“Now? Where?”
“No,” the man, still out of breath, reported. “Not here, not now. But we found something. Had to be a Shadow. Right down the damn street.”
The woman named Captain Forest grabbed a mean-looking rifle from the table.
“Show me.”
Denise stayed still as the group marched out of the room beneath her. As they moved, the little girl noticed that Captain Forest still possessed the sword she had won from the big-mouthed ugly thing. She carried it in a scabbard strapped to her leg.
“Wow,” Denise whispered aloud.
She waited until they were out of the room then went downstairs again…
…Denise used the smashed, rusted cars lining the streets of Wilmington as cover to follow Captain Forest and her group of soldiers in black uniforms. On several occasions, Forest turned her head as if sensing a stalker, but each time Denise managed to remain hidden.
The group came to a very large intersection littered with more dead cars and buses and trucks. In the center of the intersection sat a big, circular fountain surrounded by shrubs.
On one corner of the crossroads stood an impressive brick and stone cathedral. The damage done to that cathedral was equally as impressive and quite strange as well.
Something had removed a chunk of the building.
No, not a chunk; more like a scoop. As if a ball had bounced against the cathedral and every part of the wall it touched disintegrated into nothingness. A surgical and nearly beautiful piece of destruction, leaving a concave wound with no sign of debris.
Whatever had removed such a huge piece of brick and stone had to be pretty huge itself. And powerful.
“…definitely…”
“…radiation readings?”
“…we don’t have the firepower to…”
“…call Shepherd maybe he can…”
Denise heard only fragments as she hid behind a destroyed Mustang at thirty yards, yet she noticed the soldiers fidgeting nervously as they surveyed the unusual damage.
The group turned about and retraced their steps toward City Hall, nearly stumbling upon Denise in the process. After they passed, the girl followed once again. About half way to headquarters, Captain Forest separated from the men, heading off on her own.
This impressed Denise a great deal. This woman felt confident enough to walk by herself along the streets of Wilmington? A few days ago, that would have been a death sentence.
Her curiosity piqued even more, Denise followed as the woman left Fifth Street behind and traveled an alleyway.
Denise crept between those buildings, too, rounding a corner into a courtyard of sorts, surrounded by the backsides of several small shops. She saw employee entrances and dumpsters. Multiple paths led away from the hidden clearing toward larger, primary streets.
Her quarry nowhere in sight, Denise stopped and stood straight.
“You’re pretty good,” the woman’s voice came.
Captain Forest emerged from behind a dumpster, smiling but holding an assault weapon ready in her hands.
“You forgot one thing though. Your shadow. Not much of one this time of day but just enough to give you away from around the corner. Remember that, next time you’re stalking someone.”
“I wasn’t stalking!” Denise nearly shouted.
“Hey, easy does it,” Forest calmed. “I’m just saying, next time you decide to follow someone you need to think it through a little more.”
“I followed you all the way from City Hall,” Denise boasted. “And I was watching you meet with the soldiers in there, too.”
Captain Forest tilted her head. “Is that a fact? Tell me, what’s a little girl like you doing walking around by yourself in this town?”
Denise narrowed her eyes and answered, “I’m not little; I’m eleven. Besides, what are you doing walking around this town all by your self?”
Forest held her rifle a little higher and asked, “Where’s yours?”
Denise said nothing.
Captain Forest stepped in front of Denise and ordered, “Turn around.”
Denise hesitated, not sure what the woman meant until she swiveled her fingers in the air to make the point.
Denise then understood what to do, but not why. The Captain examined the back of her neck, lifted her shirt, and-despite a series of protesting grunts from Denise-examined under her arms.
“Just looking, don’t worry.”
“Looking or what?” Denise chirped.
Forest completed the examination, stepped off a pace, and said, “Voggoth sucks.”
“Huh? Who’s Voog-Boog-Bugg-eth?”
“Never mind. That’s good,” Forest answered. “You’d be surprised how many of them give themselves away like that. Easy to provoke and all.”
“What are you talking about?”
Forest‘s eyes widened and realization swept across her face.
“Wait a second. You’re that girl from the chapel. The one who was almost Mutant foo-. I mean the one who was in the chapel.”
She straightened her clothes with a look of indignation and replied, “Yeah, well, my name is Denise.”
“Hello Denise, I’m Nina. Mind telling me why you were following me?”
Denise glanced around, looked at her feet, looked at the sky, and then finally answered, “I don’t know. I was bored. Like, super bored. Something to do, I guess.”
“I see.”
“Hey, I don’t need you to tell me what to do. I can do what I want. I can take care of myself.”
Nina said, “I can see that. You move pretty good. Got some real potential.”
A smile exploded onto Denise’s face. “Really?” But she quickly suppressed the grin, nearly turning it into a frown, and mumbled, “I mean I know that.”
The sound of an explosion rolled in from the distance, passing overhead like the calling card of a distant thunderstorm. Both women shot their eyes to the clear blue sky above.
Nina said, “You know, I think we can both take care of ourselves pretty good. What do you think?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes. Sure we can.”
“But you know the first thing that you do to take care of yourself?”
“What’s that?” Denise asked Nina.
“You’re smart about where you go. You don’t put yourself in bad spots.”
“Yeah, sure, I know that, geez,” Denise rolled her eyes.
“Let’s get out of this spot for now. Come with me.”
Denise mulled it over for all of two seconds before answering, “Well, okay. I’ve got nothing better to do right now, anyway.”
When they had first came onboard, Jon thought he would never get accustomed to it, but in reality it had only taken him four days to adjust to the constant droning pervading the sub; the combined sound of engines and equipment creating a vibration of noise that served as background to everything.
The first few days after departing Hopedale, he occasionally sniffed fresh air from the conning tower. Once entering Baffin Bay, Farway kept the Newport News submerged. Jon suspected Farway felt naked cruising on the surface, no doubt an impulse dating to the cold war.
Jon became mindful of the watertight doors and remembered many Hollywood movies where a sub Captain sealed crewmembers in flooded compartment to save the ship. That thought put a flutter in his belly nearly as constant as the vibration through the boat.
As they did each evening, Jon Brewer and Reverend Johnny joined Farway and his Executive Officer for dinner, after which they swapped stories.
One night Jon and the Reverend presented a detailed accounting of the Battle of Five Armies. Another time, Farway had told them about arriving at their homeport of Norfolk and finding it infested with fluffy horned guinea pig things walking five feet tall on hind legs.
“Sort of like a chia pet gone mad,” the XO had said.
This evening in the small cubicle that served as the Captain’s dining room, the conversation turned to the Newport News’ missions for Gordon Knox. More specifically, inserting spies overseas.
“We went through the straits of Gibraltar last year and dropped a team off in Algeria. We were supposed to make a pick up in Sicily but the group never showed.”