THEM (Book 0): Invasion (15 page)

Gotcha
, I thought as I backpedaled and reached for the light switch I’d noticed on the way in. As soon as I hit the lights, it screeched like it had back at the school and bounded off down the hall to the room where it had left the kid.

“Shit!” I hollered as I dropped my rifle and ran after it, drawing the Glock and firing as it flowed through the dark doorway. I hit the doorway and jagged right, only to see the thing fly up through the ceiling tiles as I flicked the lights on. Thankfully, the kid was still whimpering in the corner. Secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be following us outside, I grabbed her and headed toward a door I’d seen at the end of the hall, hitting the release bar at a run and dumping us both on the ground outside.

Elena clung to me and cried, whimpering in Spanish and begging me to take her to her mommy. I didn’t have time to be heartbroken, and ran with her about 30 yards away from the building to a line of vehicles in the parking lot. I set her down on the hood of a vintage Ford pickup and raised her head gently so I could make eye contact.

“Tengo que ir a matar el cucuy. Espera aquí. Voy a volver en un momento.”
I have to go kill the monster. Stay here. I’ll be back for you in a moment.

She cried and shook her head no, clinging to me for all she was worth. But I knew I had hurt that thing, and I felt that if I didn’t finish the job it would just kill again… tonight, and the next night, and the next. I spent several more minutes calming her down, and finally was able to convince her to release me so I could go back and end it for good. After she’d settled down enough to let me go, I assured her that I’d come back for her and told her to stay put, but to head back to the high school if I didn’t come back out soon. Then I headed back inside the hangar, determined to kill that thing or die trying.

TWELVE

CHARGING

I RELOADED AND ENTERED the building from the side entrance again, both in an attempt to avoid an ambush from overhead and also so I’d be entering on familiar ground. The way that thing shot up through the ceiling tiles, I had no doubts that it would be waiting high above me in an ambush position. So I opted to enter the building via the hangar area, where I’d at least have a clear 360 view of my surroundings.

I stopped immediately after entering the hangar, pausing under the wing of the Cessna as I listened for any signs of movement. Momentarily, I was greeted by the same gravelly voice I’d heard earlier.

“Come back to finish me off, eh? I doubted anyone around here would have the balls to go against the commander, but obviously you’re not from around here, are you?” His voice again grated on my nerves like a splinter under every fingernail. There was just something otherworldly and entirely unsettling about it that made my skin crawl.

I paused to process what he’d said before I carefully framed my answer. “I figured you were somehow working with the local authorities, but I’m curious how that came to be. Did you threaten them with violence?”

It laughed, a harsh sound that carried both screeching high notes and a low solid rumble. It was probably the most inhuman and frightening sound I’d ever heard in my life. “No, little man. That was not necessary.”

I decided to keep it talking so I could pinpoint its location, and angled my voice toward the back of the hangar to keep it from knowing I was stalking it. “Okay, then tell me why they don’t come out here with some major firepower and blow your ass back to the hell you came from? You and I both know they have the ordinance.”

There was a pregnant and rather unsettling stretch of silence before it replied. “Humans. You are all so predictable. I am‌—‌was‌—‌the commander’s son, serving in his unit as a subordinate. As it happens, he is loath to kill his only son. A situation that I find to be‌—‌ironic.”

Well, that explained a helluva lot. I kept pressing for info. “Still, what I don’t get is how you convinced him and the deputies to let you just take people right out from under their noses. Obviously, someone is missing these people and asking questions.” As I spoke, I continued to try to pin its location down, but couldn’t seem to get a lock on it. I decided to go with Plan B and started working my way to the front of the hangar.

“We simply made a deal. I keep the dead away from their little sanctuary, and they provide me with the castaways from their group. Outsiders, the homeless, and those from foreign lands. No one notices these people, and no one cares that they’re gone.”

I allowed myself a chuckle. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, asshole. People do care. How do you think I was tipped off to all this shit? Well, besides you killing and kidnapping people. I got news for you, there are people back at that high school who are asking questions, and I have a feeling that your
dad
is going to have a hard time keeping a lid on it. Just wait until the government gets a grip on this situation, because I can guarantee you that everyone involved is going down.”

I heard it make a noise, and at first I thought it was choking on a bone or coughing up a hairball. Eventually I realized that it was laughing at my comment about the government. Not with the Vincent Price from hell laugh I’d heard a minute ago… this time it was truly and genuinely amused by what I’d just said.

After a minute, the laughter died down and it spoke. “The government? You think that the government is going to swoop in and save you? You have no idea how bad things are for your species right now, or what’s to come. You are no longer the apex predator on this planet, and as of a few days ago your species has become meat for my kind. You are now nothing more than cattle, purposely left alive so we can slaughter you at our leisure.”

That sort of threw me for a loop. “Wait a minute‌—‌you mean there are more like you?”

“Yes, and we are a legion.” It paused, and I thought I’d heard it wheeze, which meant it either had a cold or I’d hurt it badly earlier. I banked on the latter. “But, you’ll never see them‌—‌at least, not in this life.” And that’s when I knew the thing was coming for me. I felt more than heard it drop to the hangar floor and sprint toward me.

