began feasting. I witnessed the man I had shot in the leg try to raise his rifle and defend himself. To his credit, he shot two of them before a dozen monsters dogpiled him. I could hear his screams even over the fervor of the MLs.

Up to this point, I’ve had only one instance of witnessing the MLs feed in real time, instead of seeing the postmortem results or watching videos of their atrocities. That one time, Theo and I had tried to convince a reclusive forest hermit to abandon his hovel. He accused us of being “gov’ment agents here to steal his gold fillings” and then barricaded himself in his cabin. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t barricade his hole-riddled roof, so when the pack we had tried to warn him about arrived several MLs got inside. Theo and I took out the ones outside, but we were helpless to save the screaming hermit. I watched them devour him through a gap in one of his boarded-up windows, the creatures biting and gouging him mercilessly. All we could do was avenge him in a fashion, killing the retreating MLs after they’d gotten their fill. The hermit hadn’t deserved that fate. These men, on the other hand, were not people I could muster any sympathy for.

The baiters escaping in their truck soon realized that they weren’t getting clear in time, so four of them got out and formed a firing line while two others kept pushing on the truck to get it free. The lead MLs took the brunt of their fire, multiple creatures going down in short order. But for all their supposed training, this SAS squad deployed no flash balls and had little discipline. Two of the men broke the line and fled back to the truck as the horde closed in. The other two men fought to the end as tooth and claw found them.

Once the horde reached the truck, it was utter bedlam as the creatures covered it, smashing into the glass and ripping at the fabric encasing the cargo compartment. I couldn’t see or hear much at that distance, and I deliberately decided not to think too much of that horror show. My own was still ongoing.

Long minutes past by as we stood vigil, watching the MLs devour their victims. As horrid as that time was, as slow as time crawled, every one of those minutes was one more minute of life. The version of me from a year ago would have been naively optimistic, thinking the MLs would take their fill and then move on without exploring the farm further. But the current version of me knew these things could smell all the human bodies present, and only a handful of the hundreds present will have slated their hunger. Already the ones on the periphery of the feasting were breaking off, sniffing the air and the ground inquisitively.

“Keep out of sight until they try to breach,” Madison instructed me. “Lazlo, keep us appraised. Let us know when they start flanking.”

I moved to the side of the window and readied my carbine. Watching the MLs advance toward the house felt like watching a tidal wave approaching the beach I was on. Not watching was somehow worse. I found a stain on the wall that resembled a smiley face and focused my eyes on that while I listened for the telltale sounds of claws tapping on wooden floorboards.

A few minutes must have passed like that, me and that mocking face having a staring contest while I awaited inevitability. Lazlo gave us occasional updates, mostly detailing how many MLs were in front of the porch now. About the time that the number had grown to between forty and fifty was when I heard scraping sounds on my window. Nearby the door shook as the lead creatures tested it and found it blocked.

A hard slam on the window made me cringe. The MLs knew all about home invasion. That window was seconds away from getting broken, which meant I was seconds away from my second battle of the day.

The glass shattered inward, accompanied by a torrent of eager cries and a flood of scampering commotion. A three-fingered hand came through and then grabbed at the remains of the window pane, attempting to widen it.

“Contact!” I yelled out as I whirled and picked my target. The breaching ML gave me an honest look of surprise right before my bullets disfigured its face. It collapsed halfway through the window, jamming the hole with its body. Its fellow monsters bunched up behind, screaming in desire and rage as they tried to move through the blocked opening. I fired short bursts at several of them, their bodies falling away or jamming the hole further.

The house filled with a deafening cacophony as Madison opened fire as well. The front door violently shook as the bastards tried their luck there. At all points they were thwarted, at least for now. Already the dead MLs were starting to dissolve to dust, but their companions weren’t patient enough to wait the several minutes it would take for their complete disintegration. They alternatively pulled and pushed the corpses of their comrades out of the way, tearing off entire limbs in their zeal to clear a path.

I prepped a flash ball for continuous pulse. I threw it through the window as soon as the window cleared enough for my throw to work. It fell to the porch below my sight line and went off as expected, its blinding flash catching dozens of the creatures off guard for a few seconds. Madison expertly picked off creature after creature while I had to settle with burst fire to get my kills, though there were so many now that it wasn’t hard to hit one. But for every creature I killed, two more showed to take its place. A solid mass of Locusts approached, and one way or another that mass was crashing down on us.

“You have multiple MLs going around the house,” Lazlo warned. “The rest are swarming your position. The Hellfire is ready to go.”

“Wait for my mark,” cautioned Madison. “Hector, drop another ball at your position and then fall back with me.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice as I dropped a second ball at my feet and then ran down the hallway, blue luminance lighting up the house behind me. Madison fired a few more rounds as I reached her, then dropped a flash ball of her own and retreated from her window. She led the way through the rest of the house as cerulean light danced around the walls and the snarls of dozens of ravenous monsters echoed from behind us.

A short gloomy hallway led us to the rear of the house. We passed several open doors, energized shadows enveloping us as MLs bunched up at all the uncovered windows, bashing at the glass and screaming like bloodthirsty hockey fans. I was so focused on all the monsters to my rear that I almost smacked into Madison when she came up short just past the door into the laundry room. A frantic man spouting rapid Spanish greeted us with an upraised wood axe, standing in front of the back door and staring at us with wide wild eyes. I was sure he was one of the former captives, but the reason why he wasn’t hiding down in the cellar with the others escaped me.

Madison kept her gun lowered while she attempted to calm him with words. Whatever she was saying didn’t seem to be placating him, as his burly arms kept his axe raised and aimed our direction. Clearly fear had taken over his thought processes. It happened to lots of people. Understandable, but very inconvenient. I looked back down the hallway, half-expecting the ML horde to come flooding in at any moment. We didn’t have time for this.

As it turned out, the MLs had even less patience. The back door had a stained glass window installed, a flowery design that I barely got a look at before a trio of clawed hands smashed it into dozens of shards. The hands wrapped themselves around the man’s thick neck and dug in, their claws ripping his throat wide open. The MLs tried to drag his head through the window, only to get the gurgling man’s upper body stuck in the opening. Madison cried out a denial and tried to go to his aid, grabbing one of his hands and pulling hard. He came free and plopped to the ground, his neck and shirt already saturated with his lifeblood. I opened fire on the opening once Madison and the dying man fell clear, killing one ML and send the others scampering back. My gun then clicked dry – even a fifty-round box magazine has to run out eventually.

Madison snarled as she aimed and fired off a few rounds through the opening, then started prepping a flash ball. The only thing I could think of doing was to close and lock the hallway door. The man was beyond our help, his eyes losing the last of their awareness as a pool of liquid spread out below him.

“Cellar,” Madison ordered as she tossed the ball outside. As it flashed into action, she signaled Lazlo and said, “Lazlo, we need Hellfire on the front porch.”

I couldn’t hide the shock I was feeling as I stared at her, and she didn’t bother explaining herself. Lazlo, however, needed confirmation, since Madison was essentially asking Lazlo to practically friendly-fire us.

“Hellfire the front porch,” Madison repeated. “We won’t survive otherwise.” She then gave me the kind of hard stare that declared her next words were not suggestions. “Cellar, now!”

Behind me, the hallway door buckled and cracked as multiple impacts assailed it. Not that I needed more motivation, but that got me moving to the other door in the room, a scratched up thing that struggled to open when I tried the knob. This was supposed to be a last line of defense?

I yanked hard and got it open just as Lazlo informed us that the Hellfire missile was seven seconds out. Beyond the door were stairs going down into a dim basement, with several fearful people staring back at us and yelping in shock at our arrival. Madison yelled at me to go, and I nearly tripped rushing down the stairs as Madison followed, slamming the door shut and casting us into near darkness.

I had enough time to notice the rows and rows of cans and jars lining the walls of the cellar before those provisions jumped in response to the explosion rocking the room. Most of the civilians screamed as the one ceiling lamp winked out, the room vibrating as if a minor earthquake had hit. As the reverberations died away I felt through my vest pockets and pulled out a glow stick. I snapped it to life and tossed it to the floor, giving the cellar a weak lime luminescence. I could make out Madison coming down the stairs while I pulled out a second stick.

“I jammed the door as best I could,” she said, “but it won’t hold long.” She then switched out magazines, switched on her rifle-mounted flashlight, and took position at the base of the stairs. “And before you ask, this door is the only way in or out.”

I hadn’t been down in a basement or cellar since my extended stay in one all those months ago. I already felt the familiar creeping dread clawing at my mind, that hopeless sense of confinement mixed with the constant drumbeat of hungry things struggling to breach and consume. But it was different this time. I wasn’t a victim of circumstance now. I was the last line of defense between the monsters and the innocent. I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t helpless. All those thoughts bolstered me, hardened me, as I stood next to Madison, switched out my gun’s box magazine, and readied myself for the onslaught.

“Laz, what’s the sit-rep?” I asked. The response was garbled – either the cellar or the explosion was causing some level of disruption. I asked again and still nothing intelligible. There wasn’t much she could’ve done, but the lack of Lazlo’s presence felt like one more layer of defense getting peeled away.

They didn’t take long to come at the door. The explosion hadn’t swayed them from their assault. It was very rare to see them mob like this with such mindless ferocity. With the rise of the Reapers the packs had fought smarter. They should have retreated after the missile attack to preserve their numbers. Instead they were throwing themselves at the cellar door with great force. It was seconds away from breaking.

“Any last advice?” I asked Madison as I took aim at the buckling door.

“Nothing else I can tell you,” she calmly replied. “All things considered, you’ve done okay.” I couldn’t help smiling. For Madison, that was pretty high praise.

Then the door gave way, and the MLs came in.

I hate to tell you this, but I don’t remember much about the next thirty seconds, even though I was aware of everything at the time. There was such a surge of overwhelming stimuli – my heart lurching as the monsters came on, the civilians screaming in abject terror, our guns blasting away up the narrow staircase, the MLs thrusting forward only to jerk and collapse down the stairs as our rounds perforated them. All I can really recall is aiming and shooting, aiming and shooting. Resisting the specter of Death one more moment, second by second, bullet by bullet.

Then it stopped. One more ML came shrieking down the stairs and one more burst forced it to join its decomposing pals. No more emerged. The doorway above was clear. Fearing a ruse, I swapped magazines while Madison kept her smoking gun trained on the door. There were maybe two dozen ML corpses before us – nowhere near the number that should be coming at us.

With all the cacophony of close battle falling away I finally noticed the distant sounds of gunfire echoing through the house and down to our ears. Madison and I exchanged questioning looks. Did I dare hope in the cavalry?

Not taking any chances, I prepped a flash ball and tossed it through the upstairs door. It flashed predictably but nothing else reacted. It took us a minute to clear a path through the dissolving corpses, then we both agreed to investigate together after Madison cautioned the civilians to stay put. One of the women asked Madison an emotional-filled question. Madison’s answer caused the women to burst into tears. I figured the woman had asked about the dead man. I certainly understood her pain, and part of me wished I knew Spanish well enough to comfort her, but we still had a crisis in process. I turned my back and followed Madison up the stairs.

The laundry room stood empty of monsters, the fallen civilian largely uneaten. The far-off gunplay was tapering off as we cleared the room and made our way to the front of the house. The porch was now rubble and numerous holes dotted the walls. Gray dust from the blast and the decaying MLs wafted through the holes and settled on the furniture. The remains of multiple Locusts littered the ground, and I had to step gingerly to avoid crunching down on severed limbs and headless torsos. A grim battlefield for sure, but the scene outside put it to shame as the two of us exited the house via what remained of the front door.

Dozens of MLs lay scattered all around the homestead, some the victims of the missile strike, others from the soldiers standing at the ready. All the soldiers wore blue combat fatigues and carried assault rifles. One of them, a very familiar face, continued to issue orders as the other soldiers, the Wranglers-In-Training, spread out to secure the scene and flush out any stragglers. Theo saw us and gave a little wave, walking over to us and wiping his bald head reflexively. His smile was one of relief rather than cheer.

“I was worried there for a minute,” he said, as if we needed an explanation. “Lazlo had trouble getting you on the comm. Any casualties?”

“One civilian down,” Madison replied, acting so calmly that it was almost like the last half-hour hadn’t just happened. “We could use a medic in the basement to check out the rest. Any baiters make it?”

Theo shook his head. “No one alive when we got here.” He then looked around the farm and shook his head once more, his smile vanishing. “What a mess.”

Theo and Madison kept talking business while I found a quiet part of the house to lean against. The adrenaline inside me was now draining away, and I didn’t want to show how close to tears I was as my body relaxed. Soon enough I would need to get back in motion, as we had miles to go before we slept. But for now I had the luxury to sit back and wonder, for the umpteenth time, what insanity had driven me to become a Wrangler.

*****

Long, tiring hours passed on by. No more combat that day, thank the universe, but debriefings and escort duty still put a drain on the body and mind. I had finally found my way to one of our lawn chairs parked outside of the Oasis, our mobile base. Not so mobile these days, our camp was the parking lot of a rural high school that the government had commandeered for our purposes. It was the temporary home to other Wrangler teams and National Guard units as well, heavily patrolled and protected by a sea of blue spotlights and a small army of drones. In terms of ML security, you couldn’t get much safer.

Exhausted to my core, I flopped in my chair, not wanting to sleep but unwilling to do anything else. I even didn’t care about the freezing midnight air or how hungry I was from having skipped dinner. I mostly wanted to be numb. Beer helped in that department. Corona was my preference, but I wasn’t picky. Too bad I technically couldn’t have any, being on duty and all.

So when Lazlo finally walked out of the Oasis with two beers in her hands, they were technically not beer. I think she had them requisitioned as energy drinks. Most soldiers at the camp had their various stashes. As long as we weren’t stupid about our vices, the higher-ups looked the other way.

“Are we celebrating or drowning our sorrows?” Lazlo asked as she passed me a beer.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Which way are you leaning?”

She plopped down in a chair next to me and twirled a lock of her plain brown hair while she considered her answer. She had let her hair coloring lapse in recent months. Not surprising since we barely got leave these days.

“Well, today I killed a man,” she said at last. “Maybe more than one.”

“Same here,” I replied. “I don’t regret it, but it doesn’t sit well, does it?”

She shrugged. “Killing people-eaters is one thing. Killing people… it crosses a line I hoped not to cross.”

I nodded silently. It was naïve to think the Wrangler life wouldn’t lead to a day like this, but I had hoped to keep some part of my conscience clean. The act of killing changes you. You were no longer part of civil society. You had defied the rules that governed humane order, even if it was justified or sanctioned. Some might find that attractive. I only found it disturbing.

“Maybe you should talk to Theo about it,” I suggested. Madison and Theo had the blood of others on their hands, though that was due to their military tours in combat zones prior to their Wrangler lives. Neither of them liked to talk about their past that much. I had no idea how they dealt with it.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to burden him with my crap. He’s got enough on his plate. Besides, what’s to complain about? We saved some civilians, took out a swarm-level pack, and brought down some baiters. What’s not to like?”

She said all that in a very unconvincing tone, then took a swig of beer and stared off at the vacant gym we were parked next to. There was a mural painted on the side of the gym, one with a bunch of beaming happy teenagers doing various school activities, like playing soccer and reading books on a grassy knoll. I suppose it might have been inspirational in different times. Mostly it reminded me of a life I couldn’t relate to any longer.

I was saved from attempting a motivating platitude by the appearance of Madison and Theo, walking up to us from the direction of the school offices. Madison said nothing as she walked by us and into the Oasis, while Theo stooped over Lazlo to give her a quick kiss on the lips and sat down in a vacant chair next to her. His face had a worn look to it, as if he’d just been through another skirmish. In a way, I suppose he had been - just not the type involving bullets.

“Sooooo…” Lazlo started, fishing for Theo to spill the beans.

“It’s complicated,” he began. “Immigration is handling the civilians, for better or for worse. At least they’re safe now. We’re pretty much in the clear on today’s events, but there will be an ongoing investigation. Command isn’t thrilled with us for leaving Hector alone in an active ML zone, and they’re not happy with Madison for not sharing her intel on the baiter operation.”

“They never like anything I do,” Madison commented as she reappeared, holding two more beers and handing one off to Theo as she took a seat next to me. “But they’re not going to discipline me after saving the day, so…” She finished her statement with a middle finger to no one in particular.

Theo didn’t look convinced that Madison had the right of it, but instead of arguing he took a drink and continued his spiel. “The military police detained the other four members of the SAS squad and one of them talked. They’re still getting his story but so far he paints a pretty ugly picture. The ringleader of the plan was a local veteran who managed to pull some strings and get a bunch of his friends on the same squad, then made contact with a pair of human traffickers from down in Arizona.” Theo looked at me and Madison. “You two met them. They had driven the civilians all the way here a week ago and stashed them in a safe house, waiting for a location and the go-ahead. Apparently the plan was to have the two traffickers take the civilians to a hot zone, give them some time to bait the trap, and then come in to secure the site after the MLs had taken the bait. With any luck, they’d have a truck full of MLs to sell on the black market. And regardless of how it went, they were prepared to eliminate any and all witnesses to the act, including the traffickers and any Wranglers that got in the way.”

“All this for a load of cash they’d never see,” commented Madison. “I mean, those SAS morons get trained on ML behavior, right? They know it’s virtually impossible to take a Meat Locust alive.”

“I’ve seen bounties go as high as half-a-million dollars U.S. per living specimen,” replied Theo. “For that kind of money, some people won’t take ‘virtually impossible’ for an answer.”

“It doesn’t help that those capture videos are still circulating the Internet,” I added. The others nodded in grim agreement. They knew the ones I was talking about. Over the last year several well-meaning military and research groups had attempted to take a ML alive. A few even recorded the effort. The most famous of the videos involved one German team that had managed to isolate and completely restrain a Meat Locust by binding every movable body part before it could start bashing and slashing itself. For a few minutes it looked like humanity had bagged its first live Locust, its face snarling and its teeth gnashing viciously but futilely. Then the Locust just… stopped. It went rigid, as if it was a robot whose battery had just died. Then it started decomposing. The only conclusion the researchers could come up with was that it had willed itself to die. I tend to think that something else had done the willing.

But what was worse was that some sociopath got hold of the video, edited out the part with the ML dying, and released it onto the Net. Despite government efforts to take down the video, it was always popping up somewhere. It was all the proof needed to convince the greedy, the desperate, and the unscrupulous to take insane risks or sell their souls trying to claim the bounties.

Theo then looked at me directly. “The SAS knew you were there, Hector and they would have killed you and pinned it on either the traffickers or the Locusts. I… I shouldn’t have let you stay there by yourself. I’m sorry. I made the wrong call.”

I shrugged it off. “We all thought it would be okay, Theo. I’m just glad Madison is my guardian angel.”

Madison laughed at that. “I’m no angel here, Hector. The one who sent me the intelligence fits that role. Maybe one of the squad members had a change of heart.”

I mulled the idea over and frowned. “Doesn’t make much sense. Why not tell the authorities? Why contact just Madison?”

“Let the investigators handle those questions,” said Theo. “You should all get some food and sleep while you can. We have a briefing at 0800 hours for our next operation.”

I gave Theo a wide-eyed stare. So did Lazlo. Madison looked more annoyed.

“You’re kidding, right?” Lazlo blurted out. “After what we went through today? Don’t we deserve a break?”

Theo closed his eyes and sighed before answering. “Command assures me that we’re in the clear in terms of conduct, but the media and the public eye is a different story. A local SAS group is dead and the fringe types are all up in arms about it. The brass doesn’t want us around while they clean things up. And since we have such a stellar record, they want us spearheading something big. That’s all I know at this point.”

“Sounds more like a punishment than a reward,” replied Lazlo.

“Don’t pass judgment until after the briefing,” said Madison, standing up from her chair. “Besides, I’d rather be back in the field instead of standing around twiddling our thumbs while Team Abbott gets pilloried on social media.”

We broke off after that, Theo and Lazlo heading away from the Oasis to have a brief bout of alone time somewhere on campus. I was about to go grab some food when Madison touched my shoulder and gave me an earnest look.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m numb,” I replied, and that was the truth. There was so much to absorb for one day, so much to process, that my feelings were basically bottlenecked. “I think I’m okay. Is that normal?”

“I’m not sure what normal is. But I do know that days like today can break people. I’ve seen it happen. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. I know you don’t ever listen to me when it comes to not being a hero but… really, don’t be a hero on this.”

Don’t be a hero about this? I mused. I had seen, done, and been many things that day. I had been both a hostage and a hostage liberator. I was a killer of monsters both human and inhuman. I had dealt out death and escaped it multiple times. I had seen the best and worst of humanity. I wasn’t sure what I was any longer, but the one thing I didn’t feel like was a hero.

After the previous day’s events, after all that battle and carnage, you’d think I’d be plagued with nightmares. But my dreams were a blank slate. More often than not I slept as peacefully as the dead. I could spend an entire story attempting to psychoanalyze why that was, but I doubt you’d want to stick around and listen to me babble on and on about it. Maybe it’s as simple as genetics – that I am naturally conditioned for this life and this threat. I don’t know if being a peaceful sleeper counts as a superpower, but I’m starting to believe it should.

After six hours of needed rest I got some cheap grub in my stomach and greeted the drizzly morning functional enough for the start of our next briefing. The four of us collected ourselves in a school conference room, sitting around a round table, clutching cups of instant coffee and chai tea as we waited for the operations leader to show. Lazlo and Theo chatted about which movie they were going to pirate the next night we had off, while Madison sat in her chair, arms crossed and hoping to leave at the earliest opportunity. She talked tough about briefings, but she had never cottoned to these meetings. Her mindset was that of a hunter that overhears where the deer herds have migrated and then heads off to collect her quota.

The room door opened right at 0800 hours and our eyes followed the portly fellow walking in. Just the one man, balding and wearing a shirt and tie instead of a military uniform. This was Dr. Atkins Tanaka, and thanks to Lazlo’s digital digging I knew he was a freelance consultant who claimed to be an expert in ML behavior. I doubted he knew more than we did, but he wouldn’t be the first expert to think so. I wasn’t expecting to like this guy.

Dr. Tanaka gave each of us a polite smile and hello as he passed out digital tablets. He then sat at a vacant chair and folded his hands. “Let’s just get this out of the way,” he began in a light tone. “Your bosses like me because I tell them what they want to hear. That’s why if you look at my credentials I’ll come off like a brownnoser and a know-it-all.” He looked straight at Lazlo. “I assume you did. You seem the type. I would’ve done the same.”

Lazlo didn’t know what to make of that, and for once didn’t have a good comeback. Tanaka seemed slightly amused at her reaction. To be fair, so was I.

“But I’m not here to take control or act like I know the big picture better than you four do,” he continued. “Nor am I here to get to know you or engage in niceties. I don’t think we have the time for such things. I believe that time is a commodity we are rapidly running out of.”

“Very dramatic beginning,” commented Madison wryly. “Care to elaborate?”

“I would, but that’s the problem,” Tanaka replied. “I can’t give you a definite answer. I can only steer you in the direction we need to go, and hope you understand why we’re skipping the pleasantries. Before I get to my point, I want to know what you four understand of our enemy’s history – mainly, where they came from.”

“Aren’t you supposed to educate us about that?” Lazlo remarked impishly. “Aren’t you paid for that kind of thing?”

“Humor me,” Tanaka replied dryly.

Theo gave Lazlo the serious eyes, which he only did to inform her that levity was no longer appropriate. Then he interlaced his fingers on the table and began speaking as if reciting a script from heart. “The first MLs documented appeared in 1958, somewhere in the southwest region of Idaho. Since then, they’ve been reported in every continental state, Canada, and Mexico. In the last twenty years reports also began to emerge from other parts of the world, though those were far more infrequent. The assumption we’ve gone by is that the threat originated in the U.S. and then spread outward.”

“A smart assumption,” replied Tanaka. “Still, only an assumption. Your organization never did tabulate the reports and crunch the numbers.”

“We didn’t have the money for it,” said Madison, glaring at the consultant. “The government was too busy hiding our operations. Plus they didn’t want a paper trail.”

