Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire (14 page)

           
“Yeah, yeah,” Evan waved his hand impatiently. “I got the gist of that from the council meeting. Jones won’t discuss half of it when I’m around. Still, you can do better than ‘we’re low on ammo’.”

           
Roos grinned mischievously.

           
“Howabout this, then? Howabout K9s ripping each other apart.”

           
“What did you say?”

           
“The past few days security at the estate has found five different K9s that seemed to have turned on each other. Ripped each other apart. They found a sixth dog that killed its buddy but it was whacko. They say Trevor couldn’t even get through to it. They had to put it down.”

           
Evan felt goose bumps bubble along his arms. He could only imagine the nightmare that would ensue if Trevor’s dogs went berserk.

           
“Well, what? A disease? Rabies?”

           
“No one is sure, but it’s scaring the I.S. guys around the mansion. It’s like something got into the dogs’ heads or something. No one has actually witnessed it, either, just finding bodies. Really creepy shit.”

           
“Yeah, really creepy. I’ll see what I can find out. What else you got?”

           
Roos smiled as if anticipating the joy this news would bring the councilman.

           
“I got
Dubois
,
Pennsylvania
. Maybe seventy miles northeast of
Pittsburgh
. Small place, sort of a hub for some farms. No electricity, well-water, real stone-age living. Point is, about one-hundred people were there and they just got slaughtered by Red Hands. That’s right,
Red Hands.
Wanna know the kicker? The follow up teams got a bloody nose and had to call in regular military units to handle it, to handle Red Hands! Those idiots use spears and arrows for Christ’s sake.”

           
Evan licked his lips. Red Hands—a primitive organized force—hit a human settlement well inside the ‘secure’ boundaries of the lands Trevor had ‘saved.’

           
“There’s more to it,” Evan said. “I can tell by the way you tap your thumb on the table. You’re just waiting for it to sink in before you hit me with the real punch line.”

           
“Is that what you think? Of course you do. They found over a thousand Red Hands living north of Dubois in
Allegheny
National Forest
. They had to have been there for a year at least.”

           
“Jesus,” Evan slouched in the booth. “You know what that means? It means we’re not safe inside our borders. It means we damn well need more resources for Internal Security. I mean, who cares about the Hivvans if primitive Red Hands can take out a settlement way inside our lines?”

           
“You think I don’t know that? Of course, you know I do. I’m hoping you get the word out because we need help.”
           
“Maybe you need a new chief.”

           
Roos tilted his head slightly as he considered that thought and then answered, “Jones is a good guy, but he’s in over his head.”

           
Evan said, “No shit. He has no law enforcement experience, no background in criminal justice; he wasn’t even a mall security guard. He used to work with computers, for God’s sake. He got that job only because he’s Trevor’s friend.”

           
“Sometimes he don’t talk like it,” Roos said and that grabbed Evan’s attention.

           
“What do you mean?”

           
“I hear him mumbling now and then. Complaining. Every so often he says something loud enough for his guys to hear.”

           
“What kind of somethings?”
           
Roos told Evan, “That maybe Trevor is a little too big for his britches. I little too all-powerful and whatnot.”

           
“Now that is interesting,” Godfrey took note. “That’s very interesting.”

“I think he’s like us; he’s got a lot of questions. And I’ll tell you what, the boys in I.S. love him because he’s always looking out for us and he stands up to Trevor a lot. But he’s overwhelmed and these days he’s been hoppin’ mad over things. Some more resources would go a long way.”

           
“I’ll do my best,” Evan said.

           
“Why do you think I’m here? First time I met you, Mr. Godfrey, I could see you were going places. I’ve had this little feeling since day one that you were a horse worth backing. I think you can really help a fellow out.”

Roos raised his beer in salute.

           
Evan returned the salute with his flat gin and tonic.

           
“I know we can help each other, Ray. I just
know
it.”

           
An hour before dawn, Catherine Nina Brewer slept peacefully in her bed, one arm clasping a raggedy one-eyed teddy bear. Her tiny belly eased up and down as she inhaled and exhaled softly.

           
Jon watched his daughter sleep and wondered if she would ever understand exactly how wrong the world was.

           
He could not lie to his child; monsters did exist. Terrible, ferocious monsters. He could never assure her that ‘it’s just a dream’ or ‘things like that aren’t real.’ Every bump in the night could be a horror waiting to pounce; there might really be something nasty hiding under her bed.

           
Jon stroked her forehead, just to feel his flesh and blood once before leaving.

           
Like all the children born into this insanity, his daughter accepted that nightmare world. Only four years old, she recognized the whistle of a Devilbat in the sky and could distinguish between the playful bark of a K9 and a howl of warning.

“Pleasant dreams, sweet pea,” he whispered.

           
Lori stepped to his side and placed an arm on his shoulder. Jon decided he needed more than a touch of her forehead. He leaned his tall frame over and kissed her sleeping cheek.

The two parents walked out into the hall. Lori eased the bedroom door shut.

