Dark Victory - eARC Page 5

  “Just doing my job,” I had said.

  He had pressed the steaks in my hand. “You gave my little girl the sweetest treat she’s had in months. Didn’t have to do it, but you did. So call it a trade, okay?”

  So I had said okay, and now I was doing my best to keep Thor from having a huge breakfast in the truck’s cab.

  Schwartz takes the Clinton Street exit off the Interstate, and after navigating through some side streets, comes to the main gate of Fort St. Paul, formerly known as St. Paul’s School, a prep school that’s been here since 1856, and which has been a National Guard base for ten of those years. As Schwartz downshifts and slows, we approach a group of protesters outside of the gate. The signs are handmade with paint on wood or large pieces of plastic.

  END THIS ENDLESS WAR

  ACCOMODATION, NOT CONFRONTATION

  PEACE NOW

  END MARTIAL LAW

  And a smaller one, at the end of the protest line, its plaintive words being held by an elderly man, in gray slacks and a long tan coat, light blue cap on his head:

  GIVE US OUR SCHOOL BACK

  Around the grounds of the school deep moats have been dug, one of the few things known to slow down Creepers on the move. Unlike forts in the past, there are no guard towers looking out. Too easy for Creepers or their killer stealth satellites to burn. But there are battlements, there are OPs—Observation Posts—out among the 2,000 acres of the school grounds, and there’s lots of net camouflage to cover walkways and pieces of equipment.

  The truck slows down and the gate opens up, and the protesters look at us going in, tired and a bit dirty, and it’s like they don’t have much energy left to protest us.

  I crossly say, “Didn’t they get the word the war’s over?”

  Schwartz says a spectacularly foul obscenity and the lieutenant just grunts. “Maybe they don’t know what to do if the war really is over.”

  The truck grumbles onto the grounds of the base, and the gate closes behind us. I still hold onto Thor’s collar. “Really over, sir?”

  We round a corner. Troops are on the march, doing P.E., and there are horse-drawn wagons hauling gear off to the different buildings, and other personnel on bicycles. In the distance there’s a skateboard park and some guys and gals off-duty look like they’re having fun, skating up, down and around. Once upon a time the brick buildings here were dormitories, classrooms and administration buildings. Now they are barracks, training centers, and whaddya know, administration buildings.

  My boss says, “Just because the orbital station got whacked doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of fighting left ahead. Last night was just an example, Randy. How many more Creepers are out there in their bases? Or roaming in the wilds of Africa or Siberia or Canada?”

  I keep my mouth shut. I’m too tired to think of much of anything, and seeing those protesters pissed me off. I know, I know, First Amendment and right of protest, but last night, when I was that close to getting my head burned off by a Creeper for the benefit of those protesters back there, guaranteed they were sleeping warm and safe, pretty confident they’d wake up in one piece the next morning.

  Lieutenant May’s mood seems to brighten. “But hey, maybe the President is right. Maybe the war is over. You’re still a teenager, Randy. Any idea of what you’ll do once you get out of the Guard?”

  Thor whines some, as he keeps frantically sniffing at my assault pack.

  “Haven’t thought that far, sir,” I say. “Pretty much all I know is killing Creepers.”

  Lieutenant says, “Lucky for us.”

  We get off at the disbursement area before Schwartz takes the truck back to the motor pool. Standing loosely in a group is a tired and worn five-member Recon Ranger squad, weapons slung over our shoulders, dogs on leashes, except for Thor, and Abby standing by herself, yawning, holding her Trek bicycle. Nobody says anything, but we’re all painfully aware that one of us is missing, Ruiz, the new guy.

  The lieutenant stands before of us. “We did well, Rangers. We got a Creeper report, responded in less than a day, and ended up with one Creeper dead. Good job, team.”

  I try not to yawn. Earlier on, when I was younger and dumber, I would have been upset that I wasn’t being singled out for killing the Creeper. Now it doesn’t matter. The lieutenant is right. We were a team last night, and when my flare soared up, they came in my direction, to help me out, provide support, have my back. Any one of us could have been in the barbecue seat last night; it just happened to be my turn.

