The Aeschylus

1

The last buckle of the harness clicked into place around her waist. It was tight enough all right, but it was a weapon that had never been designed for the likes of her.

“I figure that's eighty pounds. Can you stand?”

She nodded.

“Can you walk?” When AJ took his hand away, she almost fell. He was smiling a little.

Kate took two steps and nodded again. The bigger question was whether or not she could run, and the answer to that was a resounding no. Kate remembered that she'd tried jogging with five-pound ankle weights once and found it too painful. Either way, there was no turning back. She could hear the chemical splashing around the tanks at her back, could smell the vaguely unpleasant odor of the formaldehyde around the hose. Dominik's solution had not saved him in the long ago, but maybe, just maybe, it would save them now. It was as if it were meant to be.

The snap of a rifle bolt clacked behind them, and Kate looked over her shoulder to see Dutch standing with his K98, his chest crisscrossed with ammo belts. He was white as a ghost, his new soldier's shirt stained where the bandage had leaked through. AJ rushed over to steady him. He wasn't smiling any more. “You all right?”

“Go on,” Dutch rasped. “I'll cover you.”

Ten minutes before, he'd seemed fine, but Kate didn't like the sound of his voice. She didn't like it one bit.

“We'll be back.” AJ grabbed the other man and embraced him.

Dutch coughed, pushing him off of his wound. “You're more hurt than help, you know that?”

“I'm sorry, buddy. I'm sorry I ever got you into this.”

“You couldn't have kept me away, not even if you cut me yourself.”

Kate felt herself tearing up. She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and then nearly fell, the weight on her back throwing her off balance. Both men caught her, and she laughed, grateful to be held again, if only for a moment.

She wiped her eyes and settled for putting a hand on Dutch's cheek. “See you.”

“I still expect to get paid. Now, both of you go on and get out of here before you kill me with this sappy crap.” Turning, he began to climb the ladder to the one surviving guard tower. “I can do it, dammit.”

AJ, who'd been helping him, held his hands up in surrender. He stooped and grabbed his own two Karabiner rifles, slinging them around his shoulder, then settled for the MP38 submachine gun in his hands.

“Meet you at the front.”

After toppling the Howitzer into dirt, they'd brought out one more cannon and pointed it at the gate. Kate wondered at the toll this had taken on their wounded friend, but they had no choice; they needed all of the firepower they could get. It stood as a sentry guarding the front gate now, waiting for them. Kate walked beyond the barrel and stared upwards, the enormous black growths twisting through the space in front of her. If the entire path was like this, they'd never make it, but she didn't think it was. The space beyond look mostly open, and if they had to wipe out two or three more tangles along the way, they could do it. The docks were only a mile through the hills, maybe less. The beach route seemed to take forever, but the path across the island looked almost like a straight shot.

The reek of her own sweat assaulted her. It had soaked through her clothes, making her hands slick. She could remember running on the hottest days in DC, and she couldn't think of a single time she'd been this disgusting.

“Do it!” AJ yelled.

Her finger squeezed the trigger, and a jet of clear liquid burst from the nozzle. A soft screech came from the tentacles, the sound of air hissing and gurgling, but they didn't melt. They didn't collapse. They didn't do anything but color and tarnish under the power of the liquid.

Kate stared, feeling her breath become ragged. This wasn't what the book had said! The effect should be more dramatic, it should… it should be killing them.

It is killing them, she thought. She could see it in the way that the skin began to shrivel, the way the tentacles began to droop. It wasn't dissolving them, however, and that was a problem.

“What are you doing?” AJ yelled.

She couldn't answer. She had never prepared for the possibility that her plan wouldn't work. Her plans always worked, even from the time she was a child. But maybe that's what they were when you got down to it: child's play. She'd never needed a plan like this. Now, with her foolishness, she may have doomed them all.

A gunshot snapped her attention to the tower. She whipped her head around, seeing the gleam of Dutch's sniper scope. He was shooting at something beyond the walls.

Somewhere high up in the hills, another shriek came on the wind. It was closer than the last. Kate had a crazy memory of her father's first senatorial debate, and a word his opponent had used in his opening statement. It sounded multitudinous. Like a thousand voices joined as one.

“Flame on!” AJ yelled. “Use the flames!”

Kate looked down at her hands. The solution was so obvious, that at first, it didn't register. Had she really expected this thing to work as an eighty-pound water cannon? No, she had read the journal too literally. The things in front of her were evil, and every good conservative from the days of Isaiah to the days of the present knew what you did with evil.