Tanaka held up his hands defensively. “I mean no offense. The Wranglers have done a commendable job containing the threat up until now. I’m merely saying that you were operating in the dark concerning your enemy’s origins and objectives. That is always a dangerous disadvantage, but more so with an enemy like the one we are pitted against.”

“We know our enemy pretty well, Doctor,” said Madison. “We killed a couple hundred of them yesterday and didn’t even get a day off for our efforts. If you want me to listen to you, you need to convince me you’re worth listening to.”

I mentally cringed at her direct challenge to the consultant, even though I silently agreed with her. I expected Dr. Tanaka to react badly, but instead he nodded politely. “Fair enough. I’ll start by saying what I know. Our enemy is a creature that had existed on this world for at least several decades. It breaks a good chunk of the biological rules that govern life on this planet, and it only consumes the one sapient life form on this world even though it doesn’t appear to need sustenance or fluids. It does, however, need human consumption for reproduction, which is does by cloning itself in a matter of hours. They don’t age, they don’t tire, and they decompose rapidly upon death. They can also project a kind of energy camouflage that confuses the human eye from a distance. Despite all these strengths, their numbers were few and somewhat manageable… up until last year. Then not only did their numbers expand, their tactics changed. They became more aggressive and more intelligent. That’s when your squad discovered a new variant – the Flesh Reaper. A larger, stronger being that directs the lower MLs and projects a powerful energy field that can disrupt electronics and radio signals.”

I won’t say I was impressed, as he had rattled off what we already knew, but he was on the same page as we were, and that mattered. He continued talking while fiddling with his tablet. “Beings like these aren’t natural, and I’m certain we don’t have the technology to make them. Regardless of their origin, their behavior strikes me as exhibiting intelligence beyond the simple desire to consume and spread.”

He directed us to work with our own tablets, and soon I was staring at a map of the continental USA. Dr. Tanaka explained that his consulting group had been given access to Wrangler reports over the last six decades. They compiled the information and came up with an interactive map showing the locations of all reported incidents as the years went by, as well as the general size of the packs encountered. He gave us a moment to play with our maps, and it wasn’t hard to see the pattern emerging. Yes, the MLs had spread out much as Theo had said, but the lion’s share of the incidents stacked up in the West, mostly in the rural areas of the West Coast States. The packs in that region were also larger than in other regions.

“That’s why I was always so busy,” commented Madison, frowning. “The bastards apparently made their home where I hunted.”

“Maybe they like West Coast weather the best,” said Lazlo.

“You’ll notice that even with Wrangler intervention their numbers have been growing over the last several decades,” Tanaka pointed out. “In fact, I’d say their numbers were much higher than we anticipated.”

Tanaka directed us to another application, this one a map of North America in its entirety. This map chronicled the last fourteen months. I thought I had grown inured to the scope of our war, but Tanaka’s data managed to penetrate my armor and chill me. I scrolled through the application month by month, covering my mouth to keep any curses from flowing from my lips. If Tanaka’s data was correct, the ML population had exploded, with encounters and attacks all over the continent and the average pack size going from two dozen to six dozen in less than six months.

Madison and Theo studied the data with grim masks in place. Lazlo looked like she was about to start crying. All of their efforts over the years, and here in stark detail was the evidence that it had done little to stem the threat.

At the end of the chart was an application that took the data in a new direction – migration. I watched as a parade of long and short arrows marked the movements of ML activity. For most of the last fourteen months the movements were largely chaotic, packs forming, splitting, or dying off all across the land. Then a pattern began to form five months ago and solidified as the time stamp drew nearer to present day. The West Coast and Mid West continued to have staggering numbers, but the rest of North America saw a precipitous drop in encounters and numbers. Over the same time period, migration arrows showed movement from the rest of the continent back to the United States, especially the western half.

“This is all very sobering, Dr. Tanaka,” Theo declared, breaking the heavy silence. “But we’re not data analysts. Please get to the point.”

I got the sense that Tanaka didn’t think it was time to convey his “point” as yet, but with Madison glaring at him he must have decided otherwise. “I know about Dr. Abbott, his work and theories on ML behavior. I’ve read all the reports he submitted to Yale, the ones published after the ML threat went public. Even before we knew of the existence of Reapers, he seemed to understand our enemy wasn’t just some kind of random life form, but something created for a direct purpose. I propose that this purpose has been decades in the making, and we are now seeing signs of an endgame.

“To start, it is clear that we have significantly underestimated our enemy’s numbers. Previous data suggests their numbers were around 700 to 800 across the country, with maybe a few hundred in other parts of the world. There’s no way that many could create the level of chaos we’re seeing now. Their actual numbers must have been at least five times higher. Before the MLs went public, the FBI had an active missing persons caseload numbering over 87,000. If even a fraction of those were ML victims, that could explain the numbers discrepancy. And that’s not even counting undocumented individuals who may have fallen victim. It would mean that the creatures are far better at hunting and concealing their intentions than we imagined.

“Then there’s the fact that MLs have managed to spread out to every corner of the globe, taking refuge in wilderness and rural environments. It’s true that other species find ways to insert themselves into other global regions, but they’re either hitchhiking on human vessels or being deliberately exported. Since there are ample humans in North America, these creatures don’t have any reason to migrate unless they were ensuring that not all of their eggs were in one basket. That is more akin to an insurgency group dividing into different cells than an invasive species.

“Then there are the Reapers. I can’t say if there have always been Reapers controlling the MLs – I suspect there was at least one out in the world, calling the shots in a limited fashion. But we have uncovered evidence of more ‘birthing sites’ and my data suggests that at least a dozen exist now. They keep themselves hidden, but they’re out there. Perhaps the incident at Lake Crusoe in Oregon and the creation of the Reaper you encountered marked a significant development in the MLs’ plans. Or perhaps your discovery of their existence forced them to speed up their timetable. Either way, the last year shows that they are throwing off any pretense of subterfuge. They are trying to make as many MLs as possible, as quickly as possible. More than that, they are trying to make as many Reapers as possible.”

Dr. Tanaka seemed to think that was enough for now, waiting for one of us break the silence. I found myself beating the rest of the team to the response as my mouth opened and my idea spilled forth.

“But they’re not,” I said. “We just fought a swarm-level pack and there wasn’t a single Reaper present. I met a Reaper in the flesh; so did Theo. An army of them would kick our asses six ways to Sunday. But if the MLs wanted an army of Reapers, we should be knee deep in them right now. They have thousands of active Locusts running around and it only takes ten of them to form a Reaper; they should be mass-producing them. Instead we barely see any signs of them.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect reaction-wise from Tanaka, but I didn’t expect him to give me a sincere smile. “Exactly. That would be the logical tactic for a species attempting to devour the human race. So I believe it is far more difficult to create a Reaper than getting ten Locusts to perform a ritual. I also believe they are far more valuable. The Reapers might be the key to the final stage of their plans.”

“I wondered if there might be something worse coming down the pipe,” commented Lazlo. “That said, do you have evidence something worse is actually happening?”

Dr. Tanaka motioned to the tablets once more. This time we were shown pictures of the Washington and Oregon state border. It appeared to be a location somewhere in the wilderness. The time stamp on the map showed the picture was taken three weeks ago. “This is from a government surveillance satellite tasked to our operations,” Tanaka narrated. “I can’t say I know much about a Reaper’s energy field. Scientists far more intelligent than me are attempting to crack that mystery. But one of the side effects of a Reaper’s energy field is that when it’s active it causes blind spots in long-distance surveillance systems, including satellite. The camera will go blind for a brief moment, usually only a few seconds, then return to normal without any further problem. After months of frustration, my group tried a different approach – we recorded and mapped the disruptions. One of our analysts was tracking this region and made this discovery.”

The map data danced about as the time stamp advanced toward the present, and while it took us a few run-throughs we all did agree with Dr. Tanaka that we had a new and serious development on our hands. Even Madison seemed unnerved by the implications. Because while most of the mapped disruptions came and went randomly, one region appeared to be constantly blind. It was also growing larger as the days went on. It was a spot just south of the northern Oregon border, and based on the map scale it had started as only a mile wide in diameter but was up to a ten-mile diameter as of two days ago.

“Maybe the Reapers really are having a convention,” remarked Lazlo, unease lacing her tone.

“Your guess is as good as ours,” said Tanaka. “Obviously drones aren’t any use to us here. Airpower will be extremely limited as well with that much interference in play. So we need boots. Command has putting together a National Guard convoy as we speak, and it’ll be ready to go within twelve hours. But we want a Wrangler team at the helm, and you are the team we trust for this. I can’t tell you what to expect. I really wish I could. But you’ll be going in with the heaviest firepower we can muster. If it’s any consolation, I’m going in as well, so I’m not sending you somewhere I’m not willing to go myself.”

“You?” said Madison. “Since when do consultants go in with the grunts?”

“My group has equipment that might be of use,” said Tanaka, not exactly answering the question. “In any case, please be ready in eight hours.” He then collected the tablets and took his leave as we filed out of the conference room.

And that was that. We returned to the Oasis and went to do our preparations with practiced ease. On the surface, it was just one more job in the endless parade of missions and hunts and battles that had become our life. At least this one looked to be important, perhaps even pivotal. But that was the tired, pragmatic part of me talking. The rest of me, the human part that still dreamed and hoped, couldn’t stop imagining what new terrifying playground we were about to go run around in… and whether this would be the time none of us came back home.

*****

Time drags when the mundane takes over, and so it was for the next several hours as we packed our gear and checked our weapons for our mission. We were ready to go in less than seven hours, driving the Oasis out of the school while the day’s last lingering rays of sunshine could still comfort us. Lazlo estimated we would be reaching our mission destination under the cloak of night, which no Wrangler ever considered a good omen. Lazlo also came up with a handle for this forsaken region; the Blind, as in the spot on the map blind to conventional sight. Lazlo’s talent for trendsetting labels continued, as once we linked up with our military escort it took only an hour for the term to show up all over the radio chatter.

Several long hours of driving later, we had once again left the relative safety of civilization behind us. Full night closed in again, the clouds hiding the stars away from us. The convoy’s lights kept the dark comfortably at bay, but it did little to illuminate the forest we were passing through and the hundreds of hiding places it offered. We were in some part of the Umatilla National Forest, traveling a service road that was desperately in need of service. The convoy had already stopped twice due to fallen trees across the road, and potholes plagued us constantly.

Theo and I were in the cab section of the Oasis while Lazlo manned her computer desk and Madison took watch on the turret. I was finally in the driver’s seat, having passed certification a few weeks ago. I might have celebrated the occasion if I hadn’t been stuck following the Humvee in front of me and the road wasn’t an obstacle course of potholes and rotting branches. Still, being part of an actual military convoy proved reassuring. I counted four Humvees, one M113 APC on loan from a police SWAT team, and two generic cargo trucks in our column. Supposedly we had three squads worth of soldiers coming with us, along with another half-dozen consultants from Tanaka’s private group. This was the largest operation we’d been a part of to date. Yet despite the firepower I had to wonder why they didn’t throw in a tank or two. We were going up against an unknown number of Reapers and the damnable things had proven resistant to bullets alone.

We were less than sixteen minutes away from the perimeter of the Blind when I felt my insides beginning to clinch up. I could hear the tension in the voices on the radio as well. I was so used to being connected, of having digital eyes watching my back and digital ears listening for my cry for help, that having all that taken away felt like I was going into a fight with one arm tied behind my back. Theo had kept conversation to a minimum as he kept vigil on the wilderness, the surest sign of his own apprehension.

“Lazlo bet me that we’re going to find some version of an alien cell tower,” I said, deciding to break the tension while I still had the opportunity. “She thinks the Reapers either hijacked or built a massive signal projector and that the Blind is the result of that signal being… well, projected. What do you think?”

Theo kept looking out his side window, his silence going on long enough to make me think I had said something dumb. Theo hadn’t warmed up to me like I hoped he would. I didn’t know if he even considered me a friend. We were certainly on good terms. I knew his name was Theodore Stockman and that only his mom was allowed to call him that – all others risked death. I knew he was a David Bowie fan and preferred vegetable stew over a juicy steak. But that was about it. Perhaps part of him had hardened up after the death of Abbott, or perhaps the weight of constant fighting had forced him to retreat from forming new attachments. In any case, I had learned to pal around with Lazlo most of the time, and occasionally Madison when she was actually present.

Theo did finally look at me, but instead of talking he pointed to his ear piece and made the turn-off sign with his hand. I understood and switched off my radio. What he was about to share wasn’t for ears other than mine.

“There’s something Dr. Tanaka left out of the briefing,” he said in a low voice. “I only just learned about it last night, but… the MLs have been sending out Lone Terrors again. Their incident rates are up over five-hundred percent in just one week.”

I swore in dismay, hoping he wouldn’t go into too many details. “And it’s not just Lone Terrors,” Theo continued. “In the last two days we’ve seen eight separate major attacks nationwide by packs measured at gang-level or above. One was in a Phoenix suburb, if you can believe that. Over a hundred and fifty of the bastards managed to creep through a defunct storm water line and lay waste to a wedding rehearsal. Police, National Guard, even Wrangler squads are getting pulled off active missions to do civil defense, at least until they can train up more people for guard duty. What makes it insane is that for all the chaos and death the attacks did, the MLs got it worst. Official numbers suggest they’ve lost over a thousands Locusts for their efforts, and got nothing for their troubles.”

He shook his head slowly, looking back out at the dark as if worried that talking about the monsters would summon them. He was waiting for me to state the conclusion that he didn’t want to say. I couldn’t help but oblige him.

“They’re all diversions, aren’t they?” I said. “They want us humans looking elsewhere, or at least distracted enough to not look too hard at what’s happening in the Blind.”

Theo nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I think as well. It means we’re driving into something very important and very bad, Hector. Something they’re willing to waste their army on just to get us looking the other way. I’ve seen this movie before, and it usually doesn’t end well for the guys going in.”

“Sometimes the guys going in still save the day,” I offered.

Theo snickered at my feeble humor. “Abbott once told me that he believes Wranglers are called to action, but there are two ways that happens. The first is the hunter’s way. That’s where your warrior type sees a challenge or a threat and prepares for battle. That’s Madison… and that’s me. We lived this life before we knew of the MLs, and we’ll live this life to the bitter end. But the second type of calling is for the people who just can’t sleep at night, the ones who would rather have a normal life but can’t ignore a problem when it’s right in front of them. That’s Lazlo… and that’s you.”

I shrugged. I really couldn’t disagree. If the MLs all dried up and crumbled away, I’d happily go back to my old human resources job and be done with this life. But I couldn’t do that until the job was done, though… if it ever was.

“Lazlo used to look at all this like it was a science project,” Theo said. “She doesn’t think that now. I can see it wearing her down, and wearing you down. I’m telling you this because I want you to do me a favor. I’m going to be busy, Hector. So is Madison. I want you to keep an eye on Lazlo. I want you to get her out of here, no matter what happens. Drag her out if you have to. I want her to live and have a life afterwards.”

He gave me a very serious stare. “Can you do that for me?”

This was a lot to throw at me all at once. I felt like I should’ve immediately answered with a hell-yeah to show him the strength of my commitment and character. But I didn’t know if I had the power to do what he asked. If he and Madison went down, what chance did I have? I couldn’t promise to be the hero here. So I said the only sincere thing I could think of.

“If I’m alive, I’ll get her clear.”

He nodded, accepting my words. Perhaps I had promised as much as anyone could, and that was enough. He switched back on his radio and said, “Laz, how much longer?”

“Well, o’ captain my captain, best guess is we’re ten minutes away,” she replied. “I’d like to officially go on the record and say that this sucks. Seriously, what am I supposed to do without Third Eye?”

“What people have done for the last several hundred thousand years,” he answered. “Use your own eyes and ears.”

“Overrated,” she muttered.

Lazlo’s unhappiness underscored our approaching tech issues. It wouldn’t just be a communications blackout. Digital displays were expected to be distorted as well, which would render a lot of our technology unreliable at best. We had prepared as best as we could for it, as had the rest of the convoy. But Lazlo’s role in our operations was taking a big hit, and I hoped we would find a way to help her adjust.

Ten minutes later, we entered the Blind. We all knew it the moment it happened. Not just because the radios in our ears began broadcasting only static, silencing one of Lazlo’s rants midsentence. You could feel it – a slight vibration or tingle in your mind, like listening to a tiny fan perpetually stuck next to your ear. Not painful, just omnipresent. A symptom of our bigger problem – we had now passed into unfamiliar territory, and here there be dragons.

The actual land engulfed by the Blind had only one human settlement on it – an abandoned commune that once housed maybe fifty or sixty people back in the sixties and was subsequently used as a camping retreat for youth groups ever since. Lazlo liked to throw trivia at us during our road trips, and she had looked into the region thoroughly. The retreat had been closed for the last decade and no one else lived in the area, so the odds were good that we were the only humans for miles around.

From what little I knew of our operation, the plan was to follow the road up to the abandoned retreat, claim it as our base, and then spread out to investigate the area. The retreat was roughly half-a-mile from the Blind’s center, and more likely than not the center held the source of the anomaly. Then again, it could be the result of numerous Reapers spread out over the area, so we were smart not to make any assumptions.

We arrived at the old retreat not long after entering the Blind, our vehicular headlights sweeping over the moss-covered structures and chain-link fencing. My first indication that something was off with this “retreat” was the tangled and rusty razor-wire mounted on top of the fence. Since when does a youth retreat need such heavy-duty protection? Regardless, the front gate proved only a minor hindrance to the convoy and we moved further inward.

I parked the Oasis next to one of many identical buildings within the base. I switched on the vehicle’s array of blue defense lights, immediately birthing shadows onto the sides of the structures. I gazed out the cab windows and could faintly see the evergreen trees that ringed the property, their branches reaching over the fence like the hands of refugees yearning for safety. I felt unusually exposed at that moment, even though there were heavily-armed soldiers all around me. Third Eye was the silent guardian I had come to rely upon. I could walk down any dark path knowing Lazlo’s drones were watching my back. Now every corner and recess looked just a bit more dangerous. I almost decided to start the engine and move the vehicle a safer distance from the structure, but Theo had already opened his door and was moving about outside. I grabbed my carbine and followed suit, my moment of anxiety passing as I switched my focus to the job ahead of us. In truth, nowhere within the Blind was safe, and I’d have to get used to that in short order.

Madison intercepted me before I could start unpacking our equipment, grabbing my left arm and escorting me away from the Oasis. “We need to talk with Tanaka about this place he just delivered us to,” she stated, her tone suggesting any disagreement on the matter from me would be unwelcome. “I need you to keep me from doing something stupid.”

I decided not to argue. The place did feel more like a boot camp than a youth retreat. Questions needed to be answered. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to antagonize our operations leader right off the bat.

Dr. Tanaka’s camp was centered on the base’s main parking lot. Years of disuse had rendered the asphalt surface cracked and overgrown with moss, but it was the most level spot on the base. Tanaka’s team was already deploying canopy tents and flood lights while equipment was being offloaded from the cargo trucks. I caught sight of a device that resembled a full body mechanical harness. Lazlo had mentioned that Tanaka had contacts with DARPA, the US research agency that conducted tech research for the military. Naturally she was intrigued by what toys he had brought on the mission. I was curious as well, but Madison’s insistent pulling of my arm reminded me that we had more important questions to answer.

We found Dr. Tanaka bent over a table with a paper map of the area spread out over it. He was studying it and making marks with a red pen on various points when he noticed us. He must have seen the look on Madison’s face as he didn’t bother with pleasantries and crossed his arms as we approached.

“I take it you’re not here to give me a status report,” he said.

“This is a military base,” she stated, her face a deep scowl. “It is very obviously a military base. Public records say otherwise. Why?”

There were a few soldiers milling about, and they reacted to Madison’s hard tone with concern. I wasn’t sure how this would play out if things got ugly. Wranglers had a good reputation with the public and the police, but we didn’t really comingle with the military types. The other soldiers I’d seen here were well outfitted for ML duty, but they kept their distance from my team. If they looked our way, it was with wariness, even disapproval. I didn’t know which branch of the military these soldiers had come from, or if they even were active military.

“I didn’t tell your team about it because it was irrelevant to the mission,” Tanaka explained casually. He then reached into a plastic container resting under the table and brought up a file folder. He placed it on the table and waved to it. “Feel free to peruse the file if you want. It’s complete and redaction-free. If you don’t want to waste an hour of your life, here’s the summary: this base was built in 1954 by an entrepreneur who managed to capitalize on Cold War hysteria and the government’s gullibility. Some unsuccessful experiments were performed, the politicians were unimpressed, the funding was yanked in 1959, and the whole thing was covered up to hide the embarrassment of wasting fifteen million dollars on a project akin to MK Ultra and the psychic soldier programs. If I thought any of that was important, I would have said so at the briefing.”

I have to give Tanaka credit – his gift of gab managed to blunt Madison’s anger to the point where she had to pause and consider her response. “My team can’t do its job if we don’t have all the facts,” she said, grabbing the file and handing it to me absently. “Remember that from now on.”

Tanaka nodded politely. “I understand. Tell your team our next briefing is at 0700 hours. Now we all have much to do, so if you’ll excuse me…”

We left without further word. The two of us returned to the Oasis and had to answer Theo’s scathing questions as to why we abruptly disappeared. Madison and Theo wound up getting into an argument over her tendency to shoot from the hip, which allowed me to quietly find Lazlo and show her the file. She was more intrigued by the mystery than angered by the cover-up, so she took the file with the intention of perusing it when we had a moment of free time.

We spent the hours before Tanaka’s briefing prepping our defenses, checking our equipment, and getting in some sleep and food. So far our intrusion into the Blind had gone uncontested, with only the constant buzzing in my ears hinting that we were participating in anything other than a glorified camping trip. The buzz did make sleep harder, and I only got in a few hours before a gray, sullen morning greeted me.

We all attended Dr. Tanaka’s briefing, a surprisingly banal affair considering our circumstances. The good doctor divided up the squads into four-person teams who were to spread out over the Blind in a careful, controlled fashion. We were to scout, collect evidence of ML activity if present, and come back. No engagement unless no other option was available. To facilitate this he revealed one of his new toys – prototype ear pieces that could supposedly function within strong electromagnetic fields, the signals routed through a device that resembled a flashy NASA rover more than a radio transmitter. The router had been designed for easy transport since the signal range was a meager kilometer. Then we were told that only seven ear pieces had been designed, so each team could only have one. Oh, and this was their first proper field test. Madison made an offhand comment that we might as well not bother with the damn things. That didn’t deter Lazlo from snatching up the one allocated to our team so she could have working tech at her disposal.

We were also given Polaroid cameras, since digital ones wouldn’t work. I couldn’t help but be amused at the novelty.

I expected to get a special assignment, something requiring the expertise of a top-notch Wrangler team. Instead, we were assigned a sector north of the camp and sent on our way. Don’t get me wrong, we certainly weren’t against doing grunt work. But why would Dr. Tanaka decide to include us in his operation when your average squad of soldiers could have done the same job?

Theo agreed to our assignment without issue, stifling any unhappy comments from Madison and Lazlo before they could get them out. An hour later, the four of us were hiking out through the misty terrain to our search zone. We had gotten lucky weather-wise, as there were no projected storms coming our way for a solid week. The midmorning sun poked at us through the gaps in the trees as we carefully maneuvered through the wilderness. The forest had grown wild and wooly, with downed trees and scraggly brush offering ample cover for our adversaries. Theo took the lead while Madison took the rear, Madison’s hard face suggesting that while she would follow orders she was less than thrilled. Lazlo fought with the new radio piece, an experience she reported as trying to have conversations with people while someone ran a blender in the background.

Despite our less-than-polished attitude toward our patrol, I felt little anxiety. Theo and Madison were such veterans at hunting MLs that they could pick up on a pack’s presence just by sniffing the air. We were all familiar with ML tactics and their camouflage, and none of us detected any signs of activity. According to Lazlo, the other squads weren’t faring any better. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. It was true that we were here to find Reapers, and the sooner we discovered their location the better. But I suspected the cost of contact would be high.