  The lieutenant goes on. “Get your M-10s back to the armory, go to the S-2 shop for debrief, take a rest, and report back to me at 1600 hours. Then we’ll saddle up and join the search for Ruiz. Any questions?”

  Not a word.

  “Make it happen, Rangers. Good job.”

  I walk over to Abby and she smiles, though she looks as tired as I feel, and we fist bump one more time. I say, “I survived. No crispy critter for you.”

  Her smile gets wider. “So you did. And I keep my promise. First dance tomorrow night, soldier.”

  I glance to see if anyone’s looking, since what I’m about to do is terribly out of order, but I don’t care and kiss her cheek. She giggles and says, “Later,” as she wheels her Trek away down one of the paved school paths.

  The rest of us disperse and straggle over to the Armory, which used to be a student assembly building. At a long metal counter, one by one, we turn in our M-10s and bandoliers. The armorer, a balding old master sergeant named Thornton with gray hair in his ears, takes my belt and winks. “Nicely done, pal. One missing cartridge, one dead alien. Fair damn trade, eh?”

  By now I’m so tired all I can do is murmur, “Yeah, that’s it,” and then I go out, brushing by other members of my squad—Smith, Millett, Chang and Zane—and Zane catches my elbow as I go through the swinging doors.

  “Not following regs, Sergeant, are we? Leaving your dog unleashed?”

  During a base tour a couple of years ago, one of our hunting dogs bit the previous governor of New Hampshire, a pompous jerk who deserved it, but as a result all dogs on base need to be leashed. But not Thor. Not ever.

  “He’s well trained,” I say. “Some would say better trained than you, pal.”

  Zane’s hand is still tight on my elbow. “Speaking of training, Sergeant, why did you let Ruiz go out alone? It was his first op. You should have buddied him up.”

  I pull my arm away from his grasp. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda. The C.O. signed off on his training and experience, and so did I. Got a problem, take it up with him.”

  He grabs my elbow again. “He looked tough, but he was just a scared kid, Sergeant. Just a kid.”

  I pull away. “Just like us, Zane. Just like us. You grab my elbow again, you’ll be losing it. Do I make myself clear, Private?”

  He storms into the armory and I walk out, Thor with me, feeling sour and even more tired.

  My next stop should be south, towards the Intel shop.

  I go west instead, to the post housing.

  The housing once belonged to the teachers and administrators of the school before the war, and now it belongs to the base’s senior officers. In the confusing and horrifying first months after 10/10, surviving military units all across the country set up alternate posts after the Creepers had flattened their home bases.

  In Concord, the state capitol, the National Guard units withdrew from their main armory and eventually ended up at St. Paul’s, where most students and faculty had already fled to whatever safety was supposedly out there. Only a couple of armories across the state were eventually hit, but there’s still no rush to get back to the surviving armories. Even with the orbiting Creeper battle station destroyed, the killer stealth sats are still at work—probably, hopefully—on automatic.

  As I walk along the paths to the housing, I think of what it must have been like to be here back before the war. To have been one of those privileged and safe students in this wonderful school in rural New Hampshire, where all sorts of classe
s were taught, from medieval art history to philosophy to the history of Greek plays.

  Now survival and the bloody art of war have been added to the curriculum.

  I yawn. I’m too tired to feel jealous of my coddled predecessors.

  At a small white Colonial house among a row of similar houses, I pound on the front door, using a brass knocker. The paint is peeling and shrubbery about the front and side are overgrown. Grass is growing in cracks on the driveway.

  A girl about eight years old answers and looks up at me. She has on a white T-shirt and clean jean overalls. Her black hair is freshly washed and she seems suspicious. “You looking for mom, Randy?”

  “I sure am, squirt.”

  She turns and yells, “Ma! Cousin Randy is here!”

  I wince from the loud yell. Heidi has the lungs of a drill sergeant, and she turns and says, “Can I play with Thor?”

  “Not right now, hon,” I say. “He’s tired and so am I.”

  “Later, maybe?”