You killed it with fire.

2

A jet of yellow and green flame burst from the tube as Kate pressed the igniter. AJ watched the tentacles boil and melt, pieces of flesh dropping to the ground in chunks.

He got behind the cannon, making sure a live shell was loaded and the safety valve was tight. “Fire in the hole!”

Kate sidestepped, and he yanked the firing lever.

The Howitzer thundered, the crack of the explosion so loud he thought his ears had blown. The round hit dead center, disintegrating the flaming tendrils into black mist. Shards of earth and dead meat fell from the sky. The spent artillery shell clunked to the ground behind him.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye and saw humanoid shapes clambering between the walls, storming the mutilated fence behind them. The first ones got stuck on the barbed wire, but the ones after stepped on their shoulders. They came spilling over, tumbling and rolling into the base. He counted four, then six. Half as many were stuck beneath the wire, tearing themselves apart to get free.

They were almost on him when he fired, taking them down in a single burst from the MP38. One more broke free of the fence and charged. Dutch caught it below the chin, its head coming halfway off as its body dropped.

The K98 was in AJ's hands a moment later, the submachine gun dropping to the ground. He fired all five shots, taking the remaining two shapes stuck beneath the wire.

At the gate, Kate let loose another jet of flame, and a moment later, a figure came tearing through the entrance. Its head was spouting fire, its skull smoldering and popping as it charged. AJ dropped one rifle and grabbed the other. He could barely see for the tunnel-vision, fear and ice running through his veins. He had the rifle cocked when Dutch fired again, and the figure's flaming skull exploded.

AJ spun in a circle, scanning for any signs of movement, but there were none. The MP38 beckoned, and he picked it up, spending precious seconds to eject the magazine and slap in a spare. He didn't have time to reload the second Karabiner, so he took the loaded one and started for the gate. Kate was jogging ahead of him, but he passed her at the fence, stepping under the canopy of melting fungus. “Stay with me!”

The darkness swallowed them as they moved up the path, the torchlight dying behind. Above, AJ could see the moonlight glinting off of tentacles as large as redwoods.

There were two flares left, and he decided to use one. He grabbed the gun off of his waist and shot a round upwards, barely slowing. All at once, he came to a screeching halt. Kate, who was moving slower, almost knocked him over.

“Why are you stopping?” she panted. Then, she saw.

The crater loomed before them, its vast reaches dropping into the earth. They had almost tumbled straight in.

“Back up,” he said. “Slowly.”

She did. A moment later, they discovered the path around it and found another overgrowth of tentacles.

Kate squeezed the trigger again, her sweat shining in the light of the flare. She cut a path through them, disintegrating each one in turn. AJ watched as two human shapes fell from within one of the tentacles, hissing as they melted. He waited for more to drop, called by the pain and the heat of their brethren.

Kate spun. “AJ, behind you!”

They were not coming from the tentacles; they were coming from the pit. A dozen huddled shapes came slithering over the stones, crawling up the sides of the crater like bugs. He pulled the trigger of the MP38 and heard only a dry click.

It was jammed!

He was knocked to the ground before he knew what was happening, but not by The Carrion. Kate pushed past him, thrusting the hose of the flamethrower in front. A wave of emerald fire flashed from the hose, coating the shapes rising from the dark. The figures seemed to twist in slow motion, falling back into the abyss in a viridian agony. One of them almost made it, but AJ regained his feet and smashed it with the butt of his gun, sending it toppling into the pit.

When he was sure they were gone, he took the clip out of the MP38 and tested the cocking handle. He pulled it back, then forwards, clearing the jam. Then, he put the clip back in and fired a test shot.

“Fixed?” Kate asked.

He nodded. “Thanks for that.”

“Are they gone?”

He walked along the side of the crater, looking for signs. The edges were glowing, the flames sticking to the rocks. They flickered eerily in the dark, portending shadows of things that were not really there. There was something else in the darkness though, something he couldn't see. It had come from the base, following their trail through the gloom.

3

Their stench was ripe. The man's sweat had a rancid-sick aroma, but the girl… the girl was sweet. His nostrils flared with the scent, taking her in as he followed the trail. He could almost remember what she looked like.

The air was too hot, and he felt dry. He felt withered. He could still make it to them and cut them off though, and then, he could rest. The way he felt now, he could use a rest. It felt like he had been up for days… had it been days?