Six hours of fruitless searching later, we had covered our territory and considered it clean. With two hours left before we were supposed to report in, we debated helping out with another squad’s searching. But according to Lazlo, the other teams didn’t want help from us or anyone else – a bit of unnecessary territorialism had seeped into our situation. Madison suggested that the rest of us could go have a break at the Oasis while she did a little recon, but Theo vetoed that idea. We were doing this by the book for now, which meant no solo hunting or misbehaving. So we headed back in silence with Madison staring daggers at Theo’s back. I understood Madison’s anger, but I didn’t blame Theo for playing it safe. We needed to be unleashed to pursue our own leads, not wasting our talents following an inexperienced consultant’s game plan. But one didn’t alienate one’s allies when you were in enemy territory.

This was why I was shocked upon realizing that instead of heading straight back to the Oasis we had veered off to the northeastern corner of the base. Theo signed for us to stay quiet as he led our team along the back paths of the base, avoiding a pair of bored-looking sentries. In short order we found ourselves inside a building whose roof had become mostly holes, the remaining furnishings little more than a smattering of moldy, decaying bunk beds and mattresses. Particles played in sunbeams as I covered my nose to blunt the reek. It must have been a barracks once, now little more than a repository of rot. It did have an intact door, which Theo closed before moving off to a window to keep watch on the sentries patrolling nearby.

“They’ll be back this way in about ten minutes,” he said. “We need to be done by then.”

“And what are we doing?” asked Lazlo.

He gave her a knowing smile. “Misbehaving a little.”

Madison gave out a short laugh. “And I thought you were all sincere about that ‘by the book’ speech you gave me.”

“We still act like soldiers, Madison,” he replied. “But I never said I thought this op passes the smell test.”

“Why here and not inside the Oasis?” I asked. “You know, somewhere actually pleasant?”

“You don’t talk shit about your boss where they might hear you,” Theo explained. He looked at Lazlo. “Laz, you’ve been reading Dr. Tanaka’s file. Anything interesting?”

Lazlo somehow found the one chair in the room that wasn’t falling apart and sat down. “The file is mostly what Dr. Tanaka said it was. Back in 1954, a guy named Sylvester Colby came up with an idea to revolutionize travel by, dun-dun, using thin points. That’s what he called wormholes – thin points in reality. He had the idea that there were places in the existence where space folded and touched other points in the universe. But rather than going the whole Einstein-Rosen bridge route, he believed that the Four Elements - Earth, Fire, Air, and Water – could determine the location of a thin point. The file didn’t explain how he came up with his ‘science’ but it did outline how he convinced a couple of politicians to fund his experiments. Back in the fifties, if you could phrase your experiment in terms of fighting those pesky Commies, you could secure a few years of funding. But according to the file, nothing happened… which is exactly why the base got shut down.”

“There has to be more to it than that,” I said. “No one builds a base this size based on a flimsy theory.”

“The ancient Egyptians built huge pyramids for their dead god-kings,” countered Madison, who was keeping watch at another window. “Don’t underestimate human vanity. That said, if Colby’s eccentric activities were so irrelevant, why didn’t Tanaka give us the whole story? Why the cover-up on the Internet? You don’t create false stories on that level just to hide a failed project. We should know.”

Lazlo frowned. “I like a good conspiracy, Mads, but there’s just no evidence that there’s any connection between Colby’s activities and our operation. It could just be a coincidence.”

“First off, no more calling me Mads,” replied Madison. “And second, any good leader knows not to backbench your best assets. Tanaka is keeping us at arm’s length. Almost like he’s hiding something.”

“If he doesn’t trust us, why would he bring us on this mission?” I asked.

“He had to bring us,” said Madison, “Current regulations require every ML-related operation to have a least one certified Wrangler on hand. For something this serious, Tanaka needed a whole team present to cover his ass. As to why he picked us… well, we’re heroes. Maybe we’re here to pull his fat from the fire if things go wrong, or maybe we’ll be a convenient bunch to blame.”

“Just a bunch of guesswork,” commented Theo. Madison looked ready to argue further, but he cut her off with a quick wave. “I hear you, Madison. Tanaka isn’t being straight with us. That’s not in question. But we don’t get to second-guess him just because we don’t like it. One of the perks of being a leader is you get to know things and not share them. If we find evidence of anything out of bounds, we’ll go from there. Otherwise, I expect us all to cooperate.”

Madison grunted in derision. “I’ve known guys like Tanaka both in and out of the military. They always think they’re the smartest people in the room. But give them a taste of a real crisis and they always make things worse.”

I wanted to comment about the myriad bosses I’ve had who operated just like that, but then Lazlo held up a finger and put her other hand to her radio ear. “This is Team Abbott, repeat,” she said. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on the broadcast. “We’re inside the base, Charlie Team. We can… Repeat that, you’re breaking up.” After a few more seconds she swore and looked at Theo. “Stupid radio. I got some word from Charlie Team. They’re on the west side of the base. It looks like they’ve found something…”

She broke off as the radio grabbed her attention again. This time the signal must have come in clearer, because the look on her face suggested that it wasn’t good news at all. She told Charlie Team to hold on and then gave us the kind of wide-eyed stare that comes with realizing that the moment you had been waiting for had arrived… and you still weren’t ready for it.

“Reaper,” she stated. “They have eyes on a Reaper.”

*****

Our destination was a warehouse-like structure close to the fence line. We raced there as quick as our weary legs could take us, fear and anticipation powering our haste. I watched with quiet awe as Theo and Madison switched out their normal rifle magazines while on the run. Brand-new red-striped magazines adorned their weapons, denoting the armor-piercing ammo within. They had been carrying the new ammo in case we encountered a Reaper. This stuff could shred Kevlar vests like a bear could shred a leather couch. I’d personally seen it done at a gun range once. But just like the rest of our new toys, this was our first real field-test, and Reapers weren’t made of Kevlar.

If I had any doubts about the veracity of the situation, those doubts dissolved when I heard the ruckus coming from the open door into the building. It sounded like someone was having an epic furniture-breaking tantrum. Two soldiers awaited us at the door, a dark skinned woman and a goateed man who both eyed us warily. Whatever they had seen had them spooked.

Theo moved to talk to them while Madison went to a nearby window and tried to look inside. Lazlo and I hung back, awaiting Theo’s orders.

“Where’s the rest of your squad?” Theo asked the two soldiers.

“Scott and Lewis are inside,” answered the woman. “They went in to investigate, Scott told us to stay out here and radio for help. They’re under cover at the moment, but they can’t get clear without getting spotted by that… thing.”

“You’re sure it’s a Reaper?”

The woman shrugged indecisively. “It’s… something. You guys are the Reaper experts, so you tell me.”

I wanted to argue that our brief encounter with a Reaper didn’t count as expertise, but I decided not to get pedantic. Theo merely nodded and continued talking. “Did you spot MLs as well?”

“I think I saw a few moving around,” spoke up the male soldier. “They were all trying to get through a door leading into an office section. I couldn’t tell you how many.”

Theo seemed satisfied with this information, as he then waved us all into a huddle. “We could wait for more reinforcements, but I don’t want to leave two soldiers alone in there,” he stated. “Madison, you up for your first Reaper?”

Madison made the kind of eager smile that no other person alive would’ve used if asked that question. “Do you really have to ask?”

Theo focused back on me and Lazlo. “Madison and I will go first. If it’s a Reaper, we’ll deal with it, but the plan is to get the soldiers out of there. Hector, Laz, you’re rear-guard. Keep any MLs off us if they show.” Since my carbine couldn’t carry the AP rounds and Lazlo only had a shotgun, this seemed like the best strategy I could think of. I could only hope we weren’t biting off more than we could chew, because the MLs wouldn’t have the same problem.

We switched on our weapon-mounted lights and lined up to enter the warehouse. Madison went in first, followed by Theo, me, and finally Lazlo. I heard one of the soldiers whisper a prayer to the Virgin Mary as I went by. I appreciated the gesture, though I would’ve preferred a platoon at my back instead.

Madison and Theo moved in side by side as we swept our lights over stacks of crates and empty pallets. Dust motes swirled in our light beams as I tried to pick out the animate from the inanimate, the dangerous from the harmless. The echoes of brutal effort grew louder as we moved from the front half of the building to the rear half, Madison and Theo nearly tripping over the prone figure of a soldier lying behind a pile of decaying pallets. Theo knelt down to check him over while Madison took cover behind some nearby crates. Lazlo and I used a tarp-covered stack of materials for our shield. A skylight in the section ahead of us gave off enough fading sunshine to allow us see who was making all the racket.

The soldiers outside had the right of it, as there was a partitioned office near the back of the warehouse and the things that had invaded the building were clustered around it. I made out close to a dozen Meat Locusts milling about, sitting as patiently as trained dogs waiting for their master’s command, their backs turned from us as they faced the riot occurring within the office. A small solitary window allowed us to see a pair of massive shadows tearing around inside, the thumps and banging implying much violence. A fight of some kind, I mentally wagered, but who was fighting who? Was the other soldier in there, getting torn apart?

A whisper to my right caught my attention, and my idea died a quick death when the source of the whisper was the second soldier, appearing from behind his hiding spot in a darker part of the building. I waved him over and he quickly joined me and Lazlo behind our cover. The large blond-haired man was near tears and might have hugged me if not for our circumstances.

“Thank God for you guys,” he whispered. “Have you seen Lewis?”

“Is that him?” said Lazlo, pointing at the supine man Theo was attending to.

The solider, who I assumed to be Scott, didn’t reply at first, then uttered another compliment to God and said, “I thought he was dead. We both panicked when we saw them. I think he smacked his head into one of the crates. Is he okay?”

I didn’t want to start questioning the man’s courage or competency, since evidence suggested he was short on both, so I ignored his question. “We’ll get you both out,” I said, “but we need to know what happened. Is there a Reaper in that office?”

“It must be,” Scott replied in a desperate tone. “It sure as hell isn’t one of the little guys. The weird part is I don’t think it was here for us. It wanted in that office. It had to practically splinter that door to get inside.”

I exchanged looks with Lazlo. Definitely bizarre behavior, but I didn’t really want to explore it further at that moment. I was about to tell Scott to hang tight and wait for Theo’s lead when the office window exploded outward. Bits of glass, wood, and plaster pelted the MLs as something huge landed in front of them. Another similar crashing sound erupted from the office, and in short order there were no more shadows within, only diffused light depicting an empty room. I watched transfixed as the thing stood up, snarling in what I later determined to be impotent rage as it looked through the ragged hole it had just sailed through. Then, for whatever reason, it turned our way, allowing us a good view of its full form.

One of the built-in assumptions I had developed toward the Meat Locust race was that they were essentially clones, mass-produced monsters that took genetic short cuts in favor of speed of reproduction. As such, I expected every ML to look virtually the same. I had carried that truth to the Reapers as well.

So my first reaction to seeing this thing was that it couldn’t be a Reaper. My near-fatal encounter with one had seared the physical image of the monster into my traumatized mind. But instead of gray skin it had a sickly green sheen. Human-like eyes had been replaced with more cat-like orbs. It had four arms like a Reaper, yet a deformed fifth arm poked out of its left side like a sickly tumor. It conducted itself less like a thinking being and more like a fuming animal deprived of its kill. Its ML servants scampered about it excitedly, as if anticipating further outrage and violence. How could a species that thrived on conformity suddenly deviate so wildly?

Scott, our shaken soldier, saw the creature look our way and I witnessed something shift in his gaze. This job forces us to confront insane truths, and I’ve seen the minds of other brave souls ultimately succumb to the surrealness of our monstrous threat. Maybe the creature had seen us, maybe it hadn’t, but it definitely realized we were there when the solider raised his assault rifle and opened fire on the beast, screaming the entire time.

Bullets raked the creature’s chest, some bouncing off, others making shallow pockmarks into its flesh. It recoiled a single step before letting out a hideous roar that spoke of equal parts outrage and hunger. One of its arms grabbed a piece of broken wall, ripped it free, and threw it in our direction. Months of experience had taught me to know when to duck, and so Lazlo and I did so as the creature let fly. But Scott, too busy emptying his gun at the beast, failed to do so. The debris collided with his head and sent him flying away.

With that, chaos decided to join us in full. Another rifle clattered into noisy action, and when the Reaper roared again its voice was far more pained than before. I looked up in time to see Madison send burst after burst into the creature, targeting its limbs and face. Puffs of gray dust erupted from the creature’s skin as it staggered backward, shielding its head with two of its arms. I dared to believe that the situation was salvageable until the pack of MLs screamed all at once and rushed into action, several heading toward Madison and the rest heading toward my location.

I brought up my carbine and began firing at the incoming Locusts near Madison while Lazlo’s shotgun took down a monster leaping over a pile of crates. I saw Theo bringing his gun to bear before I fell into my narrow focus, shooting at any ML that came into my line of sight. Four of the creatures fell before the rest took cover, darting from stack to stack as they looked for openings. The Reaper must have decided that its minions had the right idea and quickly hunkered down behind a large pile of boxes. Theo tried to get a better angle on the beast, but a charge attack by three MLs forced him to waste his special ammo elsewhere.

I didn’t notice that help had arrived until the bearded soldier from outside ran past me and up to Theo, the two of them dragging the injured soldier backward. The female soldier took position behind me and offered cover fire. Theo yelled out an order to fall back as he passed us. I feared Madison wouldn’t follow, but she dutifully retreated with us. Having her gun click dry probably swayed her.

As we moved back I saw the lifeless body of Scott strewn over a moldy tarp. His neck and head rested at an odd angle; no point in checking for a pulse. I think Theo and Lazlo were talking, but I couldn’t make them out over the deafening gun play or the screeches from the MLs. I once took it for granted that I had my comrades’ voices always in my ear. Now we struggled for simple clarity.

Lazlo and I were almost to the front door, the female soldier close behind, when the Reaper made a hideous growl that a sentient chainsaw might make just before going on the attack. The Reaper charged out of its hiding spot, plowing through boxes and pallets as if they were piles of leaves. The air filled with flying splinters and the ear-splitting roar of the creature. The female soldier got off a few rounds before it collided with her, two of its arms batting her away as if tossing aside a doll, the soldier falling to the ground yards away amongst liberal splashes of her own blood. The beast didn’t slow at all.

I screamed out a warning and pushed Lazlo to the side, feeling the wind from the creature’s charge as it scraped by me and hit the wall next to the open door. Another horrendous crash and a new entryway sat side-by-side with the old one. The creature narrowly missed Theo and the other soldiers and continued its run several more yards before it skidded to a halt and looked about, acting disoriented or confused. Perhaps its berserker attack had taken something out it. Theo and Madison got their rifles up and opened fire once more, strafing the beast mercilessly. I was forced to look away at this point because the last of the MLs were charging my position. Lazlo and I brought our weapons to bear, and four more MLs bit the dust.

The echo of a heavier weapon added to the cacophony, and when I had the luxury to turn around I witnessed the Reaper twitching and jerking involuntarily as heavy rounds collided with its body. One of our Humvees had arrived, its 50-calibur gun going to work. I didn’t think even a Reaper could withstand such direct fire, and thankfully the universe agreed with me for once. With several gaping holes dotting its chest, the powerful beast finally collapsed to its knees and then fell forward. The gunfire continued for several long seconds as unconvinced gunners decided that overkill was warranted this time around.

Dr. Tanaka and over a dozen soldiers surrounded the Reaper’s body, Tanaka ordering the troops to snap pictures and take samples as quickly as possible. Wafts of dust were already emitting from the body, so they had little time to waste. Tanaka might have been all business, but his subordinates were slower in reacting, still coming down from the shock of the battle and the horror of what we’d just faced.

“I… I should probably try to study this,” Lazlo remarked distantly, understandably rattled. She gave me a look that said thanks-for-the-save and then moved to join the analysts. I looked back into the warehouse, unsure on where to start on the aftermath, and then noticed Madison walking right through the new jagged opening alone. I almost reminded her that the warehouse wasn’t secure yet, but I caught myself before the words escaped. Instead, I found myself moving to catch up with her. I knew what she was after, because it was the same thing I wanted - answers.

It wasn’t smart to casually stroll through any building with a history of ML infestation. This was a lesson even neophyte Wranglers understood. But I trusted Madison’s instincts enough that I barely gave the surroundings a thought as I followed her through the warehouse. I couldn’t help but stare at the bodies of the two fallen soldiers though – our first battle in the Blind and we were already taking casualties.

We were soon in front of the destroyed office and moving inside. Madison briefly slowly down to check the door and corners, allowing me to catch up and cover her back. Madison finally gave me a quick look as an acknowledgement of my presence. “So that was a Flesh Reaper, right?” she said. “Scary bastard, but I can’t say I was impressed.”

I could see the office interior now, and to the undiscerning mind it resembled the same carnage MLs rendered unto human furnishings. Smashed tables, massive gouges in the drywall, and loads of strewn debris festooned the room. But the enormity of it was unusual, like what a rabid elephant might have done if it had been locked inside and wanted out.

“Help me look,” she ordered as she moved around the interior. “They were after something in here. Tanaka will be in soon enough and I don’t trust him to give us all the answers.” I started looking, but I had no idea what to look for. I started to think Madison was on the wrong track, and I couldn’t help but consider it aloud.

“That creature wasn’t like the Reaper I fought, Madison,” I said.

“I figured that out myself, Hector,” she coolly replied. “I’ve read all your reports. At the very least, it didn’t strike me as particularly smart.”

I took particular interest in the massive hole in the external wall, where I believed a window once existed. Considering all the glass and debris on the pavement outside, it didn’t take a forensic expert to determine that something had smashed it way out of the room. “I think something else came out this way,” I stated.

Madison came over to me and examined the hole. The look on her face suggested she was genuinely perplexed for once. “No ML did this. Perhaps another Reaper was in here.”

“Then why didn’t it come out to face us like the other one did?” I paused as I thought it over. “Also, I got the impression that there was a fight going on in here. Maybe…”

“Don’t say it.”

I gave her my own perplexed look. “Don’t say what?”

“You were about to suggest that a Reaper was fighting another Reaper.”

I switched to a helpless look. “I was just throwing it out there.”

Her look switched to a hard one. “I’ve hunted MLs for years, Hector. I know the bastards pretty well. Yes, they’ve been doing more and more weird and terrible things, and I’ve had to accept that there are unplumbed depths to the creatures. But they do not fight each other. The one halfway decent thing about them is that unlike humans they don’t hurt or kill their own kind. They’ll kill themselves to escape captivity, but that’s it.”

“Then what do you think?” I shot back.

“I…” She shook her head, unwilling to finish her thought. “I’m not going to guess until we get evidence. Just keep looking around until Tanaka’s bunch shows up. I’m going outside to see if I can find some tracks.”

She climbed through the exterior hole and began scanning the ground. I turned away and decided to give the room another search, mostly just to occupy time. The search uncovered no other clues of note, so I went to the doorway to await the arrival of Tanaka’s forces and…

…And there was a note at the foot of the door.

I have to admit that it confused me. I was certain it hadn’t been there before. I could see the writing on it, big ugly letters that reminded me of the scrawl a preschool child might make while attempting their first ABCs. I looked around, hoping to spot someone hiding or running away, but saw no one. I didn’t feel threatened, since whomever left the note could’ve used the opportunity to attack me if they had ill intent. Still, I hesitated to pick it up.

It was the excited voices coming my way that prompted me to act, as I didn’t want Tanaka to take this discovery away from me. I had the feeling that this note was mine and mine alone. I bent down and grasped the paper. Despite the subpar handwriting it was a quick read, for it offered only three short sentences:

Come to Colby Hall.

Come at midnight.

Come alone.

The voices were almost on top of me as I finished the note, Theo and Tanaka’s elevated tones coming through the clearest. I hid the note in a pocket as the group came into view, Theo and Tanaka leading a group of soldiers and having an animated argument. I decided to stand there quietly, acting as if I had been guarding the office. Madison reappeared through the exterior hole and instantly drew Tanaka’s attention.

Tanaka wasn’t happy with us, mostly because we had acted on our own accord without clearing it with him. It was hard to deny their arguments, though Madison gave it a good try. In the end Tanaka sent us away from the battle site and told us to stick to the Oasis until further notice. No thank you for saving the lives of his people or helping to bring down a Reaper. It was getting harder and harder to like the man.

The corpse of the Reaper had regressed to a skinny decaying frame as we moved past it on our way back to our camp. Looking at the fading body, I knew I should’ve felt more pride at our victory, but I only felt cold fear as I weighed our growing collection of unknowns. The creature we had killed had not conformed to my knowledge of Reapers. Something else was out there, something that this Reaper had lost a fight to. Tanaka was showing more of his true colors. And someone was either playing games with me or had the answers that I might need.

Faced with all that, I decided not to tell anyone about the note. Not even my team. I had a decision to make, and I suspected that a lot rode on what my choice would be.

It was a good thing I didn’t understand how big the stakes were at the time. The enormity of my choice would have crushed me.

While there are perks to being confined to your mobile headquarters, such as being able to eat and rest at one’s leisure, it doesn’t do much for your morale. Due to the unsecured nature of the Blind and the fact that we just had a battle within our base perimeter, we were stuck within the cramped interior of the Oasis. Madison was up on the turret doing sentry duty, fuming over our grounding. She would’ve snuck out to go hunting, but Theo impressed upon her how bad an idea that was; as in “kick you from the Wranglers if you tried it” bad.

The rest of us got out a deck of Uno cards and settled in. Lazlo had introduced the game to Theo a few months back and he’d taken a shine to it. I liked it because it was mindless enough for me to fake my attention while I contemplated other things, like debating a midnight rendezvous with a mysterious informant.

I knew I should tell the others. Midnight was three hours away and I didn’t think I could come up with a good enough reason for disappearing at that time. I also didn’t know where Colby Hall was, and it would look suspicious to ask for directions. Most of all, I knew better than to go off alone. I was no Madison, and I doubted even Madison would last long soloing within the Blind. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the informant was legit and couldn’t be ignored. I also considered Madison’s informant, the one that had warned her about the baiters. Were they one and the same? Had he come with us on the operation? If he was, then why contact me instead of her?

My thoughts spun around and around in analytical circles. No matter which angle I attacked the problem from, the risks piled up. I could always ignore the note, but my gut refused to let me. Ignorance can be lethal in warfare, and we were knee deep in ignorance at the moment.

After our fifth game of Uno I finally came to a decision. You might think it sappy, but I really did believe that friendship was the only reason I was still alive. To turn my back on my team for the sake of a mysterious note wasn’t just a breach of friendship – it was suicidal.

Instead of shuffling the deck for the next game, I presented my note. Theo and Lazlo looked at me with confusion at first, then softened as I told my story and explained my thinking. When I was done, Lazlo picked up the note and studied it as if hoping to glean the identity of the writer through his handwriting.

“I miss the old days,” Theo said, rubbed his head absently. “Go out in the wilderness, find some Locusts, study them, and then kill them. When did everything get so complicated?”

“Life has always been complicated,” Lazlo countered, putting down the note and eyeing her boyfriend playfully. “Hell, I like it when things are complicated. It’s when things get simple that you have to be careful. That’s when your options get fewer.”

“Speaking of options, what are they?” I asked.

“I’m not sending you out there alone,” said Theo. “That’s a non-starter.”

“This guy won’t show otherwise,” I replied. “I don’t want to try this any more than you do, but if it’s info about Tanaka or the Reapers…”

Theo shook his head. “We’ve stuck our necks out enough, Hector. If we had firm intel, I might risk it. But not over a random note.”

“Might as well not argue with the man.” Madison’s caustic voice joined the dialogue as she climbed down from the turret. She came over to us and sat on a spare chair next to me, giving us an irritated frown. “Theo wants us to play it safe, so that’s how we’ll do it. Oh, and thanks for including me in the discussion.”

“You have something to say, Madison?” Theo said, returning her hard glare with his own.