I hit the button that opened the hangar door.

The sudden burst of sunlight halted the thing in its tracks. As it slid to a stop and covered its face, I quickly drew a bead and started taking precision shots, aiming for its joints as I walked forward. Left knee. Right knee. Elbow. Shoulder. Within seconds the accumulated effects of each hit took their toll, and it was a quivering, mewling mass on the floor. I sauntered up and methodically reloaded as it started crawling toward the back of the hangar. Thanking the Man above for this bright, sunny Texas day, I started putting rounds in its head, one after another until it finally stopped moving.

After the sound of gunfire stopped ringing in my ears, I found that I desperately wanted to get the hell out of there, to just take Elena and Rayden back to the ranch and hole up there until Kingdom come. But, I had two things weighing on my mind at the moment: one being my parents, and two being the fact that I was hella curious to see what this thing was all about.

So I pulled it out onto the tarmac and studied it thoroughly with the hunter’s eye for detail that my grandfather had instilled in me years before. I removed its clothing, piece by piece. Sure enough, it was still wearing dog tags that identified it as Robert L. Hillis, blood type AB negative, Catholic.
Interesting.

I examined the body with a coroner’s care, taking note of every detail. I assumed that in the future I might come across one of these things again, so I wasn’t taking any chances. I started with the head and mouth, noticing the changes in the eyes, a shriveling of the cartilage in the nose and ears, and the loss of hair. Pulling back the lips, I saw that several of its teeth were loose. Not wanting to risk any chance of infection, I pulled out my multi-tool and used the pliers to pull one out. Underneath, I could see the point of a sharp, almost shark-like tooth poking its way up through the gum line to replace it.

Moving down the body, the same changes in skin color and texture were noticeable all over. I noted that the body was hairless, although the thing’s genitalia were intact. What was incredibly frightening was that it’d been hit more times than I’d thought, maybe with a few dozen rounds. Despite all that damage, until I’d started taking the strategic approach to round placement it had still been able to function. That told me it didn’t necessarily rely on internal organs to keep its motor functions going; in other words, it didn’t experience shock like a human would. Scary, but fascinating.

I continued my examination by moving to the limbs, and saw that the fingernails and toenails were also falling out, being replaced with what looked like thicker and more clawlike nails. The bones in the hands and the feet also appeared to be elongating, although that could have just been a congenital defect. Overall, though, it was apparent that this thing had once been human, but it had been in the process of morphing into something much more hideous and dangerous.

I filed the info away for future reference, then went back to check on Elena. She sat stock still on the hood of the truck, just where I’d left her. Once I knew she was fine, I started rummaging around in the hangar for more clues regarding the nature of this thing. In my search, I found a room stacked up with rotting corpses, all of which had been savaged at the throat and drained of blood.

Realization dawned on me like a bolt of lightning.
Holy shit, that thing was an honest-to-goodness vampire. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

After no small amount of thought, I settled on what I had to do. I wrapped it up in a tarp and threw it in the back of the old pickup. It only took a few minutes to figure out how to hotwire the old girl, and she started up like a dream. I got Elena buckled in and headed back to where I’d left Rayden, so I could drop her off with him while I took care of business. He was happy to see her alive and well, but he was also uncharacteristically quiet. He was probably in shock, but I could do nothing about it at the moment. Once I made sure they were settled in, I headed over to the high school.

I pulled right up to the back loading docks, because I knew that was probably where they brought in supplies that they’d scrounged from around the area. I left my rifle in the truck behind the seat and moved my sidearm around to the small of my back, concealing it under the flannel shirt I was wearing. I decided to act like I belonged here, hoping that I’d be able to bluff my way through. Grabbing the covered body of Hillis’ son from the back of the truck, I slung it over my shoulder and marched right up to the loading dock doors.

A soldier stopped me at the door. “Whoa, where do you think you’re going?”

I pointed at the wrapped up corpse on my back. “Deputy Carson said y’all needed meat. I used to be a guide at the Y.O. Ranch, so he asked me to go out and hunt some deer from one of the local ranches. I’m delivering a doe I shot this morning.”

“First I heard of it, but alright. Just make sure you don’t scare anyone when you take that thing into the mess hall.”

I nodded. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Once inside I made a beeline to the cafeteria, where I knew everyone would be gathered in preparation for midday chow. I marched right up to the center of the room, hopped up on a table, and dumped the body in the middle, unfurling it from the tarp for all the world to see. That pretty much got everyone’s attention, and soon people started crowding around and murmuring amongst themselves.

“What is that thing?”

“Is it one of those infected?”

“Looks like a monster‌—‌not even human.”

And so on. Their reactions varied, but I wasn’t interested in sparking speculation. Soldiers would come to break this up soon, so I had to act fast to get the word out about what Hillis had been doing.

I cleared my throat, and spoke up in my best command voice. “Folks, what you see before you is a different kind of creature from the infected you’re already familiar with. I tracked this one to the airport, right after it came into the room I’d been assigned here and attacked the people who were sleeping there. Unlike the infected, these things are intelligent and capable of speech, and this one told me he’d made a deal with Captain Hillis.”