She paused to let that sink in.
“Next, what are we doing. Most of us – or rather most of you – will be concentrating on finding and evacuating any civilians left alive over there. As we go, we will be taking every opportunity for attrition against the snakes and any infested mammals we find. That will create a safe environment for destroying the snakes without risk to people. There are twenty-seven residents, according to census data. There may be visitors, there may be absentees. So every building needs to be checked for civilians, alive or dead. We need to get them to the mainland, and we have medical and biohazard teams standing by to deal with them.
“While you are doing that, my team and I will be advancing up the centre of the island. Our specific objective is to locate an archaeological team who may have stumbled into a big, big problem. I said the fat bastard had been trapped underground by the Romans, two thousand years ago. Well, the archaeologists are all set to dig it up. We are going to find them, get them to safety, and assess how we can deal with El Cabron Gordo, hopefully with extreme and permanent prejudice.”
She looked around the deck at the assembled men. “Questions?”
Someone called out, “The only question we need to ask is how do we kill these things?”
Steve stepped up. “I found it quite effective to shoot them at the head end until they stop wriggling then stomp on the bastards. They’re pretty squishy. It’s a bit more complicated if they’re infesting animals. You’ll need to take down the animal first.”
Heads were nodding. Peri could see they were almost across and she needed to wrap up.
“The overall plan should be obvious. Get the civvies out, wear down the snakes, assess the situation, and come back with big guns to kick ET’s arse. Now I could start rabbiting on about we band of brothers, and Saint Crispin’s day, and shit like that. But I can’t do stirring speeches. So, I’ll keep it simple, and I’ll just say this: get out there and save the world!”
The ferry stopped moving, and the troops disembarked.
Chapter 22
The disembarking troops fanned out to clear the area. Peri noticed that there was not much left of the boatman, Bill. The body had mostly been picked clean, his feet incongruously still in his shoes.
The men quickly and quietly separated themselves out into four-man patrols. One remained at the ferry to secure the route back to the mainland, while four other patrols set off. A pair of patrols took each direction, one of them along The Circle, and the other a little way inland.
Steve quickly organised his patrol, in a loose diamond with himself in the lead, Troy bringing up the rear, Peri and Gus to the left and right, and Amanda and Tash in the centre. They moved off up Harbour Way as quickly and quietly as they could. The fog was, if anything, even thicker than before and both Steve and Troy wore monocular night vision devices on head harnesses.
“Where are they?” wondered Peri aloud. “There’s the dead goat, the policeman’s body must be over there to our left, and this area was crawling when we passed through earlier.”
“Be grateful that there’s no sign of them,” suggested Troy.
“Nah,” said Steve. “If they’re not here, it means they’re somewhere else, and I’d prefer to know where.” He touched the push-to-talk button on his personal radio headset, and called in a progress update to the command tent. He listened to the response, then looked round to say, “Nobody else reports activity either.” He glanced at Peri. “Are you, er, getting any, er…”
“Vibes?” she suggested.
“Yeah, any vibes?”
“No,” she said shortly. “Don’t worry, if I do, I won’t keep it to myself.”
Peri wondered about her earlier premonitions. They simply came to her, it wasn’t as if she was aware of having done anything consciously to seek out a vision of danger. Maybe she could? Was there a way to send out of sort of ‘visioning ping’? She continued walking, almost on auto-pilot, and at the same time she kept trying different combinations of thoughts – like ‘show me!’ or ‘warn me!’ – to see if anything triggered. But nothing did.
She pulled up short when she realised the others had stopped and Steve was glaring at her.
“Peri!” he hissed. “For fuck’s sake pay attention!”
Off to the left there was a light.
Old Innes sat on his sofa, looking at the ceiling and frowning. Since shooting the thing that had once been John Willems, nobody had come calling to see why shots had been fired. He had pondered that for a short time before concluding that nobody had come by because there was nobody to come by. From the various windows of his cottage he had seen more of the snake things crossing the road or slithering through fields. He had seen a couple of Willems’ goats wander by, caked in blood and walking in the uncoordinated way that Willems had. But he had seen absolutely no people.
He had seen the snake-like creatures emerge to feed on Willems’ body, and had noted that some of them were carrying away chunks of flesh. He deduced that there was something nearby that needed to be fed. A nest or a hive, or something, no doubt. It was possible – even probable – that the island was infested with these things, killing people and livestock, either eating them or animating their corpses, and taking away carrion to feed something. He wondered how widespread they were. Had they reached the mainland?
There had been thumps on his front and back doors as they tried to force their way through. His doors were solid timber, with stout locks, and no damned invertebrate was going to break them down. He had cautiously looked out, only to find snake beasts near the doors, watching him.
He knew that they knew he was in here.
There was a bang on the window, and he realised that one of them had thrown itself against the glass. There were more bangs, from more windows. No way would they get through the doors, but the windows were another matter. He had no idea how strong the glass was. He busied himself blocking up the windows, just to be on the safe side.
Innes took stock of the essential supplies on hand. He had enough food to keep himself going for a week or two. Water and power would not be a problem if the national utilities continued to operate. He had a box and a half of shotgun ammunition – about thirty-five rounds. He was confident that he could hold out here as long as he had food, so call that two weeks. After that, well, he’d work on that problem later.
He flopped down into a comfy chair in the kitchen, and promptly dozed off.
He awoke with a start some time later – he had no idea how much time had passed, thanks to the fog outside. It took a minute or two for him to come to himself, remind himself of the nightmare outside, and to wonder what had disturbed him. There was a thud from the sitting room.
His eyes went wide.
Something was inside.
He moved slowly, cautiously, until he could peer through the crack of the sitting room door. Something long and black wiggled out of the old wood burning stove that heated the room, and landed on the floor with a thud. At least two other snake things were already exploring the corners of the room.
He closed his eyes and slumped despairingly as he visualised what must have happened. That big old wood burner was fuelled by logs, and the logs were stacked up behind the cottage, almost reaching the flue in back wall. The snakes could leap, he had seen that already. Apparently, they were smart enough to spot the flue. And find that the catch on the door of the stove was broken.