“Only that we’re not in a position to play it safe,” Madison replied. “I didn’t go wandering into the warehouse just for shits and giggles, Theo. I wanted to provoke Tanaka, see what he’d do. The fact that he benched us just for acting out of turn confirmed it – he’s in over his head, and he’s scared. We came into the Blind thinking we were going after a crowd of Reapers. We’ve only found one so far, and it came off like a factory reject. Even then, his soldiers couldn’t handle it. What happens when they encounter a smart one? And you feel that constant buzzing in your head, right? It keeps me from wanting to sleep. All this bothers me, and I don’t get bothered very often. The times I do get bothered eventually become a meeting between a running fan and a pile of excrement. I don’t like Dr. Tanaka, but I agree with him that time isn’t on our side. Problem is, we can’t wait for him to rise to the occasion and lead us.”

“Abbott would’ve said the same thing, Theo,” said Lazlo, her eyes warm but her tone implying she agreed with Madison. “I think you know that.”

“Yeah, he would’ve!” he shot back, anger surging into his voice. “It got him killed. If we keep taking insane chances, none of us will survive this. I can’t do that anymore. I won’t.”

Then he abruptly stood up and went to the rungs leading to the turret. Before he ascended, he turned back to us. “I’m tired of trying to stop you guys from throwing your lives away. If you want to chase after this informant, fine. I’ll even take the rap for you disobeying orders. But I’m not sending another friend into the wolves’ den.” Then he climbed up and secured the turret behind him.

Lazlo looked like she wanted to follow him, but I put a hand on her arm to stop her. “He’s giving us as much permission as he can, Laz,” I said.

Lazlo sighed and nodded. “I know how he feels. I don’t want to lose anyone else. Certainly not a complete dork like you, Hector.”

“Then let’s not lose anyone else,” said Madison. She looked directly at me. “You can handle yourself, Hector. I believe that. I also agree that your informant won’t show if the rest of us do. If you think you should do this meeting alone, I’m all for it. But it is a hell of a risk on a number of levels. So let’s prepare as best we can.”

Madison’s speech managed to solidify my resolve. It also distracted me from the fact that I had, once again, agreed to do something very brave and very stupid. I didn’t know how much fortune I had left in my reservoir of lucky breaks, but I suspected I was getting perilously close to empty.

*****

The night felt more oppressive than usual, now that midnight was a few minutes away. Sparse cloud cover gave openings for a few meager stars to show up, but otherwise I had to rely on the night vision goggles I had borrowed from Madison for navigation. The task force had set up a number of battery-powered perimeter lights for security purposes, but I couldn’t walk amongst them. Tanaka hadn’t put guards around the Oasis, but I was certain that his soldiers would detain me if I ran into them. So I slid between the buildings and kept to the shadows, pretending to be a skulking monster while hoping to not run into one.

Thankfully all the other skulking monsters were elsewhere and I made it to Colby Hall unmolested. The exterior of Colby Hall resembled most of the other buildings on the base, outside of being far more intact that the rest. Situated right on the southwest corner, it had no landmarks to distinguish it, nor any warning signs to ward off the curious. The fact that it was named after the chief founder of the base suggested it had importance, but from what little Lazlo could dig up it was nothing more than an administrative building once filled with office clerks filing papers and writing letters. I looked to the north and spotted a lone figure on the roof of another building. She was hunkered down and watching me as I prepared to enter. Sniper rifle in hand, she would protect my meeting place from a distance. But I would still be on my own once I crossed the threshold.

You have fifteen minutes, Madison told me before I departed. You go in there, you talk with whoever summoned you, and then you leave.. You don’t come back out after fifteen minutes, I’m coming in gun blazing.

Lazlo wanted to echo the sentiment, but I had insisted she stay in the Oasis. There was no sense in all of us getting in trouble or killed, but I also intended to keep my promise to Theo.

I grasped my carbine tightly as I used my other hand to try the door knob. It turned free. I was expected, it seemed. I pushed the door inward and stepped inside with care, the door clicking shut behind me.

I had entered into a large room, one still occupied with wooden office desks arranged in simple columns and rusty chairs stacked in the corners. I was surprised by the relative cleanliness of the interior, certainly in comparison to the other base structures. A faint aroma of something more foul came to my nose here and there, an odor that might emerge from an open sewer line. I would’ve been more curious about that unusual smell if I hadn’t been concerned about my immediate safety.

I stopped in the middle of the room, watching and listening. I debated how much time to give my informant when a series of furtive sounds came to my ears. Skittering noises, like that of a small animal. They were coming from an office in front of me, the perpetrator hidden beyond an open doorway.

Oh, I didn’t like my choices. Call out to it and give away my position, or go investigate and possibly provoke the noisemaker? I seriously doubted it was my informant, which meant it was likely something I’d have to shoot. Any gunfire would alert the camp and bring my meeting prospects to a quick end, but vital intelligence aside I really didn’t want this night to be my last.

My carbine led the way as I moved to the doorway. I paused a second, took a breath, and darted in. The barren office had been cleaned out by its previous tenants, but it wasn’t empty. In the far corner rested an animal cage, its wire door wide open. Near it was a pile of food cans, mostly Spam and tuna, and they had all been opened in haphazard fashion, sometimes broken apart, sometimes torn open. Feasting on their exposed contents were a number of rodents, mostly white rats that looked of the domesticated type. They greedily gobbled the spilled food with nary an eye my way.

I confess that it didn’t make any sense to me at first. Someone had brought in a cage of rats to the middle of nowhere and released them just to feed them? Why would…?

Then the epiphany hit. Of course it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t supposed to. The rats had distracted me into a confined space.

A cry of panic escaped my lips as I whirled around to catch my inevitable attacker, but already a powerful hand had grappled my right arm. Then a second hand grabbed my carbine, and a third took hold of my neck, holding my head in place and preventing me from seeing my attacker. I desperately reached for my gun with my left hand, but it was like playing tug-of-war with a bulldozer. The carbine left my grip with a solid yank, and then I felt my body go weightless as I was thrown backward. By some miracle I landed on the hardwood floor instead of on a desk, but my breath left me as the impact cruelly jarred my bones.

My goggles had shifted during the altercation, and I managed to get them back to my eyes in time to see my attacker advancing toward me. I felt a dire certainty envelop me as I recognized the creature. I expected this to be the end. I had gambled one time too many, and this thing had come to collect the cost. Hued in a green outline, this Flesh Reaper properly resembled the monster I had encountered before, with human eyes and a proper quartet of arms and a disciplined poise to its movements. I didn’t bother to go for my other weapons. There would be no point other than to piss it off.

It advanced two more steps my direction… and then halted. It straightened up and gave me a look that struck me as almost condescending, as if it was satisfied with my humiliation and fear. I sat on the floor, equal parts freaked out and baffled, as it moved to one of the desks, opened a drawer, and extracted a flat object. It threw it gently to me, and as I reflexively caught it I realized it was a heavily-cushioned I-Pad.

I had no idea what was happening here, and several long seconds passed as I held the I-Pad while the Reaper stood in place, apparently expecting something of me. It finally lost its patience, glared hard at me and held up one hand flat while using a second hand to point at the first. When the gesture was repeated more emphatically, I realized it wanted me to turn the I-Pad on.

A lot of crazy ideas were whirling in my head at this point, but since my biggest priority was to avoid dying, I did as instructed. The I-Pad screen came on, but it was predictably fuzzy and unreadable. I really didn’t understand what the creature was getting at, but it clearly wanted me to have access to the device.

Then the Reaper closed its eyes, and after a few long seconds I felt a shift in the air, like a pressure change. I couldn’t place it at first, but then I realized that the constant buzzing in my brain that had become symptomatic with living in the Blind had stopped. The only noises in my head were my own thoughts. I looked down at the I-Pad and the picture was utterly clear, depicting the blank slate of a typing application.

I watched as the Reaper’s eyes began to open and shut in rapid succession, not like blinking but more systematic and deliberate. When it finished, a sentence suddenly popped up on the I-Pad. The words on the display were unmistakable.

We little time.

My mind was blowing up all over the place. If I was right, then I had just witnessed the Reaper somehow nullify the Blind’s effect on digital technology, then project a thought onto the screen. “Is… is this you?” I asked the creature, afraid of what its response would look like.

It nodded. A simple straightforward nod.

Okay, more juicy data to give Lazlo if I survived this. Reapers could communicate and use our technology. This new development was more intriguing than horrifying, but only because the Reaper wasn’t trying to kill me yet.

“You can’t talk, I take it?” I said. It pointed to its throat and shook its head. Probably didn’t have the vocal cords for it. Then it did another burst of eye movement and another sentence appeared in my device.

Little time. You make deal with Reaper.

“Are… are you telling me that you’re my informant?” I asked. It nodded. “Do you know who I am?”

Another burst of eye movement. Hector.

As glad as I was that I wasn’t getting the contents of my head removed at that moment, realizing that this thing knew me personally shook me to my core. The boogeyman had my name. No one ever wants to hear that.

“So what should I call you?”

It gave me a slightly annoyed look. Reaper.

“Are you the one who tipped off Madison?” It nodded. “Did you somehow arrange that battle at the farm?” Another nod, then it added: Also sent brethren against you.

I felt a surge of anger start to counteract my fear. I knew that a lot of people were dead as a result of this thing’s machinations, but all this felt personal now.

“Why did you do that to us?” I asked, unable to keep my anger out of my tone.

Test.

“Test? For what?”

Making deal. Only strong make deal. Only strong survive.

Despite my justifiable anger to the creature’s confession, I understood its reasoning. If the Reapers were self-aware, they had to have some kind of philosophy, and the simplest philosophy out there was eat-or-be-eaten. From its perspective, I was only worth its attention if I could survive, and survive I had. I didn’t want to make any deals with this monster, but I didn’t think saying no would be a good move. So I asked what the deal was.

Reaper want life. Keep life if deal. You go to leader. Take screen with you. Tell them location of the Blending. Humans stop Blending. Reaper keep life.

That was a lot to work through, so I focused on the key words. “What is the Blending?”

It looked frustrated as it transmitted, perhaps struggling to properly describe it through digital telepathy. Reapers do Blending. Prepare for coming. Little time. Stop Blending. Stop Reapers. Reaper keep life.

“I get that part, but what does the Blending do?”

It struggled again, and I swear I saw a smidge of something like fear cross its face. Blending ends Reapers. Do not want Reaper to end. Others stop Reaper. Others hunt Reaper.

Just like that, another puzzle piece snapped into place. It explained the fight in the warehouse that had nothing to do with us humans. The deformed Reaper had been fighting this one. I had a rogue Reaper on my hands.

“Why do you need us, though?” I dared ask. “Can’t you send the MLs… your brethren to do the job?”

It shook its head. Blending control all brethren here. Reaper not in control. Reaper resist control of Blending.

I didn’t think that was an entirely truthful answer. I believed it when it said it didn’t have control here in the Blind. Whatever the Blending entailed clearly had a powerful effect over the area. But maybe this particular Reaper was simply afraid of death and wanted those tasty humans to do its dirty work for it.

The Reaper suddenly jerked its head in the direction of the door. It frowned and then looked back at me, still frowning. I worried that it had just changed its mind on making a deal, and I briefly considered going for my pistol, if only to distract it should it attack. But instead it sent another message my way.

Little time. You are known now. Blending sending many brethren. Go to your leader. Look at screen. Screen work now. Do all now before time done. It come soon.

That was a lot of things to tell me in short order, and some of it sounded rather bad. But it was the last few words that forced even more bumps to rise on my skin. “It? What, exactly, is it?”

I didn’t think the Reaper was going to answer me, unless throwing my carbine into a nearby office and storming off toward the far side of the room counted. But before it disappeared through another doorway, it halted and faced me one last time.

I determined two things in that moment. The first was that behind its attempts at civility, it had something like loathing hiding behind its alien gaze. It hated making this deal. It might even hate me. Given better options, I would surely be dead already. But it feared something else more than it hated me.

The second was that one of its hands had crept to its right knee, and I realized there was a sizeable scar on its knee, a scar that resembled a cluster of small holes.

It performed one last eye trick and then exited. I was too overwhelmed by the final implications of this creature’s identity that I neglected to read its last transmitted thought as I stood, pulled my pistol, and raced after it. I had to know how it was getting around the base, but that mystery proved easy to answer when I entered the room and spotted a large circular hole in the floor. It was a large opening similar to that of a manhole.

I was wise enough not to follow. Instead I waited for Madison to enter the building. My deadline had undoubtedly expired and I figured she was the one responsible for spooking the Reaper. My pistol and I-Pad in hand, I stared down the hole, guarding it, looking for answers and finding none. I dared to avert my eyes long enough to read the Reaper’s final message. I immediately wished I hadn’t. It was just one word, but that word frightened me then, and it haunts me now.

Lord.

I don’t know what it’s like for other people, but I was finding that the more insanity I was exposed to, the quicker it rolled off me. Perhaps it’s like developing an immunity to poison – small doses over time allow you to withstand a lethal dose later. As such, I had achieved a certain level of Zen by the time Madison and I returned to Colby Hall with Lazlo and Theo in tow. Thoughts about talkative Reapers and “the Blending” and something called the Lord became just bits of information I was relaying to my comrades. The emotion behind the thoughts, the horror, had diminished to a distant anxiety for now. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I relished my moment of inner calm just the same.

Lazlo was still snapping Polaroids as I finished my debriefing, having flashed her camera over every inch of the interior. Theo had his focus on the entrance to the underground. He dropped a new glow stick down the hole and then looked my way, shaking his head. “Hector, you’re the only guy I know who could charm a Reaper into not eating you.”

“Especially one you shot up,” commented Madison in a very distracted tone. She had switched out her sniper rifle for an assault weapon and had taken position next to the rungs that led down into the hole. Her face wore a level of wariness that I’d never seen before, her eyes never leaving the opening.

I gave them a hard glare. “Glad you two find this funny. You do realize this Reaper is the one that killed Abbott.”

Theo’s face showed me that he hadn’t forgotten that for one moment. “Trust me, Hector, I’d like nothing more than to finish what we started with that one.”

“Same here,” said Lazlo, moving to join us while shaking a fistful of Polaroid pictures around absently. “I have some explosives with its name on it. Seriously, I paint the word Reaper on all my drone bombs now.”

“It took away someone we all cared about,” Theo said. “But if this creature is willing to help us, we’re going to have to put revenge to the side for now.”

I hadn’t expected such pragmatism from Theo, not after his refusal to endorse my previous plan. He must have noticed my confusion. “I hate saying this, but Madison was right.” He shook his head again. “The time for playing it safe is over.”

“Theo agreeing with me?” commented Madison. “Maybe it is the end of the world.” She absently tossed a fourth stick down the manhole even though the tunnel below was already covered in a lively green glow.

“Here’s another sobering thought,” continued Madison. “I’m not sold on the idea that Reapers eat people’s brains. It’s never been confirmed. But if they do, and they get knowledge from the consumption… well, it makes sense that this Reaper would seek our team out, don’t you think?”

Lazlo’s face scrunched up with uncertainty. “I’ve been arguing this point for over a year now. Does this mean you’re going to admit that I’m right?”

“I’m admitting that it might explain this Reaper’s behavior,” said Madison.

Lazlo seemed satisfied with this admission. She then moved my way and asked for the I-Pad. I was surprised she hadn’t asked for it sooner. I suspected she wanted to savor it, make it her cherry on top of a forensic sundae.

“Just don’t erase anything,” I teased. Lazlo stuck her tongue out at me, took hold of the I-Pad, and started in.

Madison’s frown-heavy demeanor deepened as she watched Lazlo go to work. “If the Reaper wants Hector to give this device to our leadership, I’d say that’s a solid reason not to.”

“You think it’s rigged to explode?” I spoke.

“I don’t know what to think,” Madison confessed. “But the fact that the Reaper didn’t kill you doesn’t mean it’s on our side. We did just kill one of its own. For all we know, this is some type of asymmetrical warfare. This I-Pad could be a beacon for a ML death squad.”

“I think it’s mostly videos,” said Lazlo, holding the pad up to us as a video played. A grim look materialized on her face. “Like this one.”

We watched silently as the video showed a scene of an old homestead out in the middle of nowhere. The camera holder had to be hiding in a bush or some tall grass as vegetation occasionally clouded the picture. The shot was also a little on the shaky side, and something kept grunting at weird intervals, but the operator proved competent enough to keep the shot centered on the house. There was a truck parked next to it, and with a flash of alarm I recognized it as the vehicle the baiters had used to transport their prisoners. If that wasn’t enough, I watched as several figures reluctantly filed out of the house toward the truck. It was the same people we had rescued days ago, being escorted by the same bastards we had killed.

Before anyone had a chance to comment, Lazlo zipped her fingers to another file and played it. This one showed the battle at the cabbage farm. At first the fight was cast from a fair distance, Madison and I exchanging gunfire with the rogue SAS team while Lazlo’s drone buzz-bombed the Humvee. Then a chorus of savage howls started up, drowning out the battlefield noise. The picture began to shake and swivel wildly as the camera holder grew distracted, perhaps excited. The final shot was the worst – a stampede of MLs sweeping by the camera, howling and snarling and thirsting for blood, while the camera operator reversed its grip so that the lens was facing it. If there was any doubt left as to who had been manning the I-Pad, the sight of those two black orbs front and center in the video dispelled it.

Lazlo stopped the playback as we processed this newest bit of disquieting knowledge. “So… they can make recordings now,” said Theo, rubbing his head uneasily.

“Our Reaper turncoat can, at least,” Lazlo offered. “I think it was showing its work to us.”

“That bastard really is responsible for the farm debacle,” Madison commented quietly, her eyes growing narrow.

Theo asked Lazlo if there was more. She showed us a folder with several dozen video files in it. Our Reaper informant was quite the filmmaker. We could’ve spent the rest of the night looking through them, but I didn’t think that would’ve been the best use of our time. I asked Lazlo if there was a way to figure out why the I-Pad was functioning inside the Blind. She must have been waiting for someone to ask her that, because she went at the device like a starving lioness getting her fill of zebra, ripping off the protected cushioning and working off its back cover with the help of some tools from her tool wallet.

“I know we have multiple elephants in the room right now,” I said, “but we do have to say something to Tanaka.”

“Do we?” countered Madison. When I gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stare, she let out an exasperated sigh. “I know, I know, we need all the help we can get. Still, we’d be stupid to…”

Lazlo’s shriek ended our conversation and sent us running to her side. Lazlo had laid bare the I-Pad’s hardware on a nearby desk. Her tools were now scattered around the device as her hands covered her mouth, her wide-eyed stare stuck on the gray thread-like substance crisscrossing the device’s interior. I didn’t think I had any more room in my soul for added shock, but those thin filaments found a way to get my skin to crawl once more.

As the rest of us absorbed this newest development, Lazlo recovered enough to grab a mini-screwdriver and tap it on a filament. There was no reaction. Lazlo did a few more light taps in other spots, but the alien material stayed inert. She frowned and looked at us, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head.

“I don’t think I’m reverse-engineering this,” she said. “I think we should leave it alone for now.”

“I think we should burn it,” said Madison.

“I think we’re in over our heads,” said Theo, motioning at Lazlo to hand over the prototype radio she had on her person. “It’s time to call in Tanaka.”

I didn’t share my thoughts at that moment. I was desperately trying to push my dire musings away. Every time I thought I had gained a working understanding of our enemy, the universe opted to throw more revelations into the mix, showing our enemy to be growing more talented, more powerful. I feared that we would reach a point where the only rational conclusion was the one that I desperately didn’t want to believe - that we really never stood a chance.

*****

Tanaka didn’t waste any time meeting with us. A scant five minutes had passed between Theo’s brief radio conversation and the moment when Tanaka came through the door accompanied by five soldiers, two of whom looked like members of his consulting group. Madison tensed up as the soldiers fanned out inside the building. It was possible that Tanaka was merely adding security to our situation. After all, two Reapers from two different incidents had just shown us the vulnerabilities of our base camp. But the lack of any warm feelings from the good doctor or any of his people made me wonder exactly what kind of reception we were in for.

Tanaka had a pistol strapped to his waist, a new addition from last I saw him. He also wore a neutral expression, neither outwardly pleased nor angry. He walked up to the desk displaying the altered I-Pad and stared at it, coolly examining the gray cobweb structure infesting its circuitry. He moved to another desk and leaned against it, looking very tired at that moment.

“So… tell me all of it,” he said calmly.

In the brief window between Theo’s call and Tanaka’s arrival, my team had discussed our strategy. In the end, we agreed to one course of action – let Theo do the talking. Theo moved to stand before Tanaka and did just that.

“We’ll tell you all of it. But you have to do it first.”

“That’s not how this works, Mr. Stockman,” countered Tanaka.

“You don’t get to lecture us about how things work,” Theo dared to say, his eyes narrowing. “We’re a long way away from chains of command and disciplinary hearings. We’re all we have, Doctor. My team will fight and die to protect everyone here, but we need to know everything you know.”

I expected Tanaka to issue a rebuttal or a threat. A lot of leaders resort to such tactics when challenged by their subordinates. Tanaka went silent, looking down at the floor as if contemplating his options, then gave Theo a resigned look that suggested that he was too fatigued or too despondent to put up a power struggle.

“I already told you that this base’s history is irrelevant,” he said.

Theo pointed at the room housing the underground opening. “There’s a sublevel to this base. I’d say that’s relevant, especially since there’s no mention of that in the file you gave us.”

Tanaka quickly told his bodyguards to wait outside. Like good soldiers, they quickly filed out. He then turned his attention back to us. “What I tell you doesn’t leave this room, understand? I will pursue action if it does.”

“We’re Wranglers, Tanaka,” said Madison. “We know how to keep secrets.”

Tanaka nodded. It was true, after all. “The file I gave you is accurate… at least, until 1979.”

Theo crossed his arms and smirked. “They reopened the base. Why?”

Tanaka made a rueful laugh. “There’s another fact that the file doesn’t state - Sylvester Colby committed suicide one month before the base was due to close. And we’re not talking your normal suicide. He was found in one of the barracks having used a kitchen knife to blind and deafen himself. He was somehow incredibly quiet about it and subsequently bled out before a medic got to him.”

I let out a gasp. What would make someone end their life so painfully?

“A short investigation was conducted, the results classified, and the matter buried,” continued Tanaka. “Officially, Colby killed himself over his despondency related to his project’s failure.”

“Unofficially?” Theo asked.

Tanaka shrugged. “I only have so much clout in the military. The brass who keeps this place’s secrets told me enough to help me steer our operation away from embarrassing truths. I did manage to get hold of some of Colby’s medical records. He had been suffering increased anxiety a year before he died, enough so that he started seeing a psychiatrist. One medical report stated that Colby had been talking about ‘the things he couldn’t unsee.’ Colby might have been discredited in public, but his own notes and reports were classified. He also wasn’t the only one to feel unnerved by their time spent at the base. There were other medical reports by staff members who felt uneasy, unable to sleep, constantly on edge.”

“So, what made the government reopen the base and build an underground sublevel twenty years after Colby’s death?” asked Madison.

“Again, my bosses didn’t share much,” said Tanaka. “What I could piece together is that it was an effort to follow up on Colby’s work. Moreover, the idea of wormholes as a real concept was gaining traction. The sublevel was created to house a new testing chamber for thin point experiment. It was hypothesized that the reason Colby didn’t succeed in his efforts is because his alleged thin point was underground and that direct access was needed. Please don’t ask me to explain any of their logic. I think it is all idiocy, made worse by how it all ended.”

“Did someone else die?” I asked.

“Seven someones,” Tanaka corrected. “Less than a year after the base went back online, there was an accident in the underground testing chamber. Some kind of system malfunction caused seven lab workers to get trapped in the chamber. They died by suffocation. After that, the base was closed again. All the entrances to the sublevel were sealed. This is why I chose not to tell you. There was no easy way for the MLs to gain access to the sublevel, and even less reason for them to do so. There are no humans to snack on down there, and MLs are roamers, not hiders.”

“Yet here’s an entrance,” said Madison, pointing at the hole. “And I’m pretty damn sure at least some of them are down there.”

“Your story has a lot of holes in it, Dr. Tanaka,” said Theo. “Are you sure about any of this?”

“No, I’m not,” Tanaka admitted. “Certainly not now. But I’ve told you what I know, certainly more than the brass wanted you to know. Now it’s your turn to talk, and I want to know everything.”

