Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

maps. The idea was that they would head due south until they hit the coast. Lacking GPS, or any map more detailed than what they could copy from the few laptops and personal phones that had survived the initial massacre, their best bet was to find recognizable landmarks.

It was almost a given they’d hit a snag somewhere. Maybe the coastline was different, a mountain wouldn’t exist, or a river would take a slightly different turn. More likely, they’d run into some monstrosity that would put an end to their little road trip. All in all, it was a slim hope they’d ever make it all the way to their destination, but it was still hope.

Thump!

The Humvee kicked up for a split second and Summers slammed on the brakes. That was odd. He could have sworn the path was clear. He checked in the rearview to see a small lump in the road. It was . . . bleeding? Shit, did he hit an animal? He hadn’t even seen so much as a deer so far. Then it picked its head up—it was one of the skin-walkers.

“Shit, got more of those . . . things up ahead,” Nowak said. Summers saw small groups of the pale creatures coming from the tree line around them.

“I got ’em,” Adams said as he popped the door to the Humvee and stepped out. The creatures made no move to attack. Something told Summers these things were starving—they were always so thin—but their movements were sluggish compared to what he’d seen before. He even saw a few bullet wounds in their sides. Survivors of the battle?

Adams let loose with a burst of fire into the closest. It toppled over without much trouble. He moved on to the next with similar results. After a few more like that, he dropped the barrel of his gun and stepped back into the Humvee.

“You know, we could have just rolled on by,” Summers called back.

Adams thought that over. “True. Counterpoint, fuck those things.”

“Fair enough,” Summers said as he shifted the Humvee back into gear.

As Summers passed the corpses, he noticed that their ears were pointed like Asle’s. He should have seen that before. But even as he looked, they were taking on a rounder shape. Or at least, that was true for the few still breathing.

“Hey, Asle, you said these things come from corpses, right?”

“Yes. Dead,” Asle said. “Skeen don’t kill, mostly find bodies.”

“So why aren’t they . . . you know? Why did some of them sound like us? A couple even have our ears.” Summers asked.

She quirked her head at the question. “They copy. Speak. Face. Body. All copy. Animals, too.”

“But they were who lived around here?”

“Yes.”

“And they died? Somewhere around here?” Summers looked in the rearview. Asle was fidgeting again.

“Yes. Lots,” Asle said.

“What killed them?”

“Don’t know.” There was a definite tension in her voice now.

“Great,” Summers said, with all the sarcasm he could muster.

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They made camp that night in a clearing by a cliff’s edge. The idea was that they’d have somewhere to put their back to, but Adams later pointed out that they had no idea if the predators here could fly, climb, or phase through the damn floor. With that little revelation, they decided to leave two on watch at all times. Summers didn’t like to sleep much, anyway.

The “camp” used a mishmash of what they’d been able to cobble together from the remains of the 63rd, mostly standing tents and sleeping bags. They’d assembled it around the Humvee, which Adams had managed to rig up with some LED lights and heaters that charged with solar batteries—useful since it meant they could go without a fire. Summers didn’t trust having an open flame near the Humvee. It was cold, a thin blanket of snow covering the ground, but unlike his base back in Alaska, it was nothing life-threatening. Maybe it was a “mild” winter on this world. Whatever the explanation, he was happy to make do with a bit of discomfort if it meant they avoided blowing themselves up.

Nowak was on watch with Summers that night. Summers had found a little spot on top of the Humvee that didn’t shift when he sat on it, so they were using it as an “elevated position.” Which is to say they had planted their asses in the softest spot they could find. Far down in the valley below, a fog rolled in through the forest. It moved almost as if it were alive.

He looked down at the others in their sleeping bags, then at the miles of forest ahead of them. He thought about the strange machine that had stranded them here, replaying what had happened in his head over and over again. That was a habit the military drilled into you: learn from your mistakes. But every time he ran through it, he couldn’t see what he could have done differently.

After a while, Summers heard the quiet snoring of the rest of the team below them.

“Hey, Sarge.”

“What is it?” Nowak answered.

“I really am sorry about all of this.” Summers looked at Nowak, trying to gauge his response.

“All right, why?”

That wasn’t the response Summers was expecting.

“Because I’m the reason we’re here?”

“Really? You ordered us here?” Nowak responded, side-eyeing him.

“I stranded us here, man.”

“No, you made a decision in a shit situation. We weren’t getting back to the base, not without casualties, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to make the run with a civilian and wounded with us.”

“But—”

“The only way we were getting back to base was if those monsters chased the rest of the guard topside. Then we might, might have been able to sneak in. But then what? We’d have been hunted one by one. That thing wasn’t going down for anything but heavy ordinance—certainly