Clickers III (2 page)

Excerpt from
Reliving the Nightmare
by Rick Sycheck

Chapter Seventeen, Page 241

Harper Collins

Twelve years of time does a lot to a man. In my case, and thanks to my circumstances, it had changed me from a relatively healthy man to a guy who was paranoid, who’d developed a three pack a day smoking habit, a man who’d rekindled a hardcore drinking problem and who had trouble maintaining a steady relationship. The Rick Sycheck of 1994 would have had no problem joining in the fight with Livingston and the others. In fact, he would have readily joined up. The Rick Sycheck of 2006, though, was worn out and tired. The only reason he grew balls and fought back was because his back was against the wall.

I remember when the thought hit me that we were probably going to die down there. We had locked ourselves in one of the sub-basement rooms in the Peachbottom nuclear plant and had beaten back a bunch of Dark Ones that had stormed the place. I remember thinking that even with as many weapons as we’d taken, we wouldn’t have enough fire power to kill them or hold our own until help arrived. Eventually we’d run out of bullets. And then where would we be?

And as this thought entered my mind I thought back to the news conference I’d seen with President Tyler, and how that smarmy bastard told the American people to not believe the leading scientific experts, that he and his Administration would get a handle on things! If you’re reading this you obviously remember that press conference. I’m sure you couldn’t believe it either.

It angered me.

How dare that imbecile deny what was happening, and then demand that the rest of us just stick our heads in the sand?

I was beyond angry. I was furious.

It was that anger that propelled me to pick up my firearm and step through the shattered door of what had been our refuge. A giant Clicker had just entered the hall and was fifty yards away. It was so big, its massive form squeezed into the hallway, its shell scraping against the walls and ceiling. I walked straight toward it and aimed my weapon as Colonel Livingston raced after me, pleading for me to stop. But I didn’t. I kept going. And that giant Clicker kept coming at me, and when I was about twenty yards from it I started firing. I didn’t care if it killed me. I had one mission.

To kill it, yes. But there was something else, too.

In my mind, I was killing President Tyler by proxy. I was unleashing my fury and rage at him for allowing this to happen and not doing a goddamn thing to stop it.

Excerpt from
Rolling Stone
Interview with Rick Sycheck

Steve Walsh

Rolling Stone, July/August 2009, Issue 605-606

RS:
“What do you think about the recent theory that President Tyler was shot before he was killed by the Dark Ones?”

Sycheck:
“Well, anything’s possible. It was pretty chaotic that night. We went through all kinds of hell those few days and I’m still trying to get over it. The way I understand it there was some chaos at the White House during the storm, so I think it’s possible he was shot.”

RS:
“Do you think there’s another government cover-up?”

Sycheck:
“Of the Clickers and Dark Ones? How could there be? The world pretty much saw them with their own eyes. I mean, they were on every television channel. Every website.”

RS:
“The cover-up I’m referring to would be the one the RNC is alleging the Livingston Administration is participating in. Trying to cover up the events surrounding President Tyler’s death.”

Sycheck:
“Well…I wasn’t at the White House that night. And again, there was so much confusion that it’s possible he was shot before he ran into those underground bunkers. Anything could have happened.”

RS:
“Including the theory that he was shot by a still-unidentified Secret Service Agent?”

Sycheck:
“Yes.”

Excerpt from
Reliving the Nightmare
by Rick Sycheck

Chapter Twenty, Page 323

Harper Collins

In the weeks that followed the devastation, humanity waged war, chasing the Clickers into their watery depths and destroying them. Likewise, the Dark Ones were similarly slaughtered. A task force composed of various branches of the US Armed Forces (including Navy Seals), marine biologists and other scientists and personnel were formed by President Livingston to kill these things. Since its inception, they have helped eliminate Clickers and Dark Ones to the point where they are now extinct.

Yes, you’ve read that right. Extinct.

Recent fossil discoveries have suggested these creatures lived in all parts of the globe some five hundred million years ago, according to Dr. Edward Page of Boston University. This new extinction team and dozens of others have tracked and killed Clickers and Dark Ones in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

How we managed to wipe them out once and for all is nothing short of brilliant military planning on behalf of Colonel Richrath (Retired) and President Livingston, as well as a new team of experts handpicked by Livingston when he entered office. As the first item on his agenda, it was President Livingston’s ambition to eliminate the threat once and for all. He consulted with the best and brightest marine biologists, paleontologists, and zoologists. He also consulted with the best military experts he could assemble. And then he set his plan into action. Thanks to their bold move, we knew where the Dark Ones were coming from. We also knew where the Clickers watery domains were. Using a combination of military and marine tracking, the Clickers and Dark Ones were hunted down and eliminated.