It was my turn to step up, and I didn’t hold anything back. Tanaka wasn’t going to be someone I sent Christmas cards to, but I did believe he wanted the ML threat ended as much as we did. Tanaka’s disclosure of the base’s sordid history had convinced me that keeping further secrets was only going to get more people killed. You’d think this would be a lesson we didn’t have to learn over and over. After all, if the government had come clean about the MLs decades ago our situation might not have gotten this bad. But it does seem that the knee-jerk human reaction to the negative is to hide it, suppress it, deny it, and then hope you’re dead before the truth comes out. Most people are never that lucky.

Tanaka took in all my revelations with his usual thoughtful aplomb, though his slight frown suggested that he was not thrilled. He had taken hold of the subverted I-Pad during my spiel and had fiddled with it at times, seemingly ignoring our advice about not using it. After I finished, he stared for a time at the gray semi-organic mess on the back of the device before speaking, as if looking for answers within that alien gunk.

“Lazlo, can you put this device back together?” he asked.

Lazlo looked at the I-Pad with something like quiet disgust, then shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I have no idea how it’s functioning in the Blind. Hell, it shouldn’t even have power. The battery section is choked with the stuff.”

“Understanding it isn’t the priority right now,” replied Tanaka. “This device is our sole link to the one creature willing to work with us, and we need to use it. Theo, I don’t have a map of the sublevel, but I do know there is a cargo entrance that might be accessible from within. If we can get that open, we can move weapons and gear inside while we scout it out.”

Theo frowned as he sussed out Tanaka’s intentions. “You want my team to go down there and explore further, I take it.”

“Your team obviously knows what it’s doing,” said Tanaka, “even when you’re clearly disobeying orders. I’ll send Delta Team with you, but that’s all I can afford to send right now. I need the rest for the camp.”

“Why not send everyone?” said Madison, looking extremely uncomfortable all of a sudden. Madison was a less-is-more type when it came to people, so for her to want more people on an operation made me wonder what was really eating at her.

Tanaka’s answer was to pull out a handful of Polaroid photos from his jacket and hand them to Theo. “I was going to tell you all this earlier, but I needed to know what you had encountered first. These pictures were taken by Epsilon Team roughly thirty minutes ago. I had sent them back on the service road so they could get clear of the Blind and radio in a report. I was hoping to get some reinforcements. But approximately half a mile from the Blind perimeter, they encountered this. They were nice enough to get pictures before they gunned their Humvee all the way back here.”

Theo handed the photos to me, cursing under his breath as he did so. A quick look at the pictures made me do the same. In the headlights of the Humvee was a horde of MLs, clustering on the road and the surrounding woods. Definitely dozens, probably hundreds. One picture showed them charging the camera holder, so they clearly were aware of us.

“Something that your Reaper said, about little time and us being known and brethren coming,” said Tanaka. “Now it makes sense. I don’t know how honest your Reaper pal is being, because either it or the other one tipped off the rest. Based on how fast MLs travel, I estimate that this pack could reach us within the hour. We came prepared to fight off a large pack, but we must assume other packs are incoming, not to mention other Reapers. There are no other roads out, and we all know that we can’t outrun MLs on foot. There might be something down in the sublevel, or there may not be, but that sublevel is the best defendable location on this base. We may need it.”

“May need it?” Lazlo blurted out, glumly shaking her head. “With our luck, we’re going to need it.”

*****

Lazlo wasn’t going with us this time, as we all agreed that she had a more valuable role to play. She needed to sift through the video data given to us by the Reaper, ideally to give us an idea of what we were up against. Trekking blindly through abandoned tunnels potentially full of voracious monsters was more my kind of job. I did get the privilege of wearing one of the prototype radios, so there was that.

With time at a premium, we geared up and prepared to descend into the vacant sublevel with barely a plan to speak of. We’d start with finding the cargo access room, where there was certain to be a larger door to the surface. Getting the door open would require either manual effort or electrical power. We’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

The four fresh faces that composed Delta Team awaited us at the manhole entrance, none of them volunteering to go first. Madison made to take the plunge, then hesitated at the opening as if a case of cold feet had suddenly hit her. She pulled a flash ball and tossed it down, filling the darkness below with steady pulses of cobalt light. A smart move, I thought, but when she didn’t proceed downward, I again considered what else was going on. Theo eventually walked up to her, put a hand on her shoulder in that reassuring way comrades in the know do for their friends, and then made his way down the rungs.

I went second, mostly because I wanted to get the moment over with. A basement sublevel was just an oversized survival shelter to me, so you can imagine how little I wanted to go down. But circumstances required me to be brave, and so I climbed down. The world faded to a flashing series of ill-defined images as I reached the bottom, then grew focused again as Theo tossed the active flash ball down the tunnel, allowing our flashlights and glow sticks to consistently illuminate the surroundings.

We had entered a downward-curving tunnel that felt more like an escape route than the entrance to a science lab. Deactivated lights and tiny vents dotted the walls, but I couldn’t make out any side doors or rooms. The chill air did nothing for my nerves, but at least there weren’t any easy ambush spots for our foes.

Madison finally came down, looking far more clenched up than usual. She walked past me without a word and took point as the Delta Team members climbed down. I really wanted to ask Madison what was going on with her at this point, but it was an understandably bad time for caring and sharing. I still trusted her, but I found myself keeping one eye on her as we proceeded down the tunnel.

I blame Hollywood for implanting notions that we would be running into booby traps or a bottomless chasm or a rush of rabid MLs. But not only was our initial foray trouble-free, we hit a room within the first minute. A metal door stood ajar, its lock and handle bent as if yanked open by something extraordinarily strong. Three guesses as to what caused that.

The dark place before us reminded me of another large warehouse, but this one was far more cluttered than the one above us. The ceiling was now a good twenty feet up, dust motes doing ballet in our light beams. The cruelties of time had led to collapsed shelving and broken crates, creating a wreckage maze that blocked much of the room from easy view. Garbage aside, it was hard not to be impressed with the size of the underground facility. Someone clearly believed in Sylvester Colby’s theories enough to throw plenty of resources into building this sublevel. But what had the MLs seen in the place?

We followed Madison as she deftly maneuvered us through the maze. As we climbed over the remains of several crates, I noticed the prevalence of ragged claw marks on most of the material. Typical ML behavior was to wreck human furnishings when they could, so there was no doubt now that the MLs had been here.

We finally came across the first of our objectives – a cement ramp leading up to a sizeable steel door. It had been obscured from our view by an orgy of discarded equipment and packaging, as if the previous staff had been told to seal up the sublevel in the middle of moving out. Despite being peppered with a smattering of shallow claw marks and dents it seemed reassuringly impenetrable, but now we needed it penetrated. One Delta Team member had an engineering background, so Theo ordered Delta Team to stay at the entrance, see if they can find a way to manually open the door, and clear a path for incoming equipment. Our team would finish exploring the room.

“Maybe we should hold off on further exploration until we get the main door open,” I suggested to Theo once we were outside of easy earshot from Delta Team.

“We can’t have the rest of the task force come into an unsecured area,” Theo replied.

“Isn’t the Blind technically an unsecured area?”

Theo let out an exasperated sigh. “What do you want from me, Hector? You want me to be the cautious leader or the gung-ho type? We have to take some chances.”

“Yes, some chances, but this place is too big for the three of us to search effectively.” I felt my caution was warranted. I still couldn’t make out the rest of the shadowed room through the labyrinth of shelving and storage. I couldn’t even tell if there was another exit.

“We’ll start with securing the route between here and the tunnel to Colby Hall. We’ll set up an easy path to follow. Sound safe enough for you?”

I couldn’t help noticing Theo’s acerbic tone. I figured he was less worried about us and more concerned with leaving Lazlo behind, under the protection of Dr. Tanaka’s untested leadership. Since there wasn’t much either of us could do about it, I let my mind wander to a distracting question.

“So, what is that tunnel to Colby Hall anyway?” I asked more or less rhetorically. “Some kind of fire exit?”

“Probably,” said Theo. “Smart people don’t typically build sublevels with only one entrance.”

“Yeah, but why does it lead into a building and not outside? Containment? Secrecy?”

Theo glared at me. “I’m supposed to guess at the mindset of a bunch of freaky scientists from decades ago?”

Suddenly regretting this line of thinking, I also finally realized Madison hadn’t joined in the conversation. Instead, she was anxiously staring at the steel door with the kind of look that a psychic made to will a door open. I was now concerned enough about her atypical consternation that I asked Theo for a quick aside before we kept going. We found a spot further away from her and I quietly asked if he’d noticed Madison’s behavior.

“This is Madison, Hector,” he stated. “She’s got more steel than blood in her. She’ll be alright.”

“She’s distracted, Theo,” I countered. “We’ve been surrounded by dozens of man-eating monsters on two separate occasions, and I’ve never seen her as disturbed as I see her right now. What do you know?”

I could see the indecision in his eyes. He clearly knew something about Madison. But then he shook his head, denying an explanation. “It’s my job to know her history, Hector. But it’s not my place to tell you, not unless it becomes an issue. Let’s just focus on…”

I missed the rest of his statement as Lazlo’s voice cut in, making me jump. “Tanaka is asking for a sit-rep, Hector,” she said. “And I have news of my own.”

I gave her a quick update, and she did the same. Hers was more interesting: “We’ve found the external cargo entrance into the sublevel. Some clever dick thought to build a tool shed over it and call it a day. Tanaka thinks he can demolish the shed and get the door partially clear within two hours. Then we can rig a generator to open the door from the outside. We’re also fortifying the building I’m in, just in case we have to defend it while the task force evacuates underground. Oh, and if you hear a big boom, that’s just the shed exploding. Tanaka brought dynamite.”

“He… he brought dynamite?” I replied.

“Seems a little Loony Tunes, right?” she said. “But it makes sense. We can’t exactly trust remote detonators. Don’t worry, it’s military dynamite, meaning it’s free of nitroglycerin. More stable that way.”

I wasn’t reassured, but I held my tongue. I signed off and rubbed the back of my sore neck as I relayed Lazlo’s information to Theo. My stress was understandable, but it also felt like the constant drone in my head was intensifying. Theo’s grimace suggested he was back to his unease over Lazlo, and I couldn’t resist an attempt at reassurance.

“Lazlo is safe right now,” I said. “Safer than we are, probably.”

He gave me a questioning look. “Don’t give me Hallmark clichés, Hector. Let’s just get back to…”

He looked around in confusion. “Madison?” I searched the immediate area. Delta Team was still dealing with the door, but Madison had disappeared on us.

“Shit,” Theo muttered. “Not the time, Mads.”

After a few minutes of searching, Theo found a path in the crate maze opposite of our position and concluded that Madison mostly likely used it. While not a smart move to spread ourselves out further, we needed to find Madison before her recklessness got her killed. The two of us hurried through the gap and into the rest of the debris maze, sacrificing caution for speed. I called out her name once, my words reverberating creepily through the dark facility. Theo hushed me, reminding me that we were in enemy territory and shouldn’t be announcing our presence if possible.

Our pursuit came to an end when the maze abruptly gave way to a cleared section near the far side of the chamber. My carbine rose to the ready as I took in the ominous scene before me. Much effort had been spent by parties unknown to pile up debris against the nearby walls, creating a clearing devoted to a brand-new form of Meat Locust machination. The space contained dozens of small figures frozen in positions of submission around piles of broken calcified material. We stepped around stone-like figures of MLs in various states of disrepair, their hardened bodies surrounded by growing piles of dust as bits of them broke off and dissolved. This was a Reaper birthing site, a massive one, and I counted at least nine separate birthing rituals.

If I had been a more naïve scientific type, I might have thought this a gold mine. ML tissue, live or dead, was virtually impossible to come by. But these ML corpses had become something more mineral than biological, and little had been learned through the study of the samples Team Abbott had acquired all those months ago. Our enemy’s biology worked on a level beyond our understanding, and this orgy of ML debris only served to taunt our ignorance.

One figure in the mess proved human. Madison stood in the middle of the clearing, ignoring me and Theo as we called her name and approached. Her rifle-mounted flashlight aimed toward the wall to our right, the beam projecting into another tunnel leading out of the chamber. This tunnel was far larger than the previous one, able to fit motor vehicles if needed. I noticed a metal rail track built into the floor, the starting point only a few feet away from my position, the rest of it disappearing into the tunnel’s gloom. I wagered it was a cargo tunnel, used for shuttling equipment from this room to the actual laboratories.

I walked up to Madison cautiously, scanning her for distress or injury. She looked physically okay, no signs of blood. But she was acting like an army of Locusts were about to come charging out of the cargo tunnel. For all I knew, she might be right.

“Madison, why didn’t you wait for us?” I asked.

“I can’t think in here,” she said softly, her eyes remaining focused on the tunnel. “I needed to get on with it.”

“Do I need to send you topside?” said Theo. “You know you can’t go hunting on your own.”

“Don’t bench me now, Theo,” she said.

“You’re not okay, Madison,” I replied gently.

“Look at your feet, Hector,” she calmly stated. “Look at the floor all around you.”

I didn’t think Madison was in a rational frame of mind at the moment, yet I couldn’t help but do as she asked. My flashlight touched on the concrete floor below me, showing up a thin level of dirt coating it. Not dirt, though. It was the same color and consistency of the ML corpse dust, and some of it was in thick chunks that crunched underfoot, like dried mud that flaked off the treads of boots. There was quite a lot of it. Some spots were two or three inches deep in places. I expanded my search and realized that the three of us were standing in the center of a huge circular pile of detritus.

“Something else was made here,” Madison explained in a haunted tone. “Follow my light.”

She pointed her beam at a spot on the edge of the substance circle. Inhuman footprints could be seen on the concrete heading away, a torrent of them. On the edges the prints were the familiar three-toed form of a ML. A few were larger than the others, suggesting that Reapers were among their number. But the center of the stampede was a chaotic mishmash of shapes, some like twisted handprints, others like that of a floppy appendage dragging on the ground. Some large and malformed entity had half-walked, half-dragged itself through the dust pile, leaving behind a thick trail that faded into the cargo tunnel. Judging from the width of the trail it was around fifteen feet wide.

A creeping dread found me and dug in. The word Lord came to mind, and I considered the possibility that this newest creation was that very thing. I found myself staring into the tunnel, wishing I had a ton of dynamite right then. I’d have sealed the cargo tunnel entrance and lived out the rest of my time on the planet ignorant of the full horror we were fighting.

Thank God for Theo, though. He interrupted my escalating terror by throwing out the observation that these tracks looked several days old. For whatever reason, he had his mind firmly on working the problem, not understanding its implications. Madison seemed to respond to his words by taking her eyes off the tunnel and looking around the scene. She then agreed – all this had occurred at least a week ago. It snapped me out of my panic, because our Reaper ally had said the Lord was something still to come. Whatever had been born here wasn’t the Locust endgame, at least not yet.

Stuck in a dark unexplored facility, with a pack of MLs hiding about, a horde of MLs approaching, no rescue coming, and still no answers to my growing list of questions, I took what little hope I could. Sometimes, a little hope is all you need to keep moving.

We decided to follow my advice and hold position within the cargo chamber until we could muster our task force. To that end, we spent the next hour shifting enough crates and rubble to give us a direct path from the steel door entrance to the cargo tunnel. Two men from Delta Team were now stationed at the cargo tunnel entrance. They would alert us with active flash balls if anything larger than a rat showed up.

On the good news front, our engineer found an access panel that would allow us to power up the door using a portable generator. To that end, Lazlo and the other topsiders came up with a rope harness designed to ferry supplies down the manhole entrance, including a small generator that we hoped would do the trick. Tanaka also deigned to spare us three more soldiers for the operation, helping to clear enough room for our incoming supplies once we opened the main door.

Theo ordered Madison to take a breather, and so she found a crate to perch on while keeping an eye on the cargo tunnel, holding her rifle in her lap and looking dejected the whole time. I managed to find a moment between carting around heavy objects to ask her if she needed anything. She shook her head and kept her distant vigil. I normally knew better than to push her too hard, but we no longer had the luxury of affording mental breakdowns. I wasn’t all that far from one myself, and I was far from alone. I caught off-hand comments from the other soldiers, describing the gnawing irritation from the buzzing like it was a weight growing heavier and heavier on their minds. I wanted to rely on Madison, but I needed to know if I could.

“Is this claustrophobia?” I boldly asked. “It’s okay if it is, you know. There’s no shame…”

“Shame?” She didn’t look at me, but her dark tone told me plenty of her mood. “You think being afraid of tight places is enough to give me shame?”

“I have no clue, Madison,” I said calmly. “But I would like to know. Remember when you told me not be a hero on things like this?”

Madison looked at me finally, made an odd grunting sound, and then looked back at the tunnel. “You know what bloodshed does to you, Hector? It scars you. It always does. Even if you never receive a knife wound or a bullet hole, you come away from it wounded. Parts of you just don’t ever work the same again. But… sometimes you’re not sure which parts. If you lose a hand, it’s obvious. If you lose your soul…”

I sat down next to her as I waited for her to continue. She closed her eyes for a time, like a diver mustering up the courage to jump off a cliff. When her eyes opened, they were different than before – distant, and haunted.

“I had a tour of duty in Iraq fifteen years ago, back when the country thought we could cure all our terrorist ills with perpetual warfare in distant lands. My squad was in charge of investigating possible sites for chemical weapons, and we had a pretty impressive score of zero out of forty-three operations. On Operation Forty-Four, one of our informants had told us about an underground bunker out in the desert that Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard had supposedly frequented on a regular basis. Reynolds, my squad leader, was tired of constant failure and thought it was time to think outside the box. So, the nine of us went there without waiting for proper backup, hoping to catch some Saddam loyalists being naughty.

“The bunker only had one entrance in and out, not big enough for transport vehicles to use. I already suspected that this was going to be another bust, but Reynolds had us go in anyway. I suppose if I’d been in charge, I’d have done the same thing.

“I smelled it before I saw it. That’s what happens when you enter a tomb – you smell the rot before you see the bodies. There was a series of storage rooms that were being used to store several corpses, maybe two or three per room. Most likely they were political prisoners from Saddam’s reign, or reprisal killings from Saddam loyalists. We already had enough reason to leave and get help, but Reynolds didn’t care about dead civvies as much as finding WMDs. One doesn’t get promotions if one doesn’t impress the brass. So, we pushed in further, eventually coming to a room not unlike this one.”

Madison closed her eyes again, no doubt to prepare herself for the next leg of her memory. “I was on point, maybe thirty feet ahead of the squad, and so I was all by myself when I heard voices ahead, speaking Arabic. I found a group of four men berating a family of five at gunpoint – one man, one woman, and three children. I took cover and listened. I only understood a smattering of Arabic, enough to gather that the gunmen were calling the family disloyal while the family pleaded that they had the wrong people. I could see where this was going, so I radioed Reynolds and asked him for orders. He took his sweet time getting back to me, and then only to ask if I could see any chemical weapons. When I said no, he told me to get back to the squad – we were leaving.”

She slowly shook her head as a tear slid from the corner of one eye. “I had joined the military because I thought I could do some good. I wanted to save the innocent, and I didn’t care if the innocent were American or Iraqi. Reynolds, on the other hand, didn’t want to take risks unless it made him look good. We were already out on a limb authority-wise. If there had been WMDs, he figured we’d be forgiven for not following procedure. But that family was just another poor Iraqi family. They weren’t enough to risk his command or our lives. So, the squad left… and I followed.” She made a rueful laugh. “Back then, I wasn’t the suicidally brave person you know now. I was a good little soldier, still trying to prove I belonged in the military. Reynolds somehow called it in without implicating us. When I read the report later, there were five more corpses than I had previously counted.”

Before I could reply, she held up a silencing finger. “I don’t want to hear it wasn’t my fault. I could’ve argued harder. I could’ve forced us into a confrontation. Maybe I would’ve been dishonorably discharged. Maybe I would’ve gotten myself or other members of my squad killed. Maybe the family would’ve died anyway. It’s all a bunch of what-ifs. All I know is that I did nothing, and those people… those children…”

She laughed again. “So now you know my big motivation - guilt. This place we’re in… it wears on me. I feel like I’ve gone back fifteen years, and that I’m about to find something truly horrible again… and I won’t be able to stop it. Only this time, the casualty rate is going to be a lot higher than a single family.”

“It’s not fifteen years ago, Madison,” I finally said. “We can stop it this time.”

She gave me one of her patented don’t-kid-me stares. “We still don’t know what it is. I’m sure Lazlo has her ideas, but I’m afraid to ask her. She tends to be right. You don’t know any more than the rest of us.”

“True,” I replied. “But I can’t help but try to be Mr. Positive, while you can’t help being the kick-ass Wrangler you’ve always been.”

Madison laughed. “I guess we’re both hopeless in our own way. I do appreciate your…”

I would’ve liked to have heard Madison’s compliment, considering how infrequently she gave them, but Lazlo’s frantic voice over the radio drowned it out. I had to ask her to repeat herself, but instead she informed me that this wasn’t something she could convey over the radio. She needed me back at the manhole.

Madison told me to go meet Lazlo, her gaze back to its steely focus once more. “I’m where I need to be, Hector. You and Lazlo figure out what we’re up against. Then point me at it.”

*****

When I arrived back at the manhole entrance, I was surprised to see Lazlo down in the tunnel. She was flanked by a few bags of supplies and a pair of standing electric lanterns which kept the scene shadow free, but she was otherwise alone. She leaned against a wall with the Reaper I-Pad in hand, now half-wrapped in some kind of aluminum foil. She didn’t smile when she saw me, too agitated to give me her full attention.

“Don’t mind the wrapping,” she explained as she beckoned me to her side. “I wanted extra protection between me and the stuff inside the device, in case it, I don’t know, tries to get touchy-feeling or something. I have videos for you to see.”

“Shouldn’t you be showing them to Tanaka?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be, you know, above ground?”

“Firstly, I don’t trust him one-hundred percent. Secondly, I work better without people watching me. Thirdly, it’s safer to be down here right now.” She swiped her fingers along the smooth surface of the I-Pad as she talked, looking for the proper file. “Ten minutes ago one of the sentries spotted a pack just outside the base to the south. Another pack is maybe five miles out to the west. But the cargo door is clear on our end, so we just need the damn door open.”

She found her desired video and started it up without further comment. The video began in total darkness at first, then gathered an eerie purple luminance that depicted the scene well enough for me to see the proceedings. From the angle of the video the device operator appeared to be filming from atop a section of shelving inside the cargo room our team currently occupied. A large pack of MLs were in motion, the violet glow emitting from several of their members. Yet another new trick to the MLs, though it failed to impress me. Other creatures danced about their glowing brethren as if celebrating the occasion. Soon the luminous ones formed a circle, kneeling down to adopt the kowtow pose common to their Reaper birthing rituals. I realized this was one of those rituals in action. Our Reaper ally had been diligent enough to make a recording.

As the video continued, the skin of the participating creatures began to change texture, shifting color to a bluer hue as a grimy substance formed under their bodies. The substance took on a life of its own, flowing and merging into the center of the ritual circle. The video ended just as the center mass began to grow, taking on an egg-like nature, while other MLs frolicked like children experiencing a sugar rush.

Lazlo immediately started a new video. As the scene opened, artificial light streamed in from an off-scene source. We had skipped the incubation phase of the ritual and were now witnessing a fully grown Reaper breaking out of its egg. It punched and thrashed its way free, the newborn Reaper soon standing amidst a throng of servile minions who proceeded to wipe the excess calcified material from all six of its limbs. This one had darker skin than our Reaper ally, but otherwise seemed remarkably similar in physicality. It started to walk about the gathering like a general inspecting its army, knocking aside any ML that didn’t get out of its way fast enough.

A second hatching was occurring in the background, and by the time the camera-creature focused on it the next infant Reaper was already standing and snarling. But this one wasn’t like the previous Reaper. I recognized the deformed extra arm, making it clear this one was the Reaper we had fought and killed.