He had left his other at the tower, and he'd sacrificed a good man to keep all three of them there. But they had been just too clever. They.

Them.

Who was he talking about?

He caught her scent again and loped forward, limping on his bad leg. The fire around her was burning yellow and green.

Green.

Surely, he must be imagining that.

He saw the man walking around the edge of the dark. He could push him in, and then, he would be alone with the girl. His tongue pushed out of his mouth, and he tasted the damp air, savoring the sweetness of her fear. He imagined how soft her skin must be, how easily it would collapse under his claws. Under his bite. He would bathe in her. Gods, how he was dry!

A muscle twitched in the upper corner of one eye, and he swatted it. His head was pounding, his skin hot. But just a little longer, just a little further, and he would rest.

He crept behind the rocks at the edge of the crater, knowing the bitch would be his.

4

The figure leapt at AJ from the blackness, massive and wolf-like. It kicked Kate in the chest, sending her spinning through the air. AJ watched her tumble to the ground, her backpack clanging off of a nearby rock. He waited for the whole thing to blow, but it didn't.

Mason spun towards him, his mouth frothing. AJ looked down at his own hands and the MP38 went off of its own accord, aiming itself towards his attacker. Mason was on him in two strides, taking the lead to the stomach. The burst should have bowled him backwards, but it didn't. He kept coming. He kept coming straight through it.

In one swift stroke, Mason swatted the gun, knocking it away like a toy. He grabbed AJ by the wrist and twisted, forcing the man back. AJ punched him in the balls, but there was nothing. No response save for a cold, dead-eyed stare. Mason brought him to his knees, laughing silent, gruesome laughter.

Behind him, Kate was getting to her feet, but she couldn't use the thrower, not unless she wanted to kill them both.

Mason pulled out his knife, a long steel blade streaked with gore. AJ caught his hand as he brought it down, but he was outmatched.

“Now,” the Mason-thing said. “Now, you seeeeeee!”

There was movement all around them as a fresh wave of Carrion shapes rose from the pit. There had to be at least twenty, all moving with feral ease. The figures began to fan out at the top, not attacking, but moving to surround.

“They're coming,” Kate called. “What do I do? AJ, what do I do?”

He felt his knees buckle, the knife inching towards his face. “Wait!” he coughed.

“They're getting closer!”

“Wait!” he choked.

Mason brought him down to the ground, pushing the knife lower… and lower. It was an inch from his eye.

And then behind him, AJ saw a new figure rise from the darkness. It stood tall, the insignia of an army lieutenant etched on its chest. Without warning, it pounced, leaping onto Mason's back. It began to tear at him, and in seconds, the other Carrion joined it. They were pulling at the big man, yanking him off of his target.

“Mineeee!” the thing screeched. “My dreaaaammmmm!”

“Get off me!” Mason yelled. “Get off of me, you fools!” He slashed with the knife and cut two of them deep, but the one on his back kept on. It was clawing at Mason's neck, digging with fingernails as long as daggers. With one final grunt, Mason threw the thing off of him, sending it crunching onto a pile of rocks. He looked back at AJ and snarled, his face covered in blood.

AJ's legs wobbled and then slipped, his feet sliding on slime. As he hit the ground, something flickered far back in the guard tower… then a thunder crack echoed through the air, and all of a sudden, Mason's shoulder snapped backwards, the knife flying from his hand. When he turned back, he had a hole above his heart the size of a ping-pong ball. AJ could see green flame on the other side of it. Bringing his hands to his chest, Mason pawed at the hole in disbelief. He took one stutter-step forwards and then toppled back into empty space. Where there should have been earth, there was only the void.

His body fell with no sound.

AJ looked towards the base — towards Dutch — and then back to the pit. “Bad luck day for you, my friend.”

The surviving Carrion figure got back to its feet, and AJ stared at it. It was an old, old thing. He fumbled for his backup pistol.

“Watch out!” Kate yelled.

The thing leapt… and AJ fired. He sidestepped, watching its limbs go dead in mid-jump. It hit the ground and twitched, its body thudding onto the hard earth. He stood up and shot it again, blasting its brain into oblivion. Whatever it had seen in him, whatever it had hoped to accomplish was gone in the span of a gunshot.

Kate looked at him, her face pallid.

“Now!” AJ yelled. “Whatever you got, burn them to Hell!”