The threat is now over. For good. Yet despite that, I don’t think I can live near a large body of water ever again.

When the crab darted toward her, Doctor Jennifer Wasco threw back her head and laughed. Her shoulders and breasts shook slightly. Her long auburn hair, usually tied up in a knot during the workday, draped down her back and dangled in the sand. The crab paused, as if surprised by her amused reaction. It raised its claws and waved them in the air. The last rays of the setting sun glinted off them for a moment.

“You’re not scary,” Jennifer said. “Your big brothers, maybe, but not you.”

The crab, no bigger than a teacup, slowly lowered its appendages and skittered away, giving Jennifer a wide berth before slinking off behind her.

Doctor Bunn is right,
she thought.
I must be doing better. Six months ago, the sight of that little guy would have been enough to send me screaming. But not anymore. I’m fine. No more post traumatic stress disorder for me. After all, who ever heard of a marine biologist and expert aquatic researcher who’s afraid of sea life?

A slight breeze drifted off the ocean and whispered across the beach. Jennifer closed her eyes and sighed. The air tasted of salt. It reminded her of summer vacations spent at Ocean City, Maryland, when she was a child— playing in the sand, swimming in the ocean, exploring the boardwalk, feeding quarters into the skee ball machines and video games at the arcade, riding the roller coaster and screaming all the way through the haunted house ride. Smiling, she kept her eyes closed and breathed deep. For a moment, she could also smell those times—suntan oil and seaweed, cotton candy and saltwater taffy, Bricker’s French fries and Italian sausage subs.

She missed those times. Life had been a lot simpler back then.

Gulls circled and shrieked overhead, fighting with one another. Annoyed, Jennifer opened her eyes and glared at them. A few stars were already visible in the murky blue-black sky, but the sun hovered on the edge of the horizon, slowly sinking into the sea in a haze of red and orange and yellow. The waves rolled steadily onto the beach, their lulling roar comforting and serene.

This was her favorite time of day—this quiet moment of reflective solitude. No work. No arguing on the phone with the backers in the States. No mediating the petty squabbles among the junior researchers. No politics. No scientific method.

And no thoughts of before…

The sand was still hot from the day, and the ocean breeze was warm, but despite them both, Jennifer shivered.

Damn it, I’m not going to think about it. This is my happy place. This is my personal time. I don’t think about it during the day because I keep myself busy. But I’m not going to let it intrude on my relaxation time. Not here. Not now.

As if Mother Nature were mocking her conviction, another crab scuttled along the sand toward her. Jennifer scooped up a handful of sand and tossed it at the tiny creature.

“Get out of here. Scat!”

The crab fled. The sun sank lower. The birds continued the frenzied circling. Jennifer began to tremble. She bit her lip and vowed not to cry, but then the tears came anyway— hot tears full of anger and fear and guilt and shame. And then, despite her best efforts, the memories returned to haunt her happy place.

The
Homarus Tyrannous
(often mistaken for the
Megarachne Servinei,
and more popularly known as Clickers, which was the name the media had given them) invasion of the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States. How the bizarre, crab-scorpion monstrosities had decimated cities and small coastal communities from Maine all the way to Florida. How it turned out that the creatures had been driven ashore as foot soldiers by a second group of aquatic life forms—
Draco Acerbus
, a race of intelligent, amphibious, lizard-like beings collectively known as the Dark Ones. How she and her boss, Richard Linnenberg, Director of Baltimore’s National Aquarium, had almost been killed when the Clickers invaded the aquarium. How they’d barely managed to escape. Their rescue at the hands of US Army colonel Augustus Livingston. Fleeing inland as both the Clickers and a Category Five hurricane snapped at their heels. Ultimately taking shelter in a nuclear power plant on the borders of Maryland and Pennsylvania, along with other refugees from the disaster—best-selling horror novelist Rick Sycheck and the handsome but mysterious Tony Genova. How the group had made their last stand, while the Clickers and their masters ravaged the United States. How in the

aftermath, Colonel Livingston pulled a coup against President Jeffrey Tyler, who had gone completely insane during the invasion, and refused to step down. And then, the aftermath.

