Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon Read online

But it wasn’t just the sparser population that accounted for the feelings of loneliness.

  No. People were also alone now with their demons.

  And Ali was definitely there with hers.

  Lying alone in the dark, the image of that boy’s face kept hovering above her in some space she couldn’t clear it out of. She kept thinking of him being sent out onto the water, unarmed, unprovisioned, saddled with his wounded friends.

  Going to his death.

  Very unexpectedly, the hatch to her cabin knocked – just twice, and quietly. She was basically decent, so she climbed out of her bunk and answered it. It was Handon. He was dressed in his PT shorts and t-shirt, carrying his MP3 player and headphones, and covered in a light sheen of sweat. She noticed his pumped-up muscles, swelling beneath almost zero subcutaneous body fat, in the detached way she might admire an older brother.

  “I had a strange feeling you were up,” Handon said. He looked in over her shoulder. “Homer back with the kids?”

  “Yes,” she said, as she opened the hatch wide and motioned him in, then flicked on the little desk lamp. He took a seat on one of the bottom bunks, and she sat on the one opposite. They faced each other across the very dim air of the little cabin for a few seconds before either spoke.

  Finally, Handon said, “So. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  Ali shrugged, and thought to herself: Fuck it. We’re all alone and it’s the middle of the night.

  “I was actually just thinking about that boy on the pirate ship. The one we made walk the plank.”

  Handon exhaled and slumped down slightly. When he responded, he did so carefully. “Given the circumstances we were in… and given our mission… there was no way around it. You know that, right?”

  She exhaled. “Of course I do. The only alternative would have been a bullet to the head. Though, considering everything, that might have been the more merciful choice.” She leaned back further into the dimness beneath the top bunk, her arms braced on the thin mattress behind her. “But it played out the way it played out. We’re still alive, and that boy probably isn’t now. And that’s it.”

  As Handon tried to read her expression in the silence that followed, she found herself unable to voice her next thought. She was now thinking about how, a scant few minutes after that, Handon had made the decision to leave Emily’s sister behind. Of course, there had been no sane way around that one, either. She had pointed a loaded gun at the head of the man who was perhaps the only chance humanity had left. She’d been very lucky to dodge a bullet to the head herself.

  And it would have been Ali who delivered it.

  “Jesus Christ,” she finally said aloud.

  “What?” Handon’s brow furrowed with concern.

  Ali shook her head. “I don’t know. After that, I very nearly had to top Emily’s sister. And then we left her out there, too – and Emily was okay with it! She understood the necessity. What kind of bullshit is this, that we’ve been reduced to?”

  “Fair point.” Other than that, Handon simply didn’t know what to tell her.

  She looked up now and held his gaze. “I guess… I’m just starting to have trouble even thinking of us as the good guys anymore.”

  Handon looked away briefly, off into the darkness. He did know what she meant. It was just that he’d finally learned to stop worrying about it. They did what they absolutely had to do.

  Ali said, “When I think of those heavily armed, treacherous assholes on the Diablo, with their two female captives… I mean, those were the only civilians we’ve even encountered in ages.” She paused again. “And I just wonder whether there’s even space left in this world for decent, normal people.”

  Handon nodded. “As opposed to stone-cold hyper-professional killers, like us.”

  She nodded back, then almost smiled. “I suppose we’re still vastly preferable to stone-cold amateur killers, like the pirates.”

  Handon smiled in turn. But he knew what she was feeling. Perhaps, in the tiny dark space of the cabin, when she’d been alone with everything she was and everything she’d done, it was starting to seem more distinction than difference.

  She drew another breath and then said, “I mean, take Henno.”

  Handon resisted the temptation to say, “…please.” His rocky relationship and burgeoning power struggle with the SAS man was emphatically something the rest of the team did not need to be worrying about.

  Ali went on. “I mean, Henno is a profoundly good man – where it counts. But he would also put his knife to your throat, or his .45 to your face, if you crossed him, or if you got on the wrong side of him or his mission.”

  They both remembered he’d done just that to Emily, when her sister went rogue and threatened their op.

  Ali said, “Henno knows what his mission is, and he knows where his allegiances and duty lie. And he doesn’t have any problem leaving a lot of hats on the ground if getting the job done requires it.”

  “In a way,” Handon said, “he’s beautifully uncomplex.”

  “Sure. But what’s the difference, then?”

  “Difference?”

  “Between him and the goddamned pirates?”

  Handon could now see that Ali appeared to be trembling slightly. Had this whole mission gotten to her, maybe more than she was willing to admit – more than any of them had guessed? He knew full well that she had seen and done a great deal in her career, not all of it suitable for those with weak stomachs. And she’d been a rock up until now – you didn’t make it in the Unit otherwise. But right at this moment she was looking, well, a little traumatized.

  PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, still had a bad stigma, especially in elite units. It was taboo and it could tank a career. And the operators still lived for the fight, and wanted to stay in it, alongside their brothers, for as long as their bodies and their luck held out. No one wanted to be pulled from the line. On the other hand, Handon also knew they had to maintain combat effectiveness. And the job at their level was mostly mental, so that meant maintenance of both mind and spirit.

