Charlie turned to the trees and beckoned the others out. Denver kept his rifle pointing to the ground so as not to spook them. Ethan and Maria came through carrying Charlie’s pack between them. From that pack, Charlie took three days’ worth of dried ration packs—foil-wrapped, just-add-water soups that he had recovered from the Army base. They’d last a century apparently.
In addition to the rations, he took out his supply of root contained within an old tin and cut off a third.
“Here, for your daughters.” Charlie handed him the root and the ration packs. “It’s not a lot, but they look like they need it. It’ll give them something to get them by for a while until you can find something more substantial.”
Tears welled up in Jan’s eyes as he took them. He bowed. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what to say… I…”
“Don’t say anything,” Charlie said. “Just have yourselves a meal and share the root. It’ll give you enough energy to move. Go north, upstate, away from the trouble.”
“What trouble?” Jan asked.
“The trouble I’m going to be giving to the alien scum. Trust me, go north.”
With that, Charlie motioned goodbye to them. The two girls smiled and thanked him with quiet, whispering voices.
They headed through the camp and came out onto a road that hadn’t quite succumbed to the encroaching forest.
Here, humanity, in the form of concrete and steel and glass, remained defiantly. Charlie navigated his way through the ghost town of Manhattan until he came to the Quaternary headquarters. Though the building was charred on the outside and pitted from various munitions, it remained standing.
But it wasn’t the upper floors he wanted.
He led his group through a pile of debris, a maze of corrugated metal doors and wooden obstructions, until a dark hole greeted him. At the end of the tunnel was a metal door with a heavy lock. He took a key from his pocket and opened it.
Bright white light flooded out.
“Go on, inside,” Charlie said, pushing the others inside while he watched behind him to make sure no one else was watching him. Once Ethan had gone through, Charlie followed inside, closing and locking the door behind him.
A basement room greeted him. Lights strung across the ceiling with looping wires illuminated the room. All around the wide-open space were desks, parts littering every surface. Wires and batteries, mechanical parts, anything and everything that could be salvaged.
Ethan and Maria turned around, taking it all in, their eyes wide with wonder.
A shadow came from behind a screen, then a bright red and blue sweater around a thickset man with a beard that reached to his chest.
“Charlie, Denver, strange new people! You made it. So great to see you.” The man opened his arms wide as he approached Charlie, embracing him with a bear hug. Releasing him but gripping his arms, the man smiled.
“Mike,” Charlie said.
“Charlie.”
“How’s the weapon coming along?”
“Huh! All business as usual. That can wait. Come the fuck in and grab some coffee first, eh? You’re not a damned savage, and you have shiny new people to introduce to me.”
Charlie smiled, enjoying his old colleague’s unflappable personality. But behind the joviality was a keen mind, the very mind that Charlie needed to bring down the croatoans. But before they got to that, he would do as he suggested. A cup of coffee was always welcomed before the destruction of an invading force.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ten years of cat and mouse would finally be ended in the next few hours. The thought of it made Gregor smile. He checked the working parts of his gun. There would be no mistake with Charlie Jackson if he were close to the shelter.
Ben had told him that Charlie planned to move to another location. He might still be there. So could his supplies.
Marek loaded six grenades into a small backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Ready to do this?”
“Get three hover-bikes ready,” Gregor said. “I’m going to pay Igor a visit.”
Marek left the office. Ben shuffled after him.
Gregor slid a magazine into his pistol grip, put a round in the chamber, and followed. He left the other two heading for the square, turning by the side of his office and striding over to the moldy shed.
The moody morning sky would no doubt soon give the croatoans a treat. A shuttle approached. Its noise grew louder.
He looked through the cobwebbed window. Empty.
The shed gently shook as warm air blasted downwards.
Layla’s trailer door rattled open. Her head appeared around it. “What are you—?”
The descending shuttle, arriving for a morning supply collection, quickly drowned her out. It smoothly dropped toward the landing area, obscured by trees. Gregor pointed toward his ear, shrugged, and headed off to the square.
Marek and Ben were already waiting on two bikes. Igor stood next to them. He licked the edge of a cigarette paper and rolled it in his fingers.
“Still smoking that shit?” Gregor said.
“Morning, Gregor. How are you?”
Gregor grunted. “Shouldn’t you be helping Alex feed the livestock?”
Igor rubbed his hands together. “Just come to wave goodbye. I hear you’re hunting a wasp.”
Wave goodbye. Like Igor ever did that. His time was coming. Not here though. Too many croatoans around. He was priority number two today.
Gregor swung his leg over the hover-bike and tapped the alien on the shoulder. He turned to Igor. “Have a good day, my friend.”
“You too, my friend.”
Igor smiled and raised his hand as Gregor’s vehicle ascended. A horrible false smile. The type he’d seen Igor use when interrogating people with his knife. Igor’s modus operandi was strapping somebody to a chair and playing tic-tac-toe on their face. He’d gone lightly on Ben but left his unmistakable fingerprint.
As the bike lifted above the warehouses, hugging the farmed land, Gregor gazed at the distant, orange haze. Thoughts of Layla’s revelations spun through his mind.
He had too many moving parts to consider. Jackson, Igor, Augustus, the croatoans. Removing two of them would bring more clarity.
They zipped away from the farm. Alex stood by a tractor in the paddock, throwing food to the livestock. She looked up and they passed. Gregor saluted.
The plan was to land half a mile away from the shelter and move quickly along the riverbank. Zero tolerance against anything that shifted. The same policy applied to Ben if he was found to be lying.
Gregor glanced across to the two bikes flying next to his in formation. Marek looked across and returned a nod. Ben’s eyes were shut tight. He hunched behind the croatoan rider, turning his face against the rush of wind.
Ahead, the river came into view like a large brown snake winding through the overgrown land into the distance.
Rain started to fall, tinkling against the bike’s metal as it powered through the sky. A minute later, they reached the river, momentarily hovering above it before lowering onto a thick grass bank. A couple of birds took flight from the undergrowth.
Ben jumped off the back of his bike and unsteadily walked to a tree. He leaned against it and doubled over. A long trail of saliva hung from his mouth as he dry retched a couple of times.
A dead spotted redshank caught Gregor’s eye after he dismounted. He walked closer to inspect it. Its feathers were coated by a stringy paste. The river slowly flowed past like a large, foamy beer. He rubbed a greasy fern between his fingers. The change was becoming more rapid. Gregor just hadn’t been noticing the little things. Now they had his full attention.