  I rub the top of her head. “Later, no problem.”

  My Aunt Corinne shows up, smiling hesitantly, wiping her hands on a towel. She’s wearing black slacks and plain gray sweatshirt, and her eyes look tired.

  “Randy, good to see you.”

  I squat down, unzip the side pocket of my assault pack, pull out the wrapped paper package from the dairy farmer. “Here you go. A treat for you guys, if you haven’t planned your meal tonight. Fresh steak.”

  Thor wags his tail and barks, and I scratch his ears, and gently hold him back as he sniffs at the wrapped meat. Corinne gently takes the package. “Randy . . . that’s so generous. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  I shake my head, start to turn. “Sorry, Aunt Corinne. Gotta run.”

  She calls out as I walk up the uneven flagstone path. “You’re always welcome to move in and stay with us, Randy! Always!”

  As if, I think, as I get back to the war.

  In one of the brick classroom buildings, the S-2 shop—the intelligence section for our battalion—is in a couple of rooms on the first floor. I have two debriefers, one an old-timer named Fernandez and the other a new guy named Knowles, both captains.

  I sit in front of a wooden desk that no doubt once belonged to a teacher, the two of them sitting across from me. Thor flops himself down on the dirty tile floor, panting, looking around. The officers are using paper and pencil as old-style manual typewriters are being pounded in one corner of the room by some enlisted men. There are plenty of filing cabinets and wall-maps depicting Creeper sightings and killings in New England, and photographs of the nearest Creeper bases: three outside of the suburbs of Boston, one in the western part of Massachusetts near Springfield, one in northern Connecticut and two along the coast of Maine.

  None in New Hampshire, though trust me, we’ve never complained about being overlooked.

  There are also large blown-up photos of the three types of Creeper exoskeletons, and one photo, marked Top Secret, that shows a living Creeper, pulled out of a disabled exoskeleton, deep in snow somewhere.

  I look away from that horror and Fernandez says, “Care to describe your engagement last night?”

  “Not a problem, sir,” I say, and spend the next fifteen or so minutes recalling the hunt and the battle, and Knowles raises a hand and interrupts. “Hold on. You say you shot a civilian?”

  “I did.”

  “Was he threatening you?”

  I say, “He was threatening the mission.”

  “But was he threatening you personally, Sergeant?”

  Fernandez’s face is impassive. Knowles looks angry. I reply. “Sir, he was threatening the mission. When the Creeper was sighted, the county automatically became a military reservation. I had the authority to get him to leave the area. He refused to leave.”

  “So you shot him,” Knowles says.

  “I wounded him. In the leg. He and his friend, not only were they jeopardizing the mission, they were jeopardizing me and the other civilians in the area. They were trying to attract a Creeper’s attention and planned to capture it by using some chains and a fire extinguisher. They refused to move. I did what I had to do.”

  “By wounding a civilian,” Knowles says.

  “By saving him,” I reply. “If they had attracted a Creeper, in about ten seconds, they both would have been flamed.”

  Knowles angrily writes something down and Fernandez quietly speaks up. “Let’s move on.”

  So knowing my face is flushed, I go on and tell them about the hunt, and the kill, but seeing how Knowles is being a dick about the whole matter, I leave out the part about Thor coming to save my young butt. Dogs are trained never to attack a Creeper, and seeing how Knowles is reacting to my mission, I wouldn’t put it past him to take Thor away from me for remedial training or something.

  Like I’d allow that to happen.

  Asshole.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Finally back in my barracks, which used to be a student dormitory, I get to my room and unlock and roll in, Thor behind me. I’m fortunate to have a single and I close the door, make sure there’s water and food for Thor—some dried venison—and I unload my gear, put my 9 mm on my small desk, and even though I’m about ready to fall asleep, I spend the necessary time to make the weapon safe and clean it.

  When I’m done cleaning I take my family photo and put it back up on the small bookshelf over my bed, and reach behind a row of books and take out a slim leather journal. There’s a Bic pen inside the cover and I jot down some sentences about the day. I close the cover, put it back, and flop down on my bunk, look up at my meager collection of possessions. At one end of the shelf is plastic model of what was once called a cell phone. It was a toy I got eleven or twelve years ago. Dad tells me that when I had the toy cell phone, I’d pretend to call Mom and tell her to come home early and make me mac and cheese.

