This is a story about one world with this strange energy coiled about its core, leaking through fissures in the crust here and there to manifest chaos. It’s a story insignificant in the whole of time; nevertheless, the great architects record these events.
It begins with hot lead punching through the left ventricle of Pete Clarke’s heart. The bullet corkscrews through his meat, bounces off vertebrae and chews into bone. He feels its wake in him, a burning tongue lancing his torso, and he falls heavily.
Democratic Republic of Congo—2 hours earlier
Another coup, another civil war, another quiet genocide. Guerillas and tribes were clashing in the rainforests, senseless slaughter in which neither side understood the other’s agenda. Clarke’s team had touched down in the midst of it with mock UN seals adorning both their uniforms and their chopper. Whittaker skirted the makeshift encampment and snuffed a couple of colobus monkeys that had watched their descent from the trees. A veteran of jungle warfare and extreme survival alike, Whittaker took pride in securing the perimeter. His grizzled face was flushed with exuberance uncommon for a man his age. Bagging the monkeys, he slung his rifle over one shoulder and headed back to Clarke’s position. The team leader was hunched over a satellite phone setup. “Uplink’s not working,” he said softly, perhaps not even aware of the other’s presence. Whittaker clued him in by dropping the bag into the dirt.
“I said we wouldn’t need kickers.” Clarke muttered without looking up. “You don’t know this region any better than I do,” Whittaker replied. “Why not play it safe?”
“You just like plugging the little guys.” Clarke smacked the side of the console.
Whittaker grinned. “I don’t have any subordinates of my own to abuse, Captain.”
Clarke smiled back. He enjoyed the camaraderie among his men, but at the same time felt a twinge of discomfort over their complacency. Bradshaw was coming over now, lugging a few clear plastic cylinders; he guffawed at the sight of the monkey bag. He had a raucous belly laugh befitting an imposing black man, and Clarke had to silence him with a stern look. “Ken,” he said to Bradshaw, “see what you can do with the sat phone. I’m gonna go break Harmon in.”
Whittaker snorted as Bradshaw took Clarke’s place at the console. “Radio’s as good as any of this shit.” Punching keys, Bradshaw shook his head. “Time isn’t gonna wait for you to catch up, Whittaker.” He produced a few tiny plastic bags from his vest and tossed them. “Take care of the lanterns while I do this?”
Catching the baggies, Whittaker nodded gruffly and scooped up the plastic cylinders. The old man was efficient, good at following orders, but he longed to be the one giving them, didn’t he? Bradshaw watched him tromp away. No one had the heart to tell him that, at fifty-six years, with three decades of service under his belt, he was still a grunt doing busy work.
Harmon, on the other hand, had been charged with prepping the arsenal, a critical task. She didn’t view it that way, but no one ever did when it was their first time in the field. At least that’s what Clarke was telling her. “Widowmaker’s your best friend,” he said, perched in the side hatch of the chopper. He was referring to a cleaver-like blade with a molded grip and knuckle guard, a simple yet intimidating piece of weaponry. One was laid out for each team member. “That leads us to Rule One — no headshots. Your firearm is meant as a last resort. Bullet to the brain only kills what little impulse control still exists in afterdead. So if you shoot, aim for the limbs.” Taking up a widowmaker, Clarke slipped it into a sheath on his back. “Decaps will render them harmless. You’ve been trained in close-quarters combat — rely on your widowmaker.”
Harmon nodded absently; she’d heard it all before. He felt it bore repeating. Clarke eyed her uncomfortable stance, subtle curves concealed by a defensive posture and eyes shielded behind red hair. She was clearly conditioned to play it low-key and go unnoticed, and seemed quite attuned to it. “Rule Two — bites don’t infect. You’ve been told a dozen times, now believe it.” He took the opportunity to roll down the sleeves of his bite jacket: nylon-covered chain mail reaching over the wrists. “Too many assumptions and too little understanding about bites has caused men — and women — to lose it and get killed over a minor flesh wound. Romero-itis,” he finished with a smirk.
She frowned at the term. “You mean like the movies? Never seen them.”
“Really? Oh, you should. Romero’s are the best. Just remember the Devil had different ideas when he made his.
“Three,” Clarke concluded, “watch your dead.” Harmon looked up at that one. It never made sense until it was too late… she’d know what it meant soon enough.
Slitting open the tiny baggies, Whittaker emptied freeze-dried bugs into the plastic cylinders. He was setting them up around the perimeter, twelve in all, turning the rotors of the chopper into the hands of a clock face. Pausing at twelve o’clock, he winced. Back was going again. “Goddamn,” he whispered. This wasn’t a glamorous job — especially these little mop-up exercises — but at least he used to enjoy being in the field. Now he could only try to take his mind off his aching back by thinking about the grueling paperwork that waited back at the base. Bureaucratic horseshit had taken the wind out of his sails and the joy out of his work… no, it was age, and he damn well knew it. The night before, at a debriefing in Zaire, he’d excused himself twice to shake out a few drops of piss. The memory alone made his bladder start fidgeting right now.
The sun dropped below the tree canopy and he hustled to hang the bag of monkeys from a low branch. Done, he glanced over at Bradshaw, still fighting with that sat phone. Bradshaw was a dedicated soldier, one of the developers of widowmaker combat and a tireless jack of all trades. Whittaker liked to think of him as a friend, or at the very least, a good man who rose above his pedigree.
Clarke sat beside the chopper and watched daylight fade. They’d landed a good distance from the local skirmishes; most likely because the guerillas had been scared off by the brutal slayings of their comrades. This forest was rife with afterdead: walking corpses, dead tissue infused with the undefined catalyst that sprang forth from some Source deep in the earth. Clarke was most concerned about the stealth and speed of the reported killings. These afterdead had a pack mentality, which meant a couple of things. First, they had eaten enough living tissue to restore some primitive brain function, and second, they had also probably eaten enough to regenerate their rotted flesh — giving them the appearance of mortal men. It was another case of Romero-itis to assume that afterdead were all decaying relics of past life. The soul had been replaced with a new vitality. And it hungered. In his years leading these outings, Clarke had seen everything from near-skeletons to fully restored men, some of whom among the latter had developed chilling characteristics. The previous summer he’d caught one that had actually relearned speech, slurring something it’d probably heard from its many meals…”Please!”
Please. Did please mean anything to something that existed only to sustain itself? If so — did it understand that same sentiment when uttered by a mutilated victim, only to ignore their shared will to survive? Had the thing truly been begging for release so that it could go on killing?
No point in asking those sorts of questions. There were others assigned to figure them out. He just exterminated them.
Bradshaw called to him from the sat phone and shrugged in silhouette. “No uplink.” Harmon sat at the edge of the camp; she hadn’t yet forgiven Clarke for weapons prep. She probably thought the new girl had been stuck in the kitchen when in fact he trusted her more than anyone else. Because she wasn’t his friend.