           
At first, the Brewers had lived in the mansion with Trevor. When Catherine came along, they moved a few hundred yards away to a
Cape Cod
style lakeside home. While not huge, it fit their new family just fine.

           
Two Doberman Pinschers half-slept/half-guarded their living room while additional sentries periodically patrolled by their home on a regular basis. As military Chief of Staff, Jon Brewer certainly sat in the cross hairs of humanity’s enemies.

           
A pair of over-stuffed duffel bags rested by the front door: his marching orders had come through; it was time to go.

           
Lori projected a tough front; little ever penetrated her armor and if anything managed to punch through, she reacted with bravado or venomous sarcasm. This time, Jon saw chinks in the armor. He heard her crying in the bathroom last night and she continuously asked questions to which he could only answer, “I don’t know” and she cursed Trevor for sending her husband on what seemed a hopeless mission.

           
What he saw in her that morning felt even worse: resolve. Jon realized his wife finally resolved herself to the fact of him leaving and everything that entailed. As she walked him to the front door, he understood she thought this might be the last time she ever saw him. And he could not kid himself. Had he seen his daughter for the last time? Was this the final good bye?

           
The journey ahead felt impossibly long and too fantastic to believe. He felt as if he flew blind into a storm with no real knowledge of the path to follow. He traveled to the frozen wastelands of the north, away from any support with only a handful of men and supplies to find a mystical object now sought by hordes of dangerous aliens.

           
He stopped between the duffle bags, took a deep breath, and tried to find the right words but speeches were not his strong point.

           
“Hey, listen, um, what I mean is…” Jon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and found a better approach: “I love you. I love you and I love that wonderful little girl sleeping in there. So I’m coming back. I’m going to do this and I’m coming back in one piece.”

           
Her eyes watered and she threw two powerful arms around him.

 
“God damn it, you better come home, you hear me?”

           
“I hear you.”

           
“I mean it,” Lori repeated. “You come home to me and your little girl. Y
ou come home.”

           
Jon pulled her away with his strong hands on her shoulders.

“Keep a light on for me.”

           
She nodded and wiped away the moisture from beneath her eyes. He saw her reach deep and find just enough to hold it together as he walked out. When the door closed behind him, he heard the façade collapse.

–

           
Trevor walked alongside the Doberman Pinscher, nodding his head as he moved across the front lawn toward the Eagle airship parked on the helipad. Floodlights from the mansion provided circles of illumination in the otherwise dark pre-dawn morning.

           
“Double the patrols,” Trevor said aloud and formed a mental picture of K9s walking routes around the estate.

           
With the communication complete, the dog trotted away just as Trevor rendezvoused with Jon Brewer at the rim of the landing pad. A line of soldiers hauling gear slowly boarded the craft up a short ramp and through the open side door.

           
“What’s wrong?” Jon asked.

“This shit with the K9s. Two more tore themselves to shreds last night. Both were still alive when we found them. Both were…they were unstable. Had to put them down.”

           
“What is happening?”

           
“I honestly don’t know. There might be some sort of hostile out there that uses insanity as a weapon or something. But they weren’t eaten or anything. They just mauled each other.”

           
The running lights on the Eagle clicked on and flashed over the men’s faces. Engines spooled to life with a heavy hum.

           
Trevor said to Jon, “Listen, don’t worry about the K9s. We’ll figure it out. Probably nothing. Relatively speaking, we’re only talking about a handful and only here around the lake. You worry about your mission.”

           
“Trust me,” Jon huffed. “I
am
worried about it.”

“I wish I could tell you what you’re going to run into, I just don’t know. I told you everything I can.”

           
Jon repeated all of what Trevor had shared. “I’m looking for a structure northeast of Qaanaaq,
Greenland
. I’ve got the exact coordinates and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Globestar GPS satellite is still functional.”

           
Trevor assured him, “Knox’s crew at the Pentagon checked the data at Space Command. They believe you’ll get a good GPS signal to follow.”

“Anyway, I get there and find these rune-things. Two pillars, about six feet high. Then I…then I…are you sure?”

           
Trevor nodded.

           
Jon shrugged for what had to have been the hundredth time since he received his instructions. “There’s a round ball of some sort on top of each pillar. I touch each one, one with each hand.”

           
“That’s right,” Trevor said.

           
“What is that supposed to do again?”

           
“I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory. I’m thinking it sort of reboots whatever force is controlling the gateways.”

           
“Reboots?”

           
“Somehow or another these gateways were opened to our world from other worlds. My guess is that once you come in contact with the runes you sort of establish that this world belongs to you, a human. Then the runes won’t allow any more non-humans to come through. Got it?”

           
“Shit no, I don’t got it.”

Trevor warned, “If some alien touches those things, then…”

“Then they get to start pouring in here as if they own the place. I guess I never realized that this invasion thing could actually get worse.”

“Think of it this way,” Trevor said. “There are rules governing all this, and some of those rules are controlled by these runes. Whoever gets there first gets to change some of the rules.”