With his enemy close on his tail, any halt in his headlong advance would be the end of him. He was under no illusion that this was kill or be killed. They might both be marooned here, but they were still at war, and their blood was up. Their aerial combat had taken barely five minutes, but now their ongoing battle might last a lot longer.
He had to reach a place he could use. Somewhere he could hide, perhaps, and let the Jap pass him by. Then he could take time to reload his own weapon. Pursue. Stalk.
Either that, or he had to outrun him.
The ground beneath his feet soon started to climb. That slowed him down, but it would slow his pursuer, too. He shoved palm leaves aside as he ran, dodging hanging vines, pushing through dense ground foliage and hoping he didn’t step on a snake or feel the furry touch of a spider dropping onto the back of his neck. He’d never been anywhere like this, though they’d had basic training on board their aircraft carrier. He knew the dangers such an island could throw at him—dangerous animals, poisonous plants, disease-laden water. One mad Japanese pilot.
Another gunshot, and a bullet smacked into a tree several feet to his left. Marlow ducked right and forged ahead, arms sweeping plants aside as if he were swimming his way inland. That was too close for comfort. There was no time for caution. Whatever dangers might lay ahead were nothing compared to the one chasing him down.
The ground rose steeper and he dropped to his hands and knees, hauling on vines to pull himself upward. He couldn’t see very far ahead through the dense undergrowth, and he hoped that the slope did not become too severe. Crawling across a cliff-face would make him a sitting duck.
From behind him he heard a triumphant shout.
Marlow paused and turned, looking back and down at the Japanese pilot twenty feet below, aiming his gun. His flight suit was torn and scorched across one shoulder, his hair singed on that side of his head. His face was lacerated in a fine web pattern from broken glass. He was a vision from hell, and a demon intent on killing him.
His enemy grinned as he pulled the trigger.
The grin fell as the gun clicked on empty.
Marlow uttered a hard, sharp bark of laughter, then started to climb again. He heard his enemy following, and he knew that he had to get to level ground. There, they could face each other and fight. He looked more wounded than Marlow, and he’d take advantage of that.
The slope continued for some time. Marlow soon became tired, the humidity and still air drawing the energy and strength from him. He cast frequent glances behind at the pursuing man, and could not help but be impressed at his tenacity.
Impressed, and scared.
The slope grew even steeper, and the trees and shrubs seemed more tangled and intertwined than ever. Huge leaves held deeply shadowed areas where anything might be hiding, ready to leap out and bite, sting, or assault him.
As quickly as it had begun, the steep slope ended on a clear ridge. Marlow rolled onto his back and stood, sweating heavily and exhausted. He looked around for something to fling down at his climbing enemy—a rock, a log, anything that might dislodge him or injure him enough to make him vulnerable. But the Japanese pilot was closer than he had believed.
He saw his sword first, the blade rising above the ledge and catching the blazing sun.
Marlow turned to run, sprinted ten paces, then skidded to a halt just in time. The drop on the other side of the ridge fell away into deep, impenetrable shadow. He could have made his way along the ridge, but the going was marred with sharp rocks, and dangerous falls to either side.
Here was where he would have to make his stand.
Hearing footsteps behind him he quickly turned, left arm held up to deflect the swishing sword. The blade never met flesh. He stepped in close and punched with his right fist, connecting with his enemy’s throat. The man croaked and dropped the sword. It struck the rocky ground and bounced.
As the pilot glanced to the left after his fallen blade, Marlow kicked his left knee, hard. He screamed, fell, and Marlow dropped on top of him.
The impact shook the ground.
He punched again, again, and each time his fist connected with the man’s cheek or jaw, the ground seemed to shake.
Weird… Marlow thought, but he had no time to wonder.
The pilot bucked beneath him, and Marlow heard the clean shush of a knife being drawn. He rolled aside and went to stand, but only managed to rise to his knees before the man came at him, blade in his right hand, blood smearing his face red.
Marlow caught his wrist as the knife swung around towards his neck. The men struggled, a match of strength, face to face and close enough to smell each other’s breath. Marlow stared into the man’s eyes and saw something of himself in there.
For the shortest moment, both men felt the force of hate between them diminish.
A huge impact punched up through the ground into Marlow’s knees, knocking him onto his side. Winded, he rose to his hands and knees, gasping as he struggled to draw in breath.
Struggled, too, to make out what had happened. Something had landed on the ridge with them. A huge object. A dark black boulder bristling with a mat of… something. Black cacti, perhaps. Thick, spiked, the stuff seemed to twitch and wave as the heavy thing it grew upon suddenly flexed and spread across the rocky ridge.
Another massive crash knocked Marlow onto his back, as another object landed thirty feet in the other direction.
Something rose from the dark valley beyond the ridge. Earthquake! he thought. Volcano! The steadily growing roaring sound could have been either. But this was no trauma of the earth. It was something else entirely.
The dark shape climbed higher and higher, the things that were its hands crushing rocks and changing the shape of the ridge as they applied pressure to lift the being even higher before them. It blotted out the sun, and in its shadow Marlow and the Japanese man were lessened. Its mere presence made a folly of whatever they were fighting for.
The roar settled into a grumble vibrating through the ground.
It was only when Marlow saw the two huge, impossible eyes regarding him that he began to comprehend. But comprehension did not bring understanding.
Marlow and his enemy waited for whatever would come next.
ONE
“The world’s gone batshit crazy, and it’s drooling on our doorstep.” Bill Randa looked from the car window as Brooks drove, and if he closed his eyes and opened them again quickly, he might imagine that he was somewhere far different from the America he knew and loved. These weren’t the streets he was used to, or the ones he wished to see. These weren’t the times he had dreamed of when he was a kid.
“You should be more positive,” Brooks said from the driver’s seat. “Positivity’s good for your health.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Stay positive when you’re stuck in that.” He pointed along the road at a gas station ahead. A snaking line of cars was queued by the roadside, parked along the hard shoulder at least four hundred yards from the station. Several police cars were parked beside the line, and the cops were out of their vehicles, each of them confronted by drivers. Some were tired and bored, sitting on their bonnets and shielding their eyes from the sun. A few were angry. Arms waved, the officers remonstrated, and Randa imagined shouting and swearing beneath the steady rumble of traffic.
As they passed the forecourt, he saw just how chaotic it was. Only one pump seemed to be working, but after queuing along the road for so long, it seemed that any concept of waiting ended once entering the gas station proper. Randa was glad he wasn’t involved. His organisation had access to government fuel supplies, and though that sometimes gave him a pang of guilt, he was also relieved.