The normal Reaper came up to it as the malformed Reaper looked about with confusion. I made out a scowl on the normal Reaper’s face. A third Reaper then appeared from off-screen, and the two normal types began to shove the malformed one around. The MLs didn’t seem to know what to do other than steer clear of the escalating altercation. The shoving match began a brawl as the malformed Reaper lost its temper and lashed out at its siblings. It could do little against the more measured movements of its siblings, its wild attacks slowing as the other Reapers stared it down. I suspected they were using their mental abilities to subdue it, and as the video ended it finally bowed its head to the others, submitting itself as if it was just an overgrown Meat Locust.

“So our dead Reaper really was a factory reject,” I commented. “They must have sent it out to find and kill our turncoat Reaper.”

Lazlo didn’t respond to my observation other than to swipe her finger once more and summon a new video. This video started much like the first one, a gathering of MLs about to begin a new birthing ritual. This time, there were far more than ten MLs participating. I counted maybe twenty-five Locusts rushing together, forming a pile of writhing, screaming bodies that poked and bit at each other with insane frenzy. I thought at first they were trying to kill each other, but then their bodies began to adopt the purplish glow apropos of the birthing ritual. The pile lit up like a macabre Christmas tree, and much to my dawning horror I saw hands begin to merge with other hands, faces melting into the flesh of other bodies. Some of the creatures lost their shape, twisting, lengthening, flattening, and mutating in all manner of grotesque permutations. I almost told Lazlo to turn off the video, not wanting to see this to its conclusion, but as the process continued the footage began to grow distorted, hiding most of what transpired beneath static and distortion. Seconds later, the footage went to black and never recovered.

“I’d say that was your mystery creation being born,” said Lazlo. “It must be putting out so much Reaper radiation that even this modified I-Pad couldn’t deal with it.”

“The Blending,” I muttered. I wasn’t trying to be cryptic. The words just slipped out as I processed this newest development.

“You think this is what our Reaper ally meant?” asked Lazlo, her gaze quizzical.

“Maybe. That process the MLs were undergoing sure seemed to live up to the word. I didn’t see any Reapers in that mass, though.”

“Maybe it’s just the beginning process, the foundation. Maybe Reapers got added to the mix later. These Reapers seem to be not just intelligent, but rational. Perhaps our turncoat Reaper is afraid of being absorbed, losing itself.”

I mulled it over silently. Self-preservation was a relatable motivation. “None of this explains what they’re up to, though.” Lazlo looked away from me, doing that pose she did when she had an idea that she wanted to share but didn’t think the response would be receptive. “Laz, if you have any wild theories, I’ll take what I can get.”

She still seemed torn on sharing. I added that I wouldn’t tell anyone else if she didn’t wish it. “I’m not worried about ridicule, Hector,” she confessed. “I’m worried about the implications. Mainly… I think the MLs are trying to use the thin point inside this base.”

“Okay, that’s a plenty wild theory,” I replied, unable to keep the skepticism out of my voice. “Reasoning?”

“Well, let me make it clear that I don’t think the MLs originated from this area. The base was decommissioned in 1959; the first MLs showed up in 1958 and nowhere near this place. But I think something happened in 1979. The military doesn’t shut down bases over accidental deaths. I think they were messing with a thin point and it messed back at them in a bad way. We also know that Reaper radiation has a massive range. It exists at a wavelength or dimension beyond what we currently understand. It could be that this place, the thin spot in particular, is sending out its own energy signature, acting like a beacon of sorts. We’ve been assuming the MLs were behind the Blind’s radiation, but what if the thin point is the source? Remember how Tanaka told us about the psychological strain Colby had been under, how other staff felt uncomfortable themselves? Perhaps some people were sensitive to the thin point’s energy in the past, back when it was weaker, but I think the MLs are enhancing it now to the point where it’s strong enough for all of us to feel it.”

At that point I agreed with Lazlo about one thing – I didn’t like the implications. “I suppose this is where you tell me the MLs are trying to open a wormhole to their home world,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging emphatically. “Maybe they’re using it to send an intergalactic signal. Maybe they’re using it to cause a spatial disruption that will tear the world apart. Your guess is as good as mine. But they obviously care about it enough to send an army against us. The last count on those packs surrounding the base stood at over six hundred and thirty.”

“Yet we’ve had zero activity down here,” I countered. “If this place is so important, why aren’t the MLs already inside the base attacking?”

“I don’t think they can,” she replied. “I think the ones we saw on the videos used up most of their number creating Reapers and whatever constructs they needed to… you know, do whatever they plan to do. I think the leftovers were with that feral Reaper, which we took out. We might be able to stroll right up to their underground lair and knock.”

“Or they may be planning an ambush.”

Lazlo sighed heavily. “Yeah, that too. And before you ask me, no, I don’t have any idea what this Lord thing is. It’s probably the big cheese of the whole ML army. For all I know, they’re going to make it like they make the Reapers, or they’re bringing it here from somewhere else.”

I hadn’t wanted to ask her. Every time I thought of the name, I felt twinges of panic invade my calm. I didn’t know why. We knew nothing about this nebulous being, yet I couldn’t shake my discomfort at even mentioning it, like a child worried that mentioning the bogeyman’s name would cause it to come out from under the bed.

Lazlo’s face then switched to a goofy smirk. “Remind me – do military leaders have the power to conduct marriage ceremonies? Mom always wanted me to get married while she was still alive. Think Theo will go for it?”

I honestly couldn’t tell if she was serious, and I stammered briefly until her smirk turned into a smile. “Had you going there for a second, didn’t I?”

I laughed. I needed to, all things considered. “I wasn’t at all sure you were the marrying type.”

“Maybe I am. But long-term plans must be on hold, don’t you think? Hell, what’s the world going to look like in a couple of years? Normal is dead and new-normal is gasping for air.”

She had to end her thought there as an incoming transmission drew her attention. Before coming to meet Lazlo, I had given my radio to Theo, so I was no longer privy to radio chatter. But Lazlo was nice enough to convey the good news – the engineering team had successfully wired up the generator and the door was starting to roll open. The good news only lasted a few seconds as Lazlo’s smile switched to a frown. The door was jamming at the halfway mark. Apparently, you couldn’t entirely rely on decades-old mechanical gears to stay in perfect working order. People and portable equipment could still be moved in, but not our vehicles. Our heaviest artillery would have to be abandoned.

The next bit of bad news came in the form of distant weapons fire. I could trace it to the surface, the quantity and volume escalating as I listened. Lazlo and I exchanged fearful stares – the MLs had to be starting their assault. I wanted to tell Lazlo to go join Theo, to stay down here and be safe, but she was already climbing up the manhole rungs before I could speak. I followed her up instead.

The first thing I noticed upon clearing the manhole was the ring of dynamite charges bordering the underground opening, their fuses wired into a bundle for easy lighting. Tanaka’s people had been busy in the few hours since I’d been topside. There were a number of boxes and duffel bags in the room, full of foodstuffs, medical supplies, and various survival gear. Three other soldiers were present, taking positions at windows with their guns at the ready, barely noticing our arrival.

A sliver of sunshine graced the morning outside, the cloud cover that had followed us to the Blind having moved off to the north. It was shaping up to be a sunny day, and I lamented that I wouldn’t be seeing it. I could hear gunfire erupting from all over the base, punctuated by sharp explosions, screaming monsters, and the occasional scream of a human meeting a terrible fate.

“Help me get what gear we can down the hole,” Lazlo said, moving to gather a massive duffel bag. “We’re under full assault. Tanaka is sending a demo team to this spot, but if they don’t show… well, you know how to work a butane lighter.”

We worked as fast as we could, tossing down the more durable gear and lowering what wouldn’t survive a short fall. But we only got to half the supplies before two soldiers ran through the main door, one wearing a copious amount of red over his blue garments. They frantically moved a pair of desks in front of the door, all the while arguing with each other over whose fault it was that their other compatriots hadn’t made it.

I stopped moving supplies and asked the soldier not covered in blood about the situation. In between gasping breaths, he stated that the damn monsters were overrunning everything. The surviving task force members were heading for the main underground entrance. Anyone who couldn’t make it there was supposed to come here. He had been part of a six-person squad tasked to protect the south side of the base. They had watched a wave of the beasts approach their position, taking their time as if knowing their prey couldn’t go anywhere. When the wave passed the established contact line, the squad had opened fire. They had to have killed dozens, but it was like firing into a hurricane. The order to retreat went out and the squad had run for it, but the other four soldiers had gotten cut off.

He might have continued with his sad story had Lazlo not calmly reminded us that the MLs were heading this way. She then started handing out orders to the other soldiers, telling them what gear to save and what to leave behind. Theo must have rubbed off on her because no one questioned her authority as we worked to salvage what we could while holding out for any more survivors. No one reasonably expected anyone else to arrive at our doorstep, certainly nothing human, but we waited just the same.

The first sign that it was time to head underground was when a ML launched itself at one of our windows. The creature smashed into it, but failed to break through it, clinging to the frame as it repeatedly bashed its head against the cracking glass. The soldier nearest the window opened fire, deafening the rest of us as the creature fell from the window with two holes in its face. Other windows registered impacts, forcing us to abandon the rest of the supplies as we played whack-a-mole with the creatures, our guns knocking them down as they appeared. Lazlo and I changed tactics and started tossing flash balls out the windows, lighting everything up with azure glare. The ML assault lightened up enough for me to shout above the bedlam, demanding we exit. No one argued.

Lazlo went first per my insistence. She tossed the bundle of fuses down the hole just before she climbed down. Three soldiers went before me. The last two, the sole survivors of their ill-fated squad, told me to go ahead of them. I could see in their eyes they weren’t in the mood for an argument, so I obliged them. They stationed themselves at the hole, filling the air with bullets as I descended. I hoped they weren’t choosing to make a last stand.

We grabbed what gear we could manage as Lazlo brought out her butane lighter. Yelling a thirty-second warning to the two soldiers still above us, she lit the fuses. As a group we moved as fast as our encumbered bodies could manage down the tunnel, the echoes of battle at first fading in our wake, then growing louder again as we grew closer to the cargo area.

We didn’t make it all the way before a frantic voice called out from the tunnel behind us. I dropped my gear and turned to see the bloodied soldier running to catch up, warning us that the horde was right behind him. I hadn’t been counting down the seconds before the explosion – it had to be close to detonation. Stopping was probably a bad idea. But I could make out several MLs loping after the man, and my heroic sensibilities kicked in. I dropped to one knee, raised my carbine, and picked off the pursuing creatures as they came. It proved surprisingly easy, what with the narrow corridor and the single-minded pursuit of the creatures.

Then the world turned to smoke and pain as the blast wave surged down the tunnel, enveloping us with a choking dust cloud, my ears ringing painfully as I ducked down to avoid the worst of the effects. Stunned, blind, and deaf, I was easy prey for a surviving Locust. But as the dust abated and my senses cleared my fears proved groundless. The only Locusts present were disintegrating on the ground. The soldier I had tried to save lay among them, still as a corpse… until he moaned and started to stir.

Lazlo came to me as the rest of the group went to the injured survivor. She gave me a half-smile and helped me to my feet. “You really can’t stop yourself, can you?”

“Saving people, you mean?” I replied. “It’s probably a fatal condition.”

Her smile faded, as did her humorous tone. “I hope not. Some of us might miss you when you’re gone.”

I smiled at that. Truth be told, before I had met Madison and Theo and Lazlo, before my life had plunged into a darker trajectory, I didn’t really have anyone else in my life. My parents had died in a car accident a decade ago, and I have no siblings. The rest of my relatives were distant for various reasons. My friendships had been few, my partners fewer. I envied those people who could maintain their connections to others. Mine always seemed to drift away, no matter what I tried. Perhaps that was why I had put up with an unreliable girlfriend like Larissa for so long, and why I had tried to save her all those months ago. Yet here, under the earth, with death closing in from all sides, I had found a family of sorts.

But death hadn’t stopped its advance. The sounds of battle beckoned our group to limp onward, even though I doubted we could add much to the fight in our current condition. If Madison and Theo couldn’t hold the sublevel, the rest of us didn’t stand a chance.

I was glad that we had taken the time to clear an adequate path through the debris maze because the minute it took to reach the rest of the task force felt like one minute too long. I feared we would alive just in time to see a flood of inhuman death pouring into the cargo room as it tore apart our friends. But the flood proved a mere trickle, the MLs dying as quickly as they came on. The large metal door groaned in protest as it slowly slid closed, bottlenecking the incoming creatures into a narrow kill zone.

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until the door closed and my lungs insisted on new air. Madison and Theo were okay, both having killed their fair share of MLs. Theo found Lazlo almost immediately and gave her a panicky hug, clearly fearing for her safety. Madison seemed more alive now, as if the familiar act of dealing out death had suppressed her earlier disquiet. At least for my team the reunion was a happy one.

My calm only lasted until I took in the situation and realized the damage wrought on our task force. A ghastly pile of Locust corpses littered the floor around the main door, and I counted two other corpses that had once been human. Several soldiers had suffered significant injury, one of whom lay on the cold cement as two other people tried to control the bleeding from a dozen wounds. Dr. Tanaka sat on a wooden crate, his face wearing the haunted look that people got when they’d just been pushed beyond their limits. His left hand was heavily bandaged, as well as looking smaller than normal. A quick head count put us at eighteen people, including my team. Tanaka’s consulting group had been reduced to three. Less than half our total task force had made it into the sublevel alive.

As we recovered from the shock of the attack and took further stock of the situation, the news only got worse. Tanaka’s crew had only managed to bring in a small percentage of our total gear before the MLs attacked. Ammo was in short supply. The shielded radio system and one other generator had been saved, so we did have some communication. Funny enough, the mechanical harness I had seen before, which I now knew to be a powered exoskeleton supplied by DARPA, had made it inside. One of Tanaka’s fellow consultants had been wearing it to carry supplies into the sublevel.

With Tanaka in no shape to take command, Theo went ahead and organized our defenses, putting soldiers at all three egress points out of the room. He ordered the remaining troops to take inventory and create a new base camp while our team and Tanaka discussed our options. Tanaka let himself be guided through the room until we found a quiet corner. By then, Tanaka seemed to recover enough to be communicative, though he kept cradling his injured left hand and looking out toward the main entrance as if afraid it would open again.

Theo then asked Tanaka what happened. In a cool emotionless voice, Dr. Tanaka gave us the gory details. He had pulled back his patrols and positioned his squads around the base for optimal defense. Two Humvees had been placed near the main sublevel entrance. The other two Humvees and the APC had been used to bolster the defense squads. Claymore mines and simple snares had been set. Every blue-colored lantern and spotlight had been deployed.

Tanaka and his fellow consultants were in the process of ferrying supplies into the sublevel when the attack came. The soldiers committed themselves with bravery and honor, but bravery can only hold out so long against the sheer power of numbers. It took less than four minutes to go through all our flash balls, explosives, and most of our ammo. Hundreds of Locusts had to have died in the assault, and yet they came on.

“I’ve read all the reports, you know,” Tanaka mused, his tone distant. “I knew how single-minded the MLs can be. But I don’t think you can really prepare for it. They’re like ants in a way, willing to throw almost everything at their enemy so long as they don’t throw absolutely everything. It’s total war. Humans don’t do total war very well. We worry too much about dying.”

Tanaka dropped his digression and returned to his debriefing. Realizing that his defenses wouldn’t hold much longer, Tanaka ordered the task force to retreat to the sublevel. Most obeyed, but a few of the vehicle gunners stayed at their positions to offer the rest a chance at escape. It was possible that those gunners might be still alive if they buttoned up their vehicles in time, but they’d be trapped just the same, stuck in cramped quarters with little in the way of supplies and an army of human-eaters constantly trying to get inside.

The final leg of the retreat was the worst, as the task force rushed the half-open entrance at the same time Tanaka’s people were still trying to get supplies inside. The ensuing logjam undoubtedly cost a few people their lives… and cost Tanaka a finger from his left hand. The rest we already knew.

“So, what do you think, Team Abbott?” he said, regarding us with a dark look. “Half our force is gone. Our air is questionable, our combined battery power will last less than two days, our food and water might get us through a week, and we have no other way out of this sublevel.”

“We don’t know that,” I pointed out in a knee-jerk fashion.

“The entrance into Colby Hall is buried under a ton of rubble,” Tanaka pointed out. “I doubt the architects behind this base thought a third entrance was needed. They didn’t design this sublevel with withstanding a siege in mind.”

“It also won’t hold forever,” said Madison. “The MLs can’t get through the front door, but they can move rubble. They won’t get tired, and they won’t give up. Give it a couple of days. They’ll dig in here soon enough.”

“So, again, Team Abbott, what do you think?” said Tanaka, his voice growing more tired as he spoke.

“Find the test chamber and stop the MLs,” said Theo. “Seems obvious, really.”

“Damn right,” said Madison. “What else can we do?”

“Sit and wait,” said Tanaka coolly. His tone suggested he was deadly serious. “If you haven’t noticed lately, heroics are getting us killed. Right now, there’s only one way into this room where the MLs can come at us easily, and we don’t even know if there are any down here with us. We fortify that entrance; we can survive until reinforcements get here.”

“But you told us they weren’t coming,” I said. “Your people never got clear of the Blind.”

“True, but we have an overdue limit in place,” he clarified. “You’re familiar with that term, correct?”

I was, though it didn’t come up much. If a Wrangler team went a certain number of hours without communicating a sit-rep to headquarters, we would be declared overdue. Another team would then be sent in to find us, typically a larger one with more resources. Team Abbott had never triggered an overdue limit. Most teams hadn’t, since triggering one meant one of two possibilities – either your entire team was grossly incompetent, or your entire team was dead.

“We’re eleven hours over our limit,” Tanaka continued. “They should be sending reinforcements our way as we speak, certainly within forty-eight hours. If we don’t weaken our position further, we might live long enough to see them.”

“But this isn’t about us,” said Lazlo. “We may not have forty-eight hours. The world might not have forty-eight hours.”

“You don’t have any direct evidence of that,” said Tanaka. “I won’t order anyone to go further without actual proof.”

“Then don’t order us,” said Madison. “We’ll volunteer.” Madison gave the rest of the team the look that said you’re backing me up here, right? I nodded, as did Theo and Lazlo.

“I know how you’re feeling right now, Doctor,” said Theo. “You prepared as best you could, and shit still went sideways. It makes you question everything you did, and everything you’re going to do. But you knew something bad was going on in this region. Your gut told you that, despite the lack of direct evidence. You’ve seen what the MLs are throwing at us here. We even have a rogue Reaper telling us that we must act before it’s too late. You can hold the line here, but please let us do our job.”

Considering the sorry state Tanaka was in, I doubt the consultant could’ve put up much resistance had Theo decided to have our team forge ahead regardless of Tanaka’s decision. But I understood Theo’s desire for cooperation. We would only survive this if we could avoid further division. So, I was relieved when Tanaka gave us his blessing. Walking further into the lion’s den was not my idea of a good time. But it beat waiting for the monsters to come to us.

“One more thing,” said Madison, clearly sensing an opening. “We’ll need your best toys.”

It was too bad that there were few “toys” left for us to pick over, but we did procure one nifty piece of gear – the powered exoskeleton. It wasn’t much to look at, mostly a set of metal braces connected to actuators and a large battery pack. Most sci-fi movie fans would scoff at its unsexy design, but it did allow us to carry a M249 light machinegun. Combined with a special swivel mount, it turned the exoskeleton into a mobile machinegun nest. Best of all, we had two-hundred rounds of armor-piercing goodness at our disposal. It was our best bet against any Reapers we might encounter. On the negative side, its reaction time was limited, as was its maneuverability, and its battery life was down to slightly over two hours, with no replacements available. Theo insisted that he use the exoskeleton, touting his size and combat experience. I expected Madison to argue, but she took one look at the exoskeleton, wrinkled her nose, and said no thanks.

I noticed Lazlo rummaging around the camp but didn’t think to ask her what she was after. I was too distracted by the mood of the other troops, the tangible feeling of shock they exuded as they tried to go about their duties. I saw one man sobbing over the covered body of the man the medics had tried to save. Two female soldiers almost came to blows over who got the camp’s last remaining fruit cup. Another soldier kept loading and unloading his pistol while staring off into space. At one point I thought it foolish for Team Abbott to head off on our own, considering we still had a bunch of soldiers capable of fighting. But my observations showed me that they weren’t ready to continue. They had faced the enemy head-on, had felt their ravenous intensity, their utter disregard for life. It would take time to come to grips with that kind of savagery. A small team of hardened Wranglers would fare better than a larger group of rattled warriors.

Then came the moment when Theo attempted to convince Lazlo to stay behind. I knew he would try it, just as I knew she wouldn’t listen. She gave him a hearty earful, ranging from the fact that she was the best qualified to keep his exoskeleton running to the insulting insinuation that she couldn’t handle herself after all this time. She wasn’t letting us go without her. I expected Theo to get angry and try to get her restrained or something dramatic like that. But he surrendered the point with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen on him. Lazlo broke protocol by giving him a full kiss on the lips and said it would be okay, that we hadn’t yet met a ML that could beat us. I think Theo simply realized that there was no sanctuary for her now, no way to distance her from what was coming. Then he glanced my way, and in his eyes I knew he was not-so-gently reminding me of my promise to protect Lazlo. I nodded to him, not because I was certain I could fulfill it, but because even the bravest of us need to believe in things that may not come true.

We could only afford an hour of rest, and I failed to get any. I fixated on an old Wrangler tradition, the one where you leave behind a letter or statement for your next of kin to receive when you went to battle, in case you didn’t return. Lazlo and Theo had stacks of letters stashed in PO boxes, all of which would be released to their parents and siblings upon their deaths. Madison had one letter that she kept in her cabin back at Lake Crusoe, and she refused to say who it went to. I had one letter in my personal drawer back in the Oasis. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. I had written it because I wanted to leave behind something. In my letter, I had thanked my friends for everything, and I had declared how wrong it was to have had so many people, so many Wranglers, live and die without recognition. The world owed them its gratitude, not its silence.

I realized that if I didn’t survive this mission, then most likely none of us would. Hell, I wasn’t sure if the Oasis would survive. It might get bombed into oblivion if the military decided to nuke the region, or the MLs would get bored and rampage through it. It was likely no one would ever read my letter. I really should have left it at my old apartment.

Funny what worries us right before we take the freefall into darkness, isn’t it?

*****

The cargo passageway hadn’t changed in the slightest since I last laid eyes on it, but now it reminded me of a python’s throat - one long hungry tunnel slowly sending you to your doom.

The four of us stood in front of it, giving our equipment and weapons a final check. Near us were the four soldiers stationed at the mouth of the tunnel, giving us looks that simultaneously conveyed “go get them, Team Abbott!” and “glad we’re not you guys.” They had set up another light machinegun and a few snares as part of their defensive line. Better than nothing, but patently inadequate.

Lazlo and Theo did radio checks with the two radios Tanaka had bequeathed us. They both observed increased distortion in the transmissions, not surprising since it felt like the buzzing in my head had ramped up a level or two. It was like talking on the phone in your bedroom while a neighbor outside your window air-blew their lawn constantly. Any doubt I had left about the source of the Blind anomaly was gone.

Theo tested out his exoskeleton one final time, moving his frame about in a rigid fashion. He didn’t seem happy with the results. “This thing lists to the right slightly. I suppose it’s too late to get a tune-up.”

“Damn it, Theo, I’m a hacker, not a mechanic,” replied Lazlo, doing a very-bad Doctor McCoy impression. It still elicited a chuckle from one of the other soldiers.

The tunnel was wide enough for Madison and Theo to advance side-by side. Madison had insisted on this arrangement, as she didn’t think Theo could react quickly enough on point but she definitely didn’t want him right behind her. It was clear she didn’t trust this new piece of military equipment. I couldn’t tell if our earlier talk had helped her at all, but she seemed ready for a fight just the same.

“Anyone want an uplifting speech before we go in?” Theo asked. “If you do, I hope you have one. I’m all fresh out.”

“No speeches needed,” said Madison, taking her first steps into the tunnel. “We know who we are.”

“We do,” I said. Theo and Lazlo echoed the sentiment as we passed into the tunnel together.