  I remember playing with that toy a lot during the first year or two of the war, hoping against hope that my Mom would somehow hear me and find her way to my Dad and me.

  I want to stop thinking about that and I close my eyes and fall asleep in a couple of minutes.

  Something furry and wet presses against my face. I push it away, it comes back.

  I open my eyes.

  Thor is by the side of my bunk, panting, looking on with an expectant look on his face.

  “Oh, come on up,” I say, and Thor seems to grin as he jumps up on the bunk. He rotates twice and then thumps down, wags his tail, and lies down.

  “And don’t snore,” I warn him, but it’s too late, as he starts sawing wood.

  I wake up with someone knocking at the door. I yawn and toss off my olive drab wool blanket. Thor rolls over with a doggie sigh and I say, “Some damn hunting dog you are,” as I step barefoot across the cool tile floor to the door. I unlock and open it up, and in front of me is the oldest man I know. He’s in standard fatigues that hang on him like they’re a size too large, and he has almost no hair on his freckled pink scalp. His nametag says MANNING and his rank is corporal. He’s the “batman” for the barracks.

  “Sergeant Knox,” he says, “just checkin’ to see if you got any laundry.”

  “Sure, hold on,” I say. I duck back into my room and grab a canvas bag, which Manning takes from me with a wrinkled, shaking hand. Nobody knows how old he is, but I did hear him say once that he had served in Korea, which means he’s old. Like a lot of other vets, he re-upped after the war started. Once upon a time the U.S. Army and the National Guard didn’t have batmen for their troops, but now we supposedly experienced fighters aren’t supposed to worry about cleaning, laundry and other necessary chores.

  Manning says, “Also wanted to let you know that Lieutenant May has canceled your 1600 meeting.”

  My stomach feels cold. “Dead?”

  He sighs. “Yeah. They found Ruiz a couple of hours ago. Shot to death, body stripped. Hell of a thing. Damn Coasties killed his dog as well. Bastards. But at least the morons had the good sense to le
ave his M-10 behind. No way they could sell or trade that.”

  “Any leads?”

  Manning shrugs. “Not sure. Word is, the State Police and the county sheriff have joined the hunt, plus some militia types. Figure it out, Sarge. You think the locals want the Army folks defending them getting ambushed and robbed?”

  I remember the protestors out at the main gate, and say, “You’d think.”

  Manning starts to walk down the hallway, dragging my canvas laundry sack along with a few others, and I call out, “Mail call come?”

  “Yep.”

  “And . . .”

  He turns, thin lips pursed. “So sorry, Sergeant. Nothing for you.”

  My throat thickens and I close the door. The silence from my dad continues.

  I sleep pretty deep for a good chunk of the day, and when I wake up I get a chit for a hot shower later in the day. I bring Thor back to the kennels and then I work out in the gym, lifting weights, working some reps on my legs, biceps and back. It’s a weekend so it’s relatively quiet. Then I cash in the chit for a ten-minute hot shower, and then head off to the D-Fac, or dining facility, which is pretty much the same school dining hall. I see Abby chatting it up with Dewey, a plump mess officer with short blond hair who had slipped Abby a rare Red Bull the other day.

  I nudge Abby as I get in line with a scratched plastic tray and say, “Still trolling for Red Bull?”

  Abby nudges me back. “Keep it real, dear sergeant. Keep it real.”

  Dinner tonight is some sort of chipped-beef slop over stale toast and watered down iced tea, and my stomach grumbles as I think of those thick juicy steaks I had passed over to my aunt earlier this morning.

  With dinner quickly and thankfully over, I go over to the kennels and retrieve Thor. Although the PFC on duty is reluctant to let him go—all dogs on post are supposed to be housed overnight in the K9 quarters—I convince him that I’m taking Thor out for a confidential night training mission, which isn’t much of a lie.