5

Through the scope, Dutch watched the conflagration, dozens of them screaming and falling as Kate hosed them down. He watched AJ open fire, cutting through mob after mob. But for every dead Carrion, two more rose from the pit. Or dropped from the tentacles. Or slithered from the dark.

The flames burned them to nothing, and they came. The submachine gun cut them to pieces, and they came. Dutch shot them one after another, reloading an endless stream of cartridges, and still they came.

He shot one in the chest, cutting its heart in two. He shot another in the leg, blasting it off at the kneecap. He shot one in the stomach and another in the back, watching as they twisted and fell.

And yet still, they came.

His fingertips began to sizzle, reloading round after round into the hot steel of his rifle. His side was dripping now, a distant pitter-patter of drops on his boots. Every shot was a meat tenderizer, the rifle opening the slash in his side. His head began to swim. He had no idea how long this had been going on or how long it would last. The world beyond the gates began to shrink and grow in the dark.

When his head cleared, he realized his last two shots were dry-fires. He reached down and groped at the ammo box. Then the tower began to shake, and he stumbled. A few of the figures had broken from the group and begun to jump on the lower supports. He'd kicked the ladder down and shot a few stragglers, but they were getting bolder.

By the pit, he could see AJ and Kate fighting back to back, inching along the path. He'd never been much for praying, but he prayed now. Just a little faster. Hurry up and get back here so we can get the hell out—

Something grabbed his foot, something that had climbed up the supports.

“Get off me!” He turned the rifle and fired, fully expecting the thing's head to explode, but he hadn't reloaded. He hadn't reloaded!

Fingernails tore into his calf, and he toppled to the floor. The thing at his feet laughed dark hysterical laughter, and instantly, he knew who it was. It was Melvin, come back to drag him into the great beyond. The thing's head was distorted, its skin blotched with pond-water stains, but there was no mistake: it was him.

Dutch stumbled backwards, and the Melvin-thing pulled himself through the trap door. It was on Dutch in a second, thrashing, clawing, biting. Dutch grabbed it around the throat and held it back, but when he looked at the trapdoor, he saw they were no longer alone. Melvin had broken the dam. There were four or five of them scrambling up the sides now, all clambering towards him with that crazed, insatiable anger.

Feeling his strength give out, his arm sunk beneath the drive and adrenaline of his attacker. His side was fully split now, his blood running thin. He tried to throw Melvin over the tower, but the thing smashed him in the side of the head, and Dutch collapsed. His face landed next to the ammo box, and he looked at the shells mournfully. But the box wasn't only full of bullets.

He reached inside and grabbed an oblong shape just before Melvin turned him over, and the other figures crested the top of the tower. They did not wait on ceremony. He felt four new mouths attach to his clothes, ripping and tearing the cloth.

“You think you got the Dutch boy?” he screamed. “I got you! I got you!”

He twisted the top of the object, and the cord dropped. He pulled it just before Melvin tore his hand away and bit off two of his fingers.

Dutch remembered how Gideon had sounded in the machine shop at the docks. He remembered how horrifying his screams were, how he couldn't imagine what his death could have felt like.

Then they bit through his clothes, and he understood.

6

The tower exploded in a white flash, discharging a lightning-quick blast of sunlight over the wastes. It revealed the shadows of dozens more figures, rising and crawling over the mass of corpses. Kate looked at AJ and saw his face was stone, his eyes shining in the light of the fire. Then a shadow played across his features, and she saw how porcelain-thin that mask was.

“There!” she yelled. “There's the entrance to the docks!”

She pulled him after her, knocking another one of the Carrion figures into the pit. If they had a chance, it was now.

A mass of tentacles twined over the exit, blocking it as they had blocked the base entrance. The two of them came to halt directly in front, the fisheries now visible through the cracks.

AJ tossed the smoking MP38 to the ground, but his face had cleared. “I'm out. Do your thing, honey. Melt them down.”

When she squeezed the trigger, the nozzle produced a dry coughing sound. “Empty!”

“What?”

The weight of the canisters was still obscene, and suddenly, she was very anxious to get them off. Dropping the hose, she unbuckled her waist straps and wriggled free of the harness. The backpack clanged angrily to the ground.

“I can't see. Where are they?”

AJ fired the last flare into the sky, and suddenly the hordes were there, sprinting from the edge where the two of them had been only moments before.