The murky tunnel kept to a straight shot for at least a hundred feet, the only remarkable features being the rail track traveling up the center. It felt like a subway passage at times, a thought that occasionally triggered an irrational fear in me regarding a rail car materializing out of the dark to run us down. Somehow that was more comforting than the real threats we were likely to encounter.

Our first significant landmark proved to be a pair of doors to our right, clearly marked with nice white lettering that told us we had found the generator room and a custodial closet. Both doors were locked with no damage present. The MLs likely hadn’t gained entrance. I commented with dismay that we might have gotten electrical power supplied to the facility had we explored the tunnel earlier. But Madison pointed out that these generators had been sitting around for decades and were probably in serious disrepair. In any case, we called in our discovery to Tanaka, and he agreed to move up the defensive line to the doors after his soldiers cleared the two rooms.

Not far from the doors the floor began to gently angle downward while simultaneously curving to the left. It took a couple more minutes of travel before we came to the conclusion that we were in a downward spiral. The wall on the left-hand side of the tunnel took on a more metallic appearance as we continued. Lazlo observed that we had to be walking around a chamber of some type, perhaps the famous test chamber we’d heard so much about. Gaining entrance to it was apparently not going to be a simple adventure.

We dropped at least a full story before we came across a yellow line painted across the floor. Dingy and faded, it marked some unknown milestone in the passage. As I stepped over it, I swear that the buzzing in my head escalated even further, as if my pesky neighbor had added a second air-blower to the mix. I suddenly had a sharp desire to turn around, to declare this mission over and have us retreat to the relative safety of the cargo room. The others halted in their tracks as well, and I have to wonder if they were experiencing the same doubt. But we had a kind of inertia working in our favor, the type where kinship and duty can override survival instincts. I managed to withstand the momentary burst of doubt, as did the others, but the feeling never did go away completely.

In hindsight, I now think the yellow line was a warning marker. The scientists who had created this facility must have known that their experiments would create some kind of emission or radiation, and that yellow line marked the point where staff might feel some kind of effect.

Not far past the yellow line, Theo’s exoskeleton began to stumble and would’ve toppled over had he not been next to a wall and able to brace himself. As luck would have it, the floor had unexpectedly leveled out in this section, so it was as good a place as any to stop and inspect the machine. As Theo detached from the exoskeleton and Lazlo attempted to diagnose it, Madison and I elected to guard the scene, Madison taking the forward position while I took the rear. We didn’t expect trouble to come from behind us at this point, but one didn’t survive as a Wrangler purely on expectations.

As I listened to Lazlo swear at the exoskeleton, I took up sweeping my light over the walls of the tunnel in a methodical fashion, mostly to occupy my mind by catching something interesting to look at. That’s when I caught something interesting – an odd splotch of bluish-white substance that immediately reminded me of the crystalline residue that came from converted ML bodies. The same stuff infecting our subverted I-Pad. This bit resembled the vein-like pattern slime mold took as it grew, and as I moved my beam I found a thin trail of it snaking along the wall, leading down the tunnel. I felt my insides clinch up as I stared at it, debating whether to declare it to the others or to scrutinize it further. I was leaning into the smarter choice, telling my friends, when the substance glowed.

I thought it had glowed, at least. A faint spurt of blue in the darkness, barely visible but there, nonetheless. The entire strand had lit up ever so lightly. At that moment I felt oddly compelled to move closer, like the compulsion one gets when your curiosity overwhelms one’s common sense. The residue tempted me with a new discovery, and I took a step toward it, then another, and so on. The closer I got, the less threatening it seemed and the more I wanted to touch it.

When I was within arm’s reach, I stretched out my arm and touched a finger to the substance. It felt chalky and delicate, yet I also got a peculiar tingle out of it. My mind began to whirl with fragmented images, jumbles of memories that came and went in a split-second. Most of them were snapshots of random people, places, and things, as if a bunch of memories had been thrown in a blender and then reassembled from the mix. A few came with a brief twinge of pain, as if they were incompatible with my mind. Those images focused on some kind of foreign landscape, with sharp, narrow, towering mountain peaks, featureless and barren of all life, all underneath a blood-red sky…

It came to a hasty end when my hand was yanked away. The turmoil faded instantly as Madison’s stern face filled my vision. “What the hell, Hector?” she said, working an uncertain tone between anger and concern.

I couldn’t answer at first. I wasn’t even sure where I was for a few seconds. I looked back at the wall residue and my mental clouds lifted enough for me to get my bearings. Fear replaced my earlier curiosity. What the hell indeed, Hector?

“I… don’t know,” I stuttered. I tried to explain my compulsion, but I think Madison only half-heard me. She was now looking at the stuff directly, and I saw her expression change to something softer. But then she shook her head hard and pulled a knife from her belt sheath. She scrapped at the substance and knocked a piece off. It crumbled into nothing before it even hit the ground. At almost the same time, another minute burst of light came from the substance. Madison took a step back as it happened, having seen it this time. Either that, or she noticed the other thing I had just picked up on – that the edges of the substance had grown an inch in tandem with the glow, continuing its slow expansion along the wall.

“Something interesting about the wall?” Lazlo’s teasing remark foretold her arrival as she and Theo came up to us, still out of his exoskeleton. She then noticed the substance and her eyes widened. “Well… shit.”

“Try not to look at it directly,” advised Madison. “It‘s… surprisingly attractive.”

Once the residue did its glow-and-expand routine once more, we were all on the same page. Theo ordered us to look around the tunnel for other residue paths, and in short order we found a few more trails clinging to the walls, mostly on the ceiling. Now whenever they glowed, I could make them out with little effort.

“This stuff is getting brighter,” I pointed out.

“I agree,” said Madison. “Whatever this substance is linked to, whatever anomaly the MLs are propagating, I think it’s intensifying. We better get moving.”

With Lazlo’s help, Theo managed to get strapped into the exoskeleton. It still leaned too much for comfort, but Theo altered his gait to compensate. I was beginning to wonder if the exoskeleton was worth the effort, but after discovering the walls were sporting alien growth, I was willing to risk it for the added firepower.

The tunnel began to descend and spiral again as we continued, and I found it harder to concentrate as we progressed. Maybe it was the pressing realization that the Meat Locusts were further along in their plans than previously thought, or it was the fact that I had to keep looking away from the walls to keep from getting entranced. The uncanny nightlights littering the tunnel grew thicker and more proliferate further down the tunnel. Some spots had tumorous projections that acted as junctions, new tendrils sprouting outward in multiple directions along the wall. For some reason, the material avoided the floor, for which I was thankful.

Theo began to curse at regular intervals as he struggled to keep the exoskeleton moving. Madison had gone silent and steely once again, falling further into herself. Lazlo kept talking to herself, rattling off potential names for the substance growing on the walls. As for me, I couldn’t shake the feeling we had stopped walking through a human construction and had accidentally stumbled into the bloodstream of a humongous creature. I had the feeling that if we didn’t bump into something we could shoot soon, our so-called hardened Wrangler demeanors were going to crack wide open.

We reached another level spot in our spiraling descent. The glow from the walls was strong enough now that we could see most of the tunnel without difficulty. So, it was hard to miss the solitary four-armed figure standing in the tunnel, stone still and seemingly lifeless. We brought up our weapons at once, outlining the Reaper’s body with our lights. The Reaper was turned toward the wall to our right, its form stuck as if it was playing a game of freeze tag. It didn’t look calcified, and it didn’t look dead.

“I think we should blast it,” commented Madison in a low tone.

“No, wait, it’s our turncoat,” Lazlo hurriedly stated. “Look at its knees.” Sure enough, it was scarred in the right places. Our missing Reaper informant had been found again.

“Still think we should blast it,” Madison replied.

She almost did so, not out of spite but because the Reaper suddenly moved, its right leg taking a long step forward toward the wall, then stopping and going rigid again. I looked at its face and saw its intense grimace, as if it was in great pain or great anger. I could swear its eyes were now staring my way.

“Damn, there’s a door right there,” said Theo, pointing his light at the wall our Reaper was aiming at. Sure enough, half-covered by residue tendrils was an unremarkable door, adorned with the words Exam Lab 2. Had we been missing other doors, other rooms? A disquieting thought, though I had no urge to backtrack and look.

Lazlo was already pulling out the subverted I-Pad from her backpack, and she made a brief chuckle as it turned on, showing us what was on the display. She had prepped a text screen and it already had new words on it: you here finally.

“So this is happening,” Lazlo commented. “My first conversation with a Reaper. Wish I could record it.”

“Hector, ask it what’s happening,” Theo instructed me, training his machinegun on the creature.

“It understands you, Theo,” I replied.

“I don’t trust myself to be civil,” he growled. I understood. This thing had murdered his best friend, and he was remaining polite merely by not blowing it into chunky bits.

Lazlo gave me the I-Pad as I turned to the Reaper, took a deep breath, and started the conversation. “Why didn’t you come to us?”

I didn’t see its eyes blink this time. Perhaps it couldn’t blink in its current state of paralysis. But the words materialized on the screen as before. No trust others. You not make deal with leader.

“We were busy not dying,” said Lazlo. I gave her the cut-the-comments look and she made a conciliatory gesture.

“What she said is correct,” I added. “What’s happening to you right now?”

Came down to hide. Blending growing stronger. Hard to resist. Room protects.

“Must be talking about the exam room,” said Madison after I read the words to the group. She pointed at the door our Reaper was heading for. “Perhaps it’s shielded from the Blind’s radiation.”

“Can you tell me what the Blending is doing?” I asked the creature.

There was a long delay before the words came this time, the Reaper’s body shifting slightly as it slowly moved toward its supposed salvation. Get Reaper into room. Will tell you.

“No way in hell,” said Theo. “We’re not getting into a room alone with this thing.”

“Probably the only way we can get it to cooperate,” I said.

“How about threatening its life?” said Madison.

“If it doesn’t get protection, it’s going to get… blended, I guess,” I replied. “It’s dead either way.”

“If it wants our help, it has to give me a reason,” said Theo. “How about telling us what these tendrils on the wall mean?”

There was another long delay. I think the Reaper was debating how cooperative to be at that point. It must have decided to appease Theo because new words finally showed up. Extensions of Blending. Absorbing special energy. Preparing region for… It paused again, then added: Process… hard to describe. May affect your minds.

I saw its face soften for a moment, as if it had gotten a reprieve from the mental assault. It twisted its head our way and formed a smirk. No more. Get Reaper to room. Leave in room. Will tell you what to attack to stop it.

I read aloud the words and gave Theo a hard look. “That’s a deal we can’t ignore, Theo. I’ll go in there if I have to.”

“It might just decide to snack on you instead, Hector,” said Madison.

“No, he’s right,” Theo declared through gritted teeth. “We need to know what to do. But I’ll go in instead. Just keep your gun on him. If it tries anything, waste it.”

Theo detached the SAW from its swivel mount and handed it off to Madison, who quietly took the weapon even though her eyes were declaring matters as a bad idea. Theo moved behind the Reaper, took a moment to size him up, and began pushing the Reaper’s back. Despite the straining actuators and Theo’s grunting his efforts increased the Reaper’s speed to a crawl. An improvement over the previous foot-an-hour rate, but we couldn’t afford the delay. I gave the I-Pad back to Lazlo and slung my carbine. I grabbed an arm, trying my best to hide my revulsion at the gritty feel of the creature’s skin, and pulled with all my strength. It barely helped, but it was better than watching.

A minute of exertion went by as I sweated and strained against the Herculean strength of the Reaper. In that time, we had gone several feet, and I could’ve reached out and touched the doorframe at that point. I snuck a peak at the creature’s face, and it was still unnaturally calm, almost amused. Perhaps it had fought off the Blending’s influence and was pleased with itself. Or perhaps it was holding dark thoughts about eating our brains when this was all over. Regardless, I found its expression discomforting.

That is, until its mouth suddenly jerked as if spasming. Its eyes changed color, losing their human quality and changing to the familiar black holes of the MLs. It happened so quickly that I barely had a chance to register it, much less react, and before I knew it the arm I had grabbed was grabbing me instead, right at my neckline. It lifted me off my feet as if I weighed as much as a kitten. I wheezed as my airway constricted, unable to choke out a single syllable. Then I went airborne as it heaved me away. I slammed into the wall next to the doorway, my back screaming with pain as I hit one of the wall tumors, breaking it open and spreading a cloud of residue all around me.

I saw Theo wrestling with the bastard, managing to hold his own against two of the thing’s arms thanks to his exoskeleton but then quickly getting outclassed as the Reaper brought all four arms to bear. I saw Lazlo move in with her shotgun. And then…

Then the old world blacked out and a new one played before my eyes.

Much like before, it started with a flurry of human images, the familiar parade of memories from people like you and me. But then the alien landscape showed up, along with the throbbing pain that went with it. In this land there were no rocks or loose dirt, no color beyond an omnipresent gray and the dark-red sky. It felt like no landscape I’d seen on our world, or any planet I knew of. It was too smooth, too unnatural. The mountains were more like gigantic needles, the kind a sea urchin defended itself with. In short order the human memories faded completely, replaced by the landscape, the pain… and something else.

As the biting pain became constant a Reaper materialized before me, standing in this land of desolation as if preparing to be my tour guide. Except I could tell it wasn’t really there, and that it wasn’t really a Reaper. It was a ghostly outline, translucent, reamed in a pale blue aura that flowed around it like water. Nearby another Reaper appeared, and this one I recognized as our erstwhile ally. It looked upon the phantom Reaper with something akin to fear. The phantom Reaper turned its attention to the real one, whose knees quivered and then buckled as it bowed to the phantom, an act of supplication much like what had happened to the bestial Reaper.

Phantom Reaper seemed satisfied by this, and thus turned back to me. Its facial expression was hidden under its blue aura, but its glowing black eyes bore into me. I didn’t know black could glow, yet in this horrid mindscape it could.

Impressions appeared in my thoughts, but with no voice. This thing didn’t have a voice like we did. Its thoughts came into my head as if my brain was just another text program. I could sense what it desired – everything. It saw me as a crumb, a mere morsel that dared to think better of itself. I sensed it had existed for untold millennia. It had seen cosmic delights and terrors I couldn’t even conceive of. And it was almost here. Conditions were almost right. I could feel its eagerness permeating my mind like a foul smell. The hunger. Oh, the hunger.

This was the Lord. Not a physical thing, not another construct, but a mind of unfathomable age and intellect. Yet… yet it could only stand there, judging me. In this mental land, in this place that mirrored its true home, it couldn’t do anything more. It couldn’t touch me… not yet…

“HECTOR!”

Another shocking swerve of an awakening hit me as Lazlo’s face hovered in front of mine. I found myself leaning against the wall I had collided with, my back throbbing but my head clearing. She saw recognition in my eyes and sighed in relief.

“Please stop doing that,” she politely begged. “Where did you go?”

“To a meeting with the Lord,” I stated. I don’t know if I was trying to be funny, but based on Lazlo’s horrified face I certainly failed to achieve humor.

Past her, Theo was standing next to the remains of the exoskeleton as Madison applied a bandage to his right forearm. Madison had a long slash across her vest in the chest region, but no sign of injury. Thankfully, our Wrangler vests had been designed to withstand some degree of biting and clawing, but whatever had hit Madison had nearly torn it in two. I presumed our former Reaper ally had done the damage.

I asked what had happened while I was… out. In a nutshell, Theo and the Reaper had a brief wrestling match before Lazlo pumped a few shotgun shells into the Reaper’s face. The Reaper reacted by fleeing down the tunnel. Madison had zigged when she should have zagged, resulting in a slashed vest and a broken rifle.

“Told you we should’ve blasted it,” said Madison.

“Not the time for a told-you-so,” replied Theo. “You okay, Hector?”

Despite the ache in my back and the residual throbbing in my head, I had escaped serious injury. “I’ll live. For what it’s worth, Madison, Theo made the right call. It was still fighting for control. And I learned things.”

Madison and Theo came over to me as I relayed my newest experience. “I think I was hooked into the Blending. I think the other Reapers are already part of it, and the human memories of the people they’ve eaten as well. I think they’re integrating all their minds into one construct, and the Lord is a type of controlling intellect, coming from some dark place in the universe,” I explained. “The Blind, the Blending – it’s all for bringing the Lord here, where it’ll take full control of the MLs.”

Madison glared at me. “How do you know you’re not getting your brain scrambled, Hector? How can you trust anything you saw?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t, and I can’t. But it’s all we have at this stage.”

“But it makes sense, don’t you think?” said Lazlo. “I’m starting to think Hector is one of those sensitive types, like Sylvester Colby was. That’s why the Reaper went to you instead of the rest of us. Maybe your mind is more compatible to their version of a psychic network.”

“Are they opening a wormhole?” asked Theo.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think the thin point is something they can use to connect their Reaper radiation to the Lord. From that point on, I don’t know how it goes.”

“I can guess,” said Lazlo. “For starters, imagine the Blind covering the entire planet. The only real advantage we have over the MLs is our tech. Take away communication and computers and we’re a bunch of disorganized apes shooting in all directions. Meanwhile, the Lord will coordinate the Meat Locusts into a single army with one mind in charge.”

I mostly agreed with Lazlo, but her hypothesis didn’t feel complete. “There’s something else to it as well,” I said. “Something worse. All I know is if the Lord gets into our world, that’s it. Everything is… done.”

“We need Tanaka and the rest of the troops,” Theo urgently declared.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” Madison shot back. “I don’t know how much of this insanity I believe, but even I can tell that we’re running out of time.”

Theo’s eyes bore into Madison. “We still don’t know what we’re walking into,” he said, his tone alternating between anger and desperation. “These tendrils are the tip of the iceberg, and it’s already messing with our heads. I’m not throwing our lives away for a mission we can’t win, especially since we just got most of our gear wrecked.”

“Not all of it,” said Lazlo sheepishly. As the rest of us turned to her, she took off her backpack, opened it, and showed us its contents. My jaw dropped when I saw the three bundles of dynamite, each bundle composed of seven sticks. I’m no explosives expert, but I was pretty damn sure that was enough to turn the four of us into confetti if they detonated.

“Jesus!” said Madison. “You’ve been carrying this the entire time?”

“It’s military dynamite,” she explained. “I figured we might need it.”

Theo closed his eyes and shook his head, somehow managing to calm down despite the circumstances. None of my usual breathing techniques were working this time out, and I was feeling squeezed all over.

“This doesn’t change anything, Laz,” Theo calmly stated.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Lazlo snapped back. “Madison is right, Theo. If we leave now, even if it’s to get reinforcements, the Lord is going to show up and eat the world.”

“Don’t we have radios?” I asked.

“We don’t,” Theo admitted. “The Reaper radiation is too thick now. Even the prototypes don’t work.”

“Then we know what we have to do, don’t we?” I said, hating the words as I said them but knowing them to be the truth.

“We do,” said Lazlo, looking not at me but her boyfriend, putting a hand to his cheek. “You know it, too.”

Madison looked away, acting like she was watching for threats from the tunnel ahead of us. I like to think she was giving the two of them a measure of privacy. I think Madison had always known that the Wrangler life would kill her eventually, but she had made her peace with ending that way. That’s why she’d been willing to sacrifice her life for me all those months ago, why she continued to be so gung-ho against the Meat Locusts. But Theo wasn’t like that. He had made friends with Abbott and had fallen in love with Lazlo. His consternation wasn’t just the pressure of command, but the concern of a man who had dared to care for the people that shared this dangerous life with him. His reward for caring, it seemed, was to have us all die. We had dodged death, cheated fate, and fought the monsters at every turn. But the odds had diminished too far. He knew what we all knew – if we went any further, we wouldn’t be coming back intact.

Theo held Lazlo’s hand for a long moment, then gently removed it from his face. He took Lazlo’s pack and zipped it closed, then donned it himself. “I actually know how to plant charges, so it only makes sense that I carry it,” he stated.

Lazlo grabbed her shotgun and didn’t argue, though the sad look in her eyes made it clear that she wasn’t happy with winning the debate. Madison politely kept her mouth shut as she took up the light machinegun that was now detached from the exoskeleton. I offered my carbine to Theo, but he declined it, instead pulling out a pistol and flicking off the safety.

So here we were, not far from the end of it all. Exhausted, terrified, sore, and sad, I still managed a bit of pride within that hurricane of negative feelings. Four Wranglers set against the end of the world. It was the most romantic of hopeless battles. I could at least pretend that our tale would be shared amongst a future generation, even if the odds were good that there wouldn’t be one.

*****

Locust matter – it was the name Lazlo came up with for the semi-organic material that liberally coated the walls. As we walked the last leg of the tunnel toward the entrance to the test chamber, the Locust matter became so thick that it was impossible not to look at it. I think Lazlo had the right of it, as usual – I found myself drifting toward the walls, feeling a terrible desire to strike up conversation with the Lord again. I felt oddly disjointed and off-balance much of the time, so much so that Lazlo took to locking arms with me to keep me from wandering.

As we completed another loop in the spiral, the tunnel walls utterly disappeared under the weight of the Locust matter. Their glow bursts were so bright now that we had no problem seeing every detail of each grotesque tumor and growth surrounding us. There was no way this degree of growth was solely the product of transformed Locusts. Some other power, some new reality-bending trick, was being deployed. The floor remained remarkably unblemished, and I could only assume that it was deliberate. The Locust matter did seem particularly delicate to kinetic impacts, so perhaps keeping the floor clear was a means to minimize damage. Or perhaps it was a ruse created to funnel ambitious humans into a kill zone.

At that point I felt what a drug addict must feel when shot up full of their favorite opiate. The world kept slipping out from under me, replaced with half-seen images of alien vistas and an oppressive force demanding I reconnect with it. The only way I could fight the impulse was to close my eyes and reduce the hypnotic pull of the Locust matter’s ghostly light. I asked the others to leave me behind, that I was more a liability than an asset in this state. Madison argued otherwise and said that she would keep tabs on me if no one else could. She stated that I was hooked into whatever thing was calling the shots and that my insight might matter. I think she was hiding a more sentimental reason – simply not wanting to abandon me. Lazlo said she could handle me and handed off her shotgun to Theo as she guided me toward our final fate. It was a nice warm moment to momentarily distract me from the approaching horror and the omnipresent entity clawing at my mind.

The remainder of my journey felt like a half-awake dream as I trusted Lazlo to guide me. I spent more time contemplating the situation than paying attention to the environment. I noticed the lack of claws and teeth biting into me. I considered our enemy’s strategy in all this, why they had left their most important asset virtually unguarded. They must have used up all their Reapers and spare MLs creating this project. Perhaps they knew that secrecy was their one real advantage. Stockpiling an army of MLs in one place would’ve invited a bombing from the military, so it was better to draw attention elsewhere and hide their true objective. And it almost worked. Had Dr. Tanaka not discovered the anomaly, all this might have gone unnoticed until it was too late… assuming it wasn’t already too late.

But we had discovered it in the end, with help from the rogue Reaper. Which was why the enemy brought in a swarm of MLs in a last-ditch effort to stop us. But now all our respective reinforcements were too far way. It felt a little crazy to have the fate of the world decided by a handful of individuals, but here we were nonetheless.

I wondered if the seven fatalities from 1974 were really from an accident. Maybe they were test subjects of sorts, with the scientists succeeding in provoking a response from the thin point. Maybe the results scared the military brass into shutting everything down again. Whatever the case might be, it was yet one more example of why people keeping secrets never turns out well. If the leaders of our world had come clean about thin points and MLs and every other terrible truth years ago, while I’m sure there would be fear and chaos and pain in the short run, we might have come out stronger for it. Maybe the world would’ve been ready for a time like this, instead of dancing on a knife’s edge…

Then, with no fanfare or warning, we were at the bottom. I still can’t recall how much I missed on the way down. I must have been extremely out of it because I had jumped from Lazlo walking me down the tunnel to having her shake me into full awareness. As I opened my eyes and regained my wits, I felt cold terror fill me. We were now standing in front of a huge steel doorframe, the open gate engulfed in Locust matter.