In some ways, the aftermath was even worse than the invasion had been. It shouldn’t have been. Jennifer knew that. America prevailed. She lived. So did her friends and family. The Dark Ones and their crustacean servants were either decimated or driven back into the ocean.

Richard retired as Director of the National Aquarium, but not before selecting Jennifer as his replacement. He and his wife adopted a child and moved to the mid-west, far away from either ocean.

Law and order were restored in the wake of President Tyler’s death, and the country moved on and slowly rebuilt itself. It was a national time of healing. Sure, there were various conspiracy theories—the most prominent being that Tyler had been assassinated by one of his own Secret Service agents, but the people saying that were the same people who spent their days posting on online message boards about how 9/11 was an inside job and that the Dark Ones were really just doing the bidding of the New World Order.

Colonel Livingston was convinced to run for President after a national straw poll showed him with a ninety-percent approval rating from the American public. He was elected in a historic landslide, and he and his cabinet immediately went to work on not only restoring the country’s infrastructure, economy, and psyche, but also ordering the military to hunt down the remaining colonies of Clickers and Dark Ones.

Jennifer wasn’t sure what happened to Tony Genova. He’d just sort of disappeared shortly after the crisis was over. This bothered her, but she wasn’t sure why. She barely knew him, after all. Their only time together had been during their last stand inside the Peachbottom nuclear power plant, and the debriefing that had followed. She didn’t know what became of him after that. Unlike herself, Richard, Rick, and Colonel Livingston, Tony made no public appearances. He didn’t show up on Larry King or Glenn Beck or The View. His picture wasn’t on the cover of
Time
or
Newsweek
or
People
magazine. In the aftermath, he remained what he’d been when they met him—an enigma. Even still, Jennifer had liked him. Tony had flirted with her, and she’d enjoyed the attention. At the time, she’d chalked her reaction up to adrenalin and what had seemed to be their impending doom. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Another crab hurried up from the surf and scrabbled past her. Jennifer watched it go. Then she lay her head back on the sand, stretched out, and shut her eyes. What was she doing, mooning over a man she barely knew? Was she really so desperate? Was her love life that dead? Well, yes, she decided after a moment of introspection. It was. Even before the Clicker invasion, her social life had been less than exciting. Her last serious boyfriend, Stan, had broken up with her nine months before the Clickers came—after she’d balked at his suggestion to introduce other people to their lovemaking. After that, she’d thrown herself into her work. Then the Dark Ones and the Clickers attacked. And in the aftermath, she’d been appointed Director, which left no social life whatsoever. She’d barely had enough time to devote to her cat, Tucker, let alone a serious relationship with a man. That was one of the reasons she’d taken the sabbatical, and joined this research expedition to the South Pacific, taking on the role of project manager and lead researcher. To escape. To find herself. To do something fun again. Something she loved. The Director’s job had offered none of those things. Maybe she’d find them here, on Naranu. She’d certainly already relaxed, even though they’d only been on the island a week. Naranu was small compared to the surrounding Polynesian islands— covering just under nine miles—but it was peaceful. So far, Jennifer hadn’t been given the opportunity to utilize her specialty—studying how ecosystems were affected when non-native species were introduced to them. But at least she felt at peace. At least she wasn’t fielding interview requests from the media or strange emails from crazies. The only crazies here were the locals. She hated thinking of Naranu’s indigenous population that way, but it was hard not to. The entire tribe insisted they existed only as guardians of the island’s god, who supposedly slumbered deep beneath the phosphate rock that made up the landscape. While not openly friendly to the researchers, they weren’t hostile, either. They seemed to believe that their god would awaken soon, and would then wipe the intruders from his domain.

Her thoughts turned to Rick Sycheck. More than any of them, the former horror novelist had embraced the bright glare of the media spotlight, granting interviews to everyone from
Rolling Stone
to
Rue Morgue
magazine. More recently, he’d dropped out of circulation. His publicist reported that he was working on a new book, a follow-up to his bestselling personal account of his two encounters with the Clickers.

Good for us,
Jennifer thought, her eyes still closed.
We all went on with our lives when it was over. Richard and his wife adopted a child. Livingston got elected President. Tony went back to doing whatever