  And it was also even more true in this world than the old one that the Tier-1 operators couldn’t be replaced, much less done without. Ali looked up, and was able to read the look of concern on his face. So she quickly and sharply pulled herself together. As a thousand times before, she knew she just had to suck it up, get her head straight, and Charlie Mike (“continue mission”).

  “I’m fine,” she said, standing up. “It was good to talk through it.”

  Handon didn’t let on that he didn’t quite believe her. He stood up as well, taking the cue.

  “Get some sleep,” he said.

  “You, too.”

  Fat chance, they were both thinking.

  And as she pressed the hatch closed behind him, and climbed back into her empty bunk, Ali thought how much nicer it would be if she didn’t have to remain by herself in this cabin, all alone with her demons. Now that her relationship with Homer was no longer an open secret, but just open, it didn’t matter if they shared a bunk. And she would have really liked that.

  Not least because every night stood a decent chance of being their last.

  But, even though he was back, still he was absent. Something always got in the way. First it had been his wife – and now that she was truly gone, his children. But she instantly hated herself for resenting this, which was of course profoundly unfair.

  She shut her eyes and decided she would just hash that one out on some other dark night of the soul.

  There would no doubt be plenty more.

  You Okay In There?

  The USS John F. Kennedy

  Chaos surrounds him. Gunfire and shouting, and the moans and rasping of a million dead voices.

  Just yards away, a grenade goes off, the thump of the explosion loud in his ears, but still dull. Much too close. The dead scatter in all directions, a mash of bodies that moments before were scrambling to consume the living. There are so many of them he is barely able t
o process the images as the crowd surges forward again and again, pushed back only by the sheer force of the fire hose that he holds in his hands.

  He can barely hear the rattle of gunfire, hasn’t really heard it for the last twenty minutes. The noise is just too much for his eardrums and now they relay only the dullest version of the overwhelming sound around him, a thud-thud that resounds again and again.

  The drums of war.

  Wesley is vaguely aware of movement to his left, and he turns, his feet slipping, but he doesn’t go down. It’s Melvin, shouting something at him, but there is no sound coming from the man’s lips, and Wesley can’t make out the words.

  He spreads his legs farther apart, and tries to press the surging force of the hose down toward the few straggling bodies crawling on the deck out of the way of the blast. Two of them are merely yards away, kicking and clawing in the white foam though barely able to move forward, let alone stand up. But they are moving toward him nonetheless. The force of the hose pushes the nozzle back up into the faces of the ones that stumble toward them, and he holds on as tightly as he can, bending his knees to bring it down once more.

  A massive hiss, and screech of metal, draw his attention back the other way, toward the runway, as a huge dark shape is launched along the surface of the flight deck. Another chunk of large machinery being used as catapult ammunition to drive the dead back into the sea. This one looks like some kind of refueling vehicle, and its huge, bulbous bulk begins to tumble as it speeds across the deck. Those in its path not crushed into meat pulp underneath it are thrown into the air.

  Wesley releases a massive lungful of air, realizing that he had been holding his breath, and turns back toward the heaving crowd. He is aware that Melvin is standing next to him, firing into the line at those that come too close, that manage to fight past their wall of water, but it takes a moment for him to realize that Melvin has now stopped firing. In the corner of his vision, Wesley sees the shore patrolman look down at his rifle, an expression of confusion on his face, as though he were holding something alien rather than the weapon he always carried.

  “Melvin!” Wesley shouts. Even one man not firing on the line could mean the fall of their defense, a gap in the wall that could spell defeat for everyone. But the Scotsman seems to either be in shock, or just plain confused.

  For a moment, Melvin looks up at him, staring straight into Wesley’s eyes. There is something in those eyes that has changed, and Wesley knows it, but he has to turn away, to keep the hose aimed and in place, or else he could be the cause of the defense failing. But he can’t help looking back.

  Melvin is staring directly at him, his face contorted in rage. His eyes burn with a hatred that Wesley has only seen on the faces of… the dead. He barely has time to turn and attempt to defend himself when Melvin lunges forward. Wesley stumbles and then falls, the hose torn from his hands, as the weight of his friend knocks him to the ground. Pain erupts in his face and Wesley tries to reach up, to push Melvin off him, but the pain explodes again, and flashes of blurred red and blackness rush through Wesley’s vision as he realizes that for some inexplicable reason… Melvin is eating him alive.

  He feels the world swim around him, and a massive jolt of pain as his jaw is ripped from his face, and a spurt of dark blood blinds him. The others are on him now, and his fading strength is no shield against their clawing hands and teeth.

  * * *

  …and then he sat up, cold sweat running down his back, his shirt – the same one he wore when he boarded the ship, and before he was given combat gear – sticking to his skin. Wesley’s senses reeled with the last echoes of the dream, even as the images still wandered ghostlike across his dimly lit cabin. He found himself scrambling for his handgun, still in its holster on the cabinet next to his bed, but his hands were clumsy, and he managed to calm himself, the dream leaving him, and the understanding that it was a dream arriving, before he could get the gun out.

