Zone Yellow

Chapter 2

We were directed to Field HQ in a clearing in a beech forest near a small town. On the way, we encountered a roadblock adorned with three wrecked trucks, and a 75mm Bofors. The gun crews were ready to blow our lead bus off the road until I and a couple of other plainly human fellows jumped down and convinced the troops we were the good guys. They sounded glad to see us after they got over their disappointment at not getting to use their field-gun on the buses, but they kept staring down the road the way we’d come. They told us about a shortcut to Headquarters. We found it: a six-man tent and a half-track with a few Army men standing around.

I took over from an exhausted brigadier who was almost out on his feet, but was doing his best to monitor the action around and in the city, and to keep the few local levies he’d managed to get together in position to block any further advance into the area.

An anxious-looking major came in from the woods and asked me, “Where’s the main body, sir?” He didn’t quite break into tears when I said, “We’re it.”

“We’ve turned back one small convoy so far,” he told me. “They drove right into our gun muzzle. Didn’t seem to realize what it was. They’ve got some heavy stuff of their own, but very short-range.” He pointed out a couple of smashed tree-stumps a hundred feet from the tent. “They blew them up, but didn’t come any farther, after we blew two lorry-loads off the road.” He patted the flank of the half-track with its Bofors .80.

“They’re used to short-range energy weapons,” I explained to him. “That gives us a sort of advantage, if we can entice them out of town. Carry on, major; I’ll be back.”

The major nodded, and said, “Ja visst! We can’t use our gun in the city; we’d destroy it!”

I told him to keep up the good work, and I took some men and went out to reconnoiter, cautiously. I didn’t think the Ylokk would be taking their rebuff at the roadblock lightly. We could see their patrols, single scouts and details of up to ten men―oops!―things, clustered around every outbuilding and thicket. We moved on, three of our vehicles limping badly, and soon came in sight of the little town called Sigtuna. It looked peaceful as Swedish towns always look on a spring morning. There was a burnt-out half-track in the ditch half a mile from the first building, a dun-colored restaurant with red geraniums in window boxes. I checked inside: nobody alive there. A hundred yards farther on, we found a man in Swedish Army gray-green, lying in the middle of the road. He stirred as my lead truck came up and stopped beside him. He had a terrible wound in the leg. I got down and went to him in time to hear him say:

“Look out, colonel. They―” He went limp then and I couldn t find a pulse. Just before I left him I noticed his left hand had been gnawed, as if by rats. Not a nice way to go, eaten alive by the rat-men of Ylokk.