There was a human-sized jagged hole through the Locust matter, as if something had punched its way inside. Had our erstwhile ally done the damage? Was the Lord inviting us in, or had the Reaper wrestled control back for one instance, long enough to perform an act of defiance?

Theo was pawing through Lazlo’s backpack, pulling out a bundle of dynamite and extracting two sticks from it. He then cut the fuses short with his survival knife. He looked at me and shrugged. “I need something I can use against a Reaper,” he explained. I don’t know much about explosives, but those fuses could only have several seconds of lag time now.

“Do we have a strategy?” asked Lazlo. “Other than going inside and not dying?”

“Look for something important and blow it up,” said Theo. “Madison shoots anything moving that isn’t us. Hector tells us what to look for. Laz, you stay with him.”

“You up for this?” Lazlo asked me quietly into my ear, as if afraid the others would hear.

“As up for it as I can be,” I answered. Already I was feeling the world begin to spin again, and I was merely at the front door to the chamber. It could only get worse going inside. I had no way to know if I could keep my mind in one piece, much less provide any useful information. But the point of no return was long behind us, and I wasn’t about to let my comrades face the heart of the Meat Locusts without me.

We entered the doorway, Theo forging ahead, followed by Madison. Lazlo kept her guiding hands on my shoulders as I went next. Stepping into the chamber for me was the mental equivalent of my brain walking into a sauna after having spent hours in arctic conditions. I resisted the urge to scream as a surge of pain swept through my head, and I only kept my feet thanks to Lazlo. But the surge ebbed as quickly as it came, the pain receded, and I was able to stand under my own power.

And I could see. Oh, God, how I could see.

*****

We had undertaken this operation with no clue what to expect from Colby’s test chamber. We knew it was a large room, at least four stories tall, circular, and heavily shielded against radiation. I figured it would resemble an old-fashioned sci-fi lab with all kinds of gizmos and devices. The actual chamber had parts of this image, but it was all hidden underneath a nightmare layer of Locust matter. Every square millimeter of wall and floor was covered, every part glowing with that terrible aqua luminance that I had come to hate. Human technology had been co-opted here, submerged under the weight of an alien power.

But it was the parts that I could recognize that tore at my soul, for scattered about the chamber were mounds composed of Locust bodies and Reaper bodies, calcified, twisting, merging. The construct I had seen come to life in an earlier video was here, along with several other similar abominations situated around the chamber. One hung from the ceiling like a grotesque stalactite. Each construct had protrusions reaching out from its top, tendrils and malformed hands and even tree-like structures stretching toward the center of the room. These mounds were positioned so that if they kept growing they would connect. Some of the limbs were already merging with their closest neighbors, creating a crude and broken latticework. But just like on the outside, the Locust matter continued to grow with each new pulse, the limbs adding an inch or two in the process.

How many MLs had sacrificed themselves to create all this? The amount had to be in the hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand. How many people had died to fuel this horror? That was a number I didn’t want to guess at. I was feeling sickened already, partly due to the feel of the Locust matter shifting under my feet, and partly because there were too many other disturbing phenomena demanding my attention.

No one could hide from the Locust matter or the alien glow that lit up the chamber, but I knew I was the only one seeing the third layer superimposed on the scene. Something else was here with us, a dark swirling cloud that settled over the matter like a fine spray. It collected around the constructs and climbed up the protuberances, reaching out with grasping hands for the rest of its substance. The cloud jerked spastically like a living thing at times. It ignored our presence for now, for which I was glad. I suspected it was a manifestation of the Lord, parts of it at least, gaining strength as the Locust matter completed its construction.

I couldn’t see any sign of the rogue Reaper. Had it found another hiding spot in the tunnel? Or had it merged with the bodies within this chamber? I didn’t really care what happened to it, so long as its fate didn’t involve us any longer.

Theo was moving about the room, exploring it but keeping a wide berth from the mounds themselves. Madison took a position near the door, bracing herself the best she could so she could bring the machinegun to bear. I hadn’t realized Lazlo was still handling me until I tried to move and found Lazlo hands still on my shoulders. “I think I’m good, Lazlo,” I told her. She was reluctant to believe me, but she finally let go after I repeated myself more emphatically. I was starting to think that she needed support from me more than I needed it from her, as her wide-eyed stare showed how rattled she was.

“We shouldn’t be in here any longer than we need to,” she said. “Any hints as to what we should blow up?”

“All of it?” I suggested, my attempt at a half-ass joke.

“I don’t think we have enough dynamite to do that,” she replied.

The answer seemed obvious to me – target as many mounds as possible. But I looked about one last time just to be sure. I found myself staring at the center of the room, where all the protuberances were heading. If there was a thin point there, I couldn’t see or feel it. Perhaps it wasn’t something that human perception couldn’t really process. But as I looked upon the center, I thought I could see a ghostly image hovering in midair. Too faded to trigger recognition, I nonetheless turned my head away from it. With any luck, the image wouldn’t get any clearer because this whole place would be rubble in short order.

I pointed at the closest mound. “These things seem important,” I said. “Let’s start there.”

Lazlo nodded and looked around, taking stock of the other structures. She yelled over to Theo what I had just said. Theo began extracting dynamite from his pack. Lazlo spaced out for a moment as she did some mental calculating. “We can’t do anything about the one on the ceiling, but I think four sticks per mound should do it. We definitely don’t want to be in the room, though.”

Theo had made his way back to us, wearing a face that spoke of deep disquiet. “Can we be sure it’ll stop the process?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” said Lazlo. “Definitely slow it down. Unless you saw something else that said blow me up, I think it’s our best bet.”

“Then follow my instructions to the letter,” Theo instructed. “We’re not dying because we got sloppy at the finish line.”

Lazlo and I quietly went to work, untying and rewrapping dynamite into smaller bundles, twisting fuses into unified strings. I left my carbine with Lazlo as I took up the dynamite and began to deliver them to their target locations. I approached each mound with great caution, afraid of touching the constructs and getting mentally ensnared again. But it seemed as long as I didn’t touch the Locust matter with bare skin, I was okay. In fact, I was feeling more and more like myself as time went on. I started to hope I was becoming inured to the effects of the energy emissions, or at least had learned how to function within their zone. Perhaps…

Perhaps I should have learned to not get hopeful. Because as I was about to place the third and last bundle on top of a particularly twisted-looking mound, I found myself staring at the face of a Reaper corpse sticking out of the construct. I was struck by how unemotional it looked despite the rest of its body having fused with the other corpses to resemble a macabre bramble. I stopped and looked into its too-human eyes, contemplating what it had to have been like to have your body transform like that. I lost track of time, faintly aware of a voice asking what the hell I was doing but more aware of a different voice, a stronger voice, asking me to stay right there and wait a little longer. It would solve all my problems if I just stood there like the good morsel I was and…

A strong hand pulled me away from the mound just as a vicious limb swiped the air my head had occupied a second prior. The world reasserted itself as I realized the thing in front of me wasn’t mound-shaped any longer. Theo dragged me backwards as the figure rising up loomed over us, the face that had hypnotized me looking down from this newest creation.

It should have tipped me off that this particular mound has no protuberances growing out of its top. I should have recognized the Reaper’s face as that of the one that had attempted to turn against its Lord. I shouldn’t have dismissed our missing Reaper as unimportant. Because the Lord had anticipated our arrival and had prepared.

It had new arms and legs now. These ones were composed of other bodies, wrapped around each other, acting as sinew and nerve fibers for a new, bigger form. Only two arms this time around, and they were too large and too long for the torso they linked to, but I don’t think the Lord cared about symmetry. For that was the mind I had seen within those Reaper eyes. The Lord was here, hovering over the constructs, controlling this newest monstrosity. Still only part of it, I realized. A single finger had found its way to Earth. But it was enough to take control of the rogue and drive me to false complacency. This would be punishment for all of us. The Reaper got to participate in the Blending it had sought to avoid, and we got to die moments from victory.

“Run!” cried out Theo, and I had no trouble complying. He was right behind me as the Reaper giant swung its right arm and clipped his left shoulder. Barely a hit, yet it spun him around and caused him to trip over a ground tumor, sending him sprawling. The air suddenly filled with thunderous noise as Madison brought the SAW to bear, perforating the Reaper giant’s chest with holes. It barely reacted to the bullets, but it did turn its attention away from us for the moment.

Lazlo stood near the doorway, positioned over a series of fuse lines that were to be our source of detonation. Now she opened fire with my carbine. The Reaper giant took a huge step, then another, its ten-foot frame moving like a man on stilts yet closing fast. Madison shifted her fire to its left knee, the bullets ripping converted limbs in half. The giant staggered and fell on its ruined leg. Without missing a beat, it reached out with its right hand and snagged the fuse lines on the ground, pulling them away from the door. The damnable thing knew what we were up to.

Lazlo cried out a denial as she emptied the carbine into the thing. Madison tried to shift her fire, but her machinegun didn’t cooperate. She yelled something about a jam, threw down the weapon, and pulled out her own pistol. As they tried valiantly to stop the Reaper giant, I went to Theo to hopefully get him to his feet. The sizzling sound I overheard told me that he had different ideas. His strong grip took my arm and pulled me to the ground as a hissing stick of dynamite went sailing from his position.

“Get down!” he screamed. Madison reacted quicker than Lazlo, crashing into her and dragging them both behind a nearby mound. The Reaper giant twisted its torso, looking at the incoming projectile, its face utterly neutral. Maybe it knew what it was, maybe it didn’t. I didn’t see the rest as I ducked my head and prayed I wasn’t in the path of the blast.

The ear-splitting explosion took away my hearing for several long seconds, the blast wave passing over me but doing little else. I rose again, my ears ringing as Theo took to his feet and fired off his shotgun at the shambling remains of the giant. The blast had taken half the creature’s face off and big chunks of its torso, but such damage was an inconvenience at most. The fuse lines were coiled underneath its body as it lashed its arms about in wide, aggressive sweeps. It appeared content to guard the fuses instead of attacking.

Amidst the insanity of the battle, I felt the air shift, as if a windstorm were brewing inside the chamber. Fearing what that meant, I chanced a look at the center of the room. The Locust matter must have increased its rate of growth while we had been otherwise distracted, for the protuberances were less than a few feet away from meeting. The dark energy surrounding the limbs began to flow like streams of water, bridging the gap between the limbs, becoming an ethereal latticework of power. The faded image in the center took on a harder clarity, becoming a translucent sphere that now overlooked the extraterrestrial land I had seen in my visions.

This time, we were far above the landscape, practically in the stratosphere. The pointed peaks of the alien spires made the world resemble a baseball covered in needles. Several of the spires ended in odd flat spots, as if their peaks had been shaved off by a gigantic chisel. Something about those flat regions bothered me more than any other detail, and as the clarity improved I could finally see why. Those mountains connected to other spheres like the one I was looking through. The peaks weren’t shaved off – they were piercing the spheres, disappearing into them.

Some people say that the unknown is the greatest fear humankind knows. I beg to differ. At that moment so many pieces fell into place that I knew I would never know peace again. I understood that every sphere was a thin point to another place, another world. I understood that even if this planet I currently looked upon had once been composed of minerals and earth, all that matter had been replaced by semi-living substance millennia ago. This planet was the Lord. The dark energy swirling before me, the crude Reaper avatar I had communicated with – all that was just its extensions. This thing was the true connoisseur, the chief horror behind the army that assailed our world. The Meat Locusts and the Flesh Reapers were just tools, creative constructs or the pilfered remnants of other races or perhaps a hint of what the Lord once was before science or nature or a sick version of universal humor created this being. As the Meat Locusts had feasted on humanity, this cosmic abomination would feast on our planet, converting it. Humanity had just been a resource, a means to create animate tools that would then construct the way back to the source. Once its surface touched ours, that was it. Our world would belong to the Lord, and its destruction would only be a matter of time.

I could feel the Lord in my head now. Not words, but a driving need, a constant hunger. This was not some being of enigmatic purpose. Its motivations were as old as life itself. In fact, it was the only motivation it had left. All its power, all its intellect, all its ego… yet it was as simple as the microbes that lived on my skin.

The view shifted. Our vantage point began to lower toward the planet, the point of a narrow spire rapidly growing bigger. With profound, panicky horror I realized we had mere minutes before the Lord penetrated the sphere… and that blind terror finally knocked me out of my stupor.

I had been out of it for close to minute, it seemed, as the battle scene had changed to a frightening degree. The Reaper giant had ignored me completely while it fought my companions, its arms having morphed at some point into a pack of thinner tendrils that whipped around like hyperactive snakes. Madison had managed to clear the SAW and was using it to rip apart one cluster of tendrils. Theo and Lazlo were near the chamber door, Theo lying on his back and gritting his teeth while Lazlo applied pressure to a nasty-looking wound on his left leg. The fight had become a stalemate, the giant keeping my team at bay but unable to kill us in return.

I couldn’t tell if they could see the approaching doom in the center of the room. It didn’t matter if they did, not with the giant in the way. No way to get to the fuses. But I still had a dynamite bundle in my hand and a butane lighter in my pocket. I just needed the right target.

Underneath the stabilizing portal, one of the mounds drew dark energy to it like a magnet attracts metal filaments. The energy pooled and then zipped up the latticework in rapid spurts, and with each spurt the portal grew terrifyingly clearer. If any part of this infernal construct could be called a weak point, it had to be there. We had already placed a bundle on that mound. My own bundle should detonate it. But I had to get in close.

I felt like I was trapped in slow motion as I moved toward the portal, striking the butane lighter and burning the bundle’s fuses into life. I didn’t know how much time I had – forty seconds at best. I knew I wasn’t going to survive this. I wasn’t sure any of us would.

But my body didn’t want to work right. I hadn’t shaken off the Lord entirely, and it knew what I was attempting. I jerked and stumbled, barely keeping my feet as I closed in on the central mound. I heard something huge screech bloody murder behind me. I dared not look back. The Lord pressed its weighty voice on my mind, demanding my surrender, oppressing me with its conviction that I was nothing compared to it, that I deserved to be consumed along with the rest of my world.

The fragments of dark energy lacing the room began to arc toward me now, surrounding me, crawling up my legs. My muscles began to tingle, then ache, as the energy clung to me. I was practically immobilized now, trapped in slow motion just like the rogue Reaper before me. I screamed at my body to respond, then I begged it to move, but this wasn’t the kind of story where you could overcome physical obstacles by sheer force of will. I was still too far away, and the only thing I’d be blowing up would be me.

A limb found my bundle of dynamite and yanked it away from me. I wanted to scream a denial, but even my mouth had locked up. Except… it was a human hand, not a twisted appendage. And the hand’s owner came into view – Lazlo. She stood in front of me for a few scant seconds, and the look on her face told me so much in such a small timeframe. I know you were trying to save me, it said*, because that’s what you do. But it’s not your turn to do the saving. It’s mine.*

I had no idea how she had gotten past the monster. Even the Reaper giant seemed surprised by this, if its howl of indignation was any indication. She gave me one final look that I knew to be a goodbye and then ran for the central mound. I mouthed her name as I watched her run, tried to scream a warning as the battered and misshapen wreck of the Reaper giant struggled after her. It propelled itself on multiple limbs, determined to stop her. But the Lord couldn’t touch her like it could touch me, and she had a head start.

I saw her reach the mound before the monster blocked her from my site, and that was the last time I ever saw her. The explosion that came seconds later shattered the mound, the latticework, and the giant into thousands of flying fragments. The giant’s huge bulk took the brunt of the shrapnel and the blast wave, the power of the blast propelling my tortured body into the air. At the same time, the portal winked out immediately, the incoming alien world gone from my sight. I felt the clinging energy assailing me splinter and fall away, the voice of the Lord becoming garbled and fragmented until it went silent. All this occurred in maybe a second at most.

By the time I hit the ground, my mind was already shutting down. I barely felt the bone-wrenching impact as darkness of a different nature engulfed me, one I that I was grateful to embrace for once.

*****

It’s said that one can’t dream when you’re in a coma, something about having irregular brain patterns that prevent dreaming. I’m glad for that. I doubt my dreams would have been pleasant.

As I’m sure you can guess, I did eventually come out of the darkness and into a bed within a hospital room. I had been lucky enough to get a window spot, though the sky was storming that day. Rain beat against the windows as I took stock of my body, marveled at my survival once more, and tried to call out to someone.

Except my mouth wouldn’t move. My throat wouldn’t stir. I tried turning my head to look about the room better. My neck wouldn’t respond. I panicked and attempted to leave the bed. That’s when I got some motion out of my right arm and a little spasm from my left. All I succeeded in doing was knocking over a food tray that someone had absently left positioned next to my bed. The racket managed to attract a health worker’s attention from the hallway, so at least I’d succeeded in getting help.

Several trying hours later, after a slew of doctors and specialists had come to see the hospital’s most famous coma patient wake up, I understood my circumstance. I was in Cascade Limits General Hospital, and I had arrived there forty-six days ago. It was clear that I had lost a great deal of mobility and function. According to my doctor, it wasn’t from any serious physical injury. It was true that some level of atrophy was to be expected when you were stuck in bed all the time, but what I had went beyond it. I only had real control of my right arm. My left arm could jerk but only randomly. They eventually had to put it in a retraining sling to avoid mishaps. I could move my eyes, open my lips enough to get liquid through, and had enough bowel control to avoid wearing diapers. Thank the universe for a measure of dignity.

Madison showed up close to sunset, having accepted the role as my emergency contact since I didn’t have any real next of kin. She was wearing civilian clothing for once and looked like she couldn’t decide whether to hug me or kick my ass. She stuffed those emotions down again after remarking how much of an idiot I was for falling into a coma. I tried to smile. I even had a retort ready to go. But nothing happened. She’ll really kick my ass for saying this, but when she realized how bad off I was, I saw a tear slide down her check. They let Madison stay a long time despite the rule violation it would cause, thinking that having companionship might keep me awake and improve my morale. So, she told everything that happened after… well, just after.

They had seen the portal open, had witnessed the Lord in its true form as it came for our world. Theo had taken a serious stabbing to his leg, so Madison and Lazlo had to do the heroics, pulling off a last-ditch maneuver where Madison rushed the Reaper giant with nothing but a pistol and harsh language while Lazlo dodged the opposite way. Madison thought Lazlo was merely trying to pull me to safety. She also thought her suicidal rush at the monster was going to be just that – suicide. She’d known her time was up. She’d known it the moment she came down into the sublevel of the base. Such dire certainty afflicts us all at times, but for Madison, she really genuinely thought it was her time. Thus, her horror was truly agonizing when the Reaper giant suddenly ignored her and went after Lazlo. Madison’s noble sacrifice went up in a blast of cold reality, and she was left with two stricken team members within a room quickly growing very dark.

Ever the soldier, she attended to Theo and me as best she could. Theo had also gone unconscious, having suffered a concussion as well as his leg wound. The destruction of the Locust constructs didn’t just kill the light show, though. The Blind faded as well, allowing for radio communication again. It took almost two hours for Tanaka’s men to get to us, and another twenty hours before we were able to leave the sublevel. This time, the surface greeted us with friendly well-armed faces instead of a horde of MLs. Not only had reinforcements shown up far earlier than expected, but the ML army had largely disbanded by the time they arrived at the base. Only a few scattered and disoriented creatures remained, and they were easy targets. The controlling force behind them was gone, reverting the Meat Locusts back to their more primitive natures.

Theo spent a week in the hospital for his wounds… his physical ones, in any case. Madison decided that she needed to burn off some of her accumulated leave, but in truth she wanted to be around and keep an eye on me. She also kept tabs on Theo as he recovered at home, but he had other family to keep him company. He was never rude to her, but she could tell he didn’t want her around much.

Madison then informed me that they already had Lazlo’s memorial service. That news got to me more than anything else. It was like failing to say goodbye to her all over again.

Over the next many months, I saw Madison a lot in-between tests and rehab. She helped me past my darker days, when I would fall into myself, lamenting my condition. There were times I wished I had died with Lazlo rather than endure another day of being manhandled like a mannequin. It helps to have a purpose – namely, telling my side of the war. I’ve learned how to communicate through a computer program where I use my right hand to pick out words and form sentences. I’ve gotten rather good at it now. This final story was written by my own hand. Took a while, but I do have the time these days.

Nobody knows why I’m paralyzed like I am. Dr. Tanaka set me up with some of the best medical experts he knows, but the best they can come up with is I have neurological damage that rewired or fried parts of my nervous system. It might heal in time… or not. They might be able to fix it one day… or not. I think it was a parting gift from the Lord. It couldn’t kill me, but it could forever screw up my life. As if it wasn’t already screwed up.

Madison comes around a lot to my apartment, usually on Sundays. We talk shop most of the time. She still hunts, though the prey is a lot easier to kill these days. I wanted to hope she would retire after what happened in the Blind, but I don’t think she’s capable of retirement. She is who she is – a Wrangler, to the end of her days.

It took a few months, but Theo finally came to visit me. Unlike Madison, he opted to retire from the life, though not entirely. Now he trains and teaches full time. He told me once that there will never be another team like Team Abbott, and he’s okay with that. We did our part, we paid the price, and it’s time for others to take over.

He says he doesn’t blame me for Lazlo. I believe him because I know he blames himself. If he ever reads this story, I hope he’ll listen to me when I say that neither of us could’ve saved her. It wasn’t our job. She was a Wrangler. She was a hero. We honor that, and so honor her.

That’s one of the three reasons why I spent all these long hours typing out this story with one hand. Madison, Abbott, Theo, Lazlo, and all the others over the years – their tale should be told. The world should know who they are, and who they were.

The second is to answer a question I got asked by a documentary crew during one of our interviews. It was a young interviewer, and she asked a question that only the young have the nerve to ask – was it worth it? At the time, I gave her a one-word answer: maybe. She didn’t ask for elaboration, probably because of my condition. The truth is, maybe is the best answer I have. I don’t know if I could’ve made a different decision and gotten a better life for it. But even now, I still believe that I couldn’t have done anything differently. It’s not fate – it’s just who I am. So maybe is the most honest answer I can come up with.

And that leads me to my final reason – a warning. Theo and Madison keep me in the loop on our progress against the Meat Locusts while I surf the Net looking in on news feeds and popular opinion. By all appearances, we have the Meat Locusts on the run. Their strategy has completely collapsed, and the surviving creatures have turned to the wilderness, much like they had for decades prior. Good news, of course. People now hope the world will go back to normal, whatever the hell that looks like. It won’t, of course. It never does.

No mention of the Lord, though. Despite my testimony and that of Theo and Madison, we had little physical evidence to back up our claims. Dr. Tanaka wasn’t exactly leaping to defend our story either. The official conclusion was that the Reapers were behind the creation of the Blind, intending to use it to neutralize our technology on a large scale. No one wants to believe how close we were to becoming a cosmic buffet. Hell, there are a lot of people who still don’t believe the Meat Locusts exist at all.

I suppose I can understand why politicians and military brass would play down the truth. A freaked-out public is a chaotic public, and the public already has plenty to freak out about. Because just like the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, the Meat Locusts are a problem that will never go away entirely. We’ll decimate their numbers and seemingly eradicate them at times, but a few of them will find places to hide… and wait. They’ll wait for humanity to do what it does best – forget. We like to forget. We want to forget. It doesn’t matter how many history books are written, or how much science is taught, or how long our new-normal lasts. We want the monsters to go back to their caves, so we can pretend they’ll never come out again. We want to believe we’re at the top of the food chain, and that no other life form can beat us. We create philosophies and religions to reinforce this belief. Once the Meat Locusts disappear, they will become the bogeymen of the past, and we will forget them.

But there’s no reason why they can’t come back. They’ll wait, and our children’s children will grow up monster-free. They’ll stop believing in monsters. Then the MLs will strike, and the Reapers will be born, and the Lord will try for this world once more. Because the Lord knows where we are, and it will never stop trying to get at us. Its hunger never ends.

In his book War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells ended the story of a failed Martian invasion of Earth by stating that while humanity had survived the Martians for now, surely the Martians back on Mars would learn from their mistakes and try again. The future of our planet may not belong to us, but to them.

I hope we do learn from our mistakes, because I’m damn sure the Meat Locusts will learn from theirs....