  He sat on the end of the bed, panting, his hands going to his face, and to his jaw, rubbing and squeezing the flesh just to make sure it was still there. He felt smooth skin, and rough stubble, and no blood. Underneath, his jaw was still attached to his face. He hadn’t had his face torn off, and he wasn’t on deck, being ripped apart and eaten alive. Even as he looked around the room, the details coming into focus, he could still see a shadow of the nightmare as it faded, could still see dead eyes and gnashing teeth, hands tearing at him. But then it was gone. The images faded, and all that remained was the stark gray of the walls, the closet and desk, and his bed – and opposite that, a dark corner with a pile of blankets on the floor, and something else.

  “Oh man…” he said, out loud and to no one in particular.

  Except that he got an answer, a quiet whine from the corner, where the German Shepherd sat looking at him from its new makeshift bed of blankets.

  Wesley slowly relaxed and smiled as he looked over at the scraggy dog, sitting there with its head cocked to one side, as it had a number of times before. It was almost a questioning look, as though it were asking him something. He would have loved to know what it was thinking – to somehow read, telepathically, what was on the dog’s mind. He was sure there was a lot of story behind those eyes.

  How did you survive for so long out there? he wondered, eyeing the faint line of scars that ran across the dog’s head. It had to have been another dog, or maybe even a croc or a grizzly, or something. The dog would be dead if it was a zombie that injured her.

  “How did you do it?” he asked aloud, and yet again the dog’s head went up, and tilted to one side as she gave a quiet sniff.

  Two years, or at least the majority of that time, the dog, who had no name tag, had survived in Virginia Beach. Where almost every living human had fallen to the dead, this dog had somehow managed to make it through. Wesley wondered if she had spent most of her time hidden away on the boat they’d escaped on, only venturing out into the city to scavenge for food. There had been plenty of signs of that scavenging when he’d gone down below, even for the brief moment he was there. Empty packets of food were strewn across the floor, all of them torn open rather than opened carefully.

  The dog had certainly been there a while.

  “Did your owner live on the boat?” he asked, watching her eyes for any sign of understanding, but those piercing brown orbs gave little away, and she merely sniffed again and laid her head on her paws, peering back at him in return.

  “Right,” he said. “Well, I suppose we ought to give you a name, don’t you think?”

  The dog sat up at that, and licked her lips.

  “Oh, yeah, maybe breakfast before that. Look, you stay here. I need to go and take a shower, scrub away some more of the nastiness from the battle.”

  He stood up, stretched, then nearly sat down again. Every muscle in his body complained, even in places he didn’t know he had them. But his legs were the worst, across the thighs. Hours of holding that hose down, crouching to push the weight forward, must have stretched his thigh muscles beyond their limits. He moaned.

  “God, I’m like an old man,” he said with a laugh. How many other people were feeling like this, still? Most of them, he guessed. Then his mind drifted to the hundreds who didn’t feel a thing, the ones lost in the battle, and this forced him to stand, stretch, and start moving toward the desk in the corner, where he had unceremoniously dumped most of his clothes before stumbling into bed.

  After the battle, and after all the celebrations were over, which in themselves had gone on for some time, a lot of people had drifted off to find somewhere to sleep, but the ship still had to be run. And now that the crew had yet again dropped in number, that meant no rest for some, not yet. Wesley had spent four more hours, along with nearly everyone from the Captain’s in-extremis force, clearing the deck. Mostly that had meant more hose work, this time with water instead of the foam, which was by then completely depleted. God help them if they had a fire.

  By the time Wesley fell into bed, he was sic
k of the sight of the damned foam, and zombie body parts. The stink on the flight deck hadn’t hit him until they were cleaning it. He hadn’t noticed the funk of thousands of dead, and the acid reek of the foam during the battle, but afterward, when his heart rate slowed, and his senses started to get back to normal, the smell hit him.

  He had taken a shower before going to bed, and more since, but after the dream, or nightmare, he had an urge to wash again, and to keep washing. He threw on his clothes and headed for the door, worked the latch, and took one last glance back at the dog before heading out into the passageway.

  “No noise now,” he instructed her, and was answered by another quiet whine. “I’ll be right back, and then we can go get breakfast.”

  The companionway was busy as hell, and several times Wesley had stop and let hurrying crew members past. He shook his head, puzzled, thinking it must have been only him that felt like an old crone, with weak muscles and a massive headache. That’s what you get for spending most of your time on your arse in an office, while all these military types were running around, he thought.

  Eventually, he made it to the nearest shower block, but stopped twenty yards away as he saw the queue stretching down the hall. He sighed, turned, and resigned himself to the longer walk, out toward the stern, where his old quarters were. He knew there was another shower block out that way, and toilets.

  It was quieter, too quiet, as he walked into the showers, and he immediately saw why. Some time during the battle, while the ship was being pulled off the sandbar at Virginia Beach, several sections of internal structure had broken under the strain. Wesley stood in the middle of the room and watched water pouring down from above, where a massive metal girder had broken through and was pointing down at a dangerous angle. He did contemplate just standing in that torrent, which thankfully was pouring away into the drains meant to eliminate shower water. But he decided that, after all the luck he’d used up the previous day, chancing that thing coming down on his head was exactly what fate would have been waiting for.