He tossed her a pistol.

“What are we going to do?”

“Shoot as many as we can.”

“Don't you have a grenade?”

AJ started to open his mouth, but she reached into his overcoat before he could speak and pulled out a Model-24, the same beast Dutch had used, the same Seiler had tossed onto the pirate vessel in the long ago. To her surprise, he produced a second grenade and handed it to her. “This is all I got! Make it count!”

She yanked the cords and tossed them both beneath the mass of tentacles, praying they would do the job. They had no room for error.

“Did you—” AJ asked, but that was as far as he got.

The earth detonated behind them, showering dirt and fungus in all directions. AJ dove over her, using the trench coat as a shield for the debris. A second after it was over, he was yanking her up and sloughing off the coat.

“Run!” he yelled. “Run like the wind!”

They passed through the gate and into the heart of the docks, the army of shapes mere seconds behind. Kate's eyes scanned the warehouses, searching for the one Dutch had described. Then, she saw. Down by the water stood a metal shack with signs of the recent fire. It hadn't burned, but there were scorch marks around the roof and the side door. Again she thought of the odds of the boat being incinerated, and again, she closed her mind to it.

The horde was gaining on them, pacing up the shore as if they knew what the two of them were planning. AJ fired one more round over his shoulder and then chucked the rifle, catching up to Kate and then surpassing her. He plowed through the door to the machine shop, and when she followed, he slammed the door behind her. His hands fumbled around the entrance until he found the wooden bar serving as the lock. He threw it into place, sealing them from the outside.

A second later, something large and heavy slammed against it, rattling the thin metal walls. Kate could hear them pawing and humping at the door, screaming to get in. She and AJ didn't have long. The boat bay was open to the water, and as soon as those things figured that out, they'd forget the door, circle the exterior, and get inside.

The ceiling was full of skylights, but without the sun, it was almost too dark to see. The moon illuminated two or three dim patches of room, and they were small.

“Where's the boat?”

A flame flickered to life as AJ produced his lighter. She breathed a sigh of relief; the boat was there, and it looked intact.

Something slammed into him in the dark, and AJ was suddenly flying into the floor. Kate heard his back crack into the concrete and winced. The figure on top of him hissed, its hands tearing at him with lawnmower speed.

“Your gun!” he called. “Kate, shoot this fucking thing!”

She reached into her waist band and hoisted the Luger. “You have to get it off of you!” she cried. “Get it off!”

AJ looked at her, then planted a boot in the thing's chest and pushed, sending it flying across the room. It landed almost perfectly in a square of moonlight.

“Shoot it!”

She fired, the gun thundering in her hands not once, but three times. All three shots connected, the blackened thing twisting and spinning under the force of the shots. It slumped to the ground, either dead or dying.

AJ jumped to his feet and began running to the boat. There was no time for thanks. She heard splashes in the water and knew the horde was moving towards the bay doors.

“Come on!” he yelled.

But she found her mind wasn't totally numb yet. “The water! We have to lower it into the water!”

“Find the release!”

He ran to the engine and thumbed the engine primer, five presses inside a second. After giving the rest a quick look, he pulled the rope. The engine shuddered but didn't start.

Kate shuffled around the perimeter, searching for something that might look like a switch or a hoist. “I can't find it!”

AJ pulled the starter one more time. “Look! You're probably looking for a rod or something mechanical.”

She saw it then, a thin, brown shaft sticking out of a pulley mechanism. She ran to it and pulled. At first, it didn't give, but when she put all of her weight against it, the thing creaked and slid downwards. The boat dropped with a sudden ferocity, slamming into the water at full tilt. AJ lost his footing and fell, the lighter going dead. I've knocked him out, she thought crazily. I've knocked him out, and in so doing, killed us both!

But then, he was standing up with the lighter in hand, giving her a look that was two parts gratitude and one part exasperation.

“Help me!” she said, trying to get across the gap.

“Help yourself, or we're not going to make it!”

Something splashed in the water not ten feet from the bay doors. She took his advice and jumped, landing just inside the walls of the boat.

AJ pulled the starter and the engine turned over, the propeller spinning up to full speed. He slammed the engine throttle down, and before she could sit up, the boat was flying forwards. It clunked against something soft and organic, and then suddenly, they were in open water. The machine shop was disappearing behind them, the island looming behind it. She watched as the blackened hordes swarmed after them, but it was too late. They were away.

They were far away.