The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 28

  They'd spent two days preparing. While Otto put together explosives of all different size and shape, Walt had planned and scouted. Lure in a flier, kill the crew, try to figure out how to fly the thing before anyone noticed it was missing. Meanwhile, if Raymond had risked pulling a car off the side of the road, his crew could already be balls-deep in a nuclear bunker, smoking cigars and running the final check before sending their missiles winging to LA. Walt should be treating every moment as if it were his last. He should be thinking poignant thoughts and writing them down to enlighten and shame alien scholars sifting through the ashes of the civilization they'd destroyed. He should at least be praying for forgiveness from Vanessa for not being more of a man, from his parents for not calling more often, from Nate in 3rd grade whom Walt had jump-kicked in the stomach after Nate intentionally booted a kickball over the fence.

  But they were all dead. They couldn't hear him. These were apologies he should have made in the moment they happened, not after months of the distanced hindsight and soothing regrets that make every man's intentions as pure and bright as a glacier. In this world, the world of scared truths, Walt's last words might be no more than a tacit agreement with Otto's somewhat obsolete message about supporting the local economy.

  Out in the mist, an engine wailed, faded, wailed, faded.

  "Circling," Otto said. "Ideally not so as to find the best angle to open the bomb bays."

  "They'll come down."

  "Says who?"

  "When one goes missing, others come. They care about each other. That's how we're going to kill them."

  "You should have worked for Nixon, boy."

  The engine keened closer until grit and scrap paper blustered against the narrow windows near the garage ceiling. The ship touched down. Its engine spooled to silence. Walt could hear his own blood in his veins. Feet and claws stomped the street, became muffled, then returned twice as loud at the top of the ramp to the basement garage.

  Two of the creatures slapped down the slope. Pale light fanned from metal handhelds. The looted tracking devices continued their noiseless broadcast. The soldiers raised their rubbery sensor-arms, turning them slowly through the gloom. They glanced at each other, flashed hand signals. One gestured up the ramp. The second plodded forward. Walt grinned and brace himself.

  Orange light flared from the front columns. A nauseating bang shook dust from the ceiling. Twisted metal shotgunned the parked cars. Walt's guts splashed inside his ribs. He rushed through the dust, laser and sword in hand. Yellow remains smeared the ramp, bubbling, slipping down the concrete in the stink of burnt powder and vaporized flesh. Otto ran beside him, chuckling, holding up his pants with his free hand. In the street, swirling lights painted the apartment complexes around the landed flier. A blue beam flicked above Walt's head.

  He dove behind a Porsche. Otto flopped in beside him, popping up to exchange lasers with the soldiers around the plane. Walt dropped flat and sent beams slicing beneath the undercarriage of the Porsche. An alien fell, tentacles flailing. Another volley and the tentacles relaxed across the pavement.

  "Got to kill that crew before they start blabbing," Otto panted.

  "Give me one of those pipe bombs."

  "You aren't gonna hit them from here, Johnny Unitas."

  "Light one up and hand it over before your fat heart gives out."

  Otto's salt-and-pepper mustache twitched with laughter. Walt poked around the car to pepper the squid moving from the flier's wheels to the cover of an SUV. In the whirling lights, their octopoid, deepwater bodies looked like something from a dream that can't be wholly forgotten nor remembered. A laser appeared between the aliens and the Porsche's headlight cowl, sizzling the orange paint. Walt ducked.

  Otto passed him a shockingly heavy metal rod with an honest-to-god fuse hissing from its end. Feeling like a cartoon, Walt said, "Cover me."

  The old man swore, dropped the laser pistol, and unslung his bolt-action rifle. He triangled his elbows across the Porsche, aimed, and squeezed off a round. He'd fired a second before Walt rolled out from the car, ducking alongside the line of parked Lexuses, Hummers, and Nissans. The rifle bellowed over the crackle of blue bolts. A beam caught Walt on his pack, melting the plastic into the shoulder of his jacket. A rifle round clanged into the hood of the distant SUV. The aliens flinched back. Walt's fuse had nearly disappeared into the bomb's rounded end. He skipped forward, planted, and slung the fizzling pipe end over end toward the cluster of soldiers.

  It fell from the whirling light, rattling across the asphalt. Walt crouched behind a van and pressed his palms to his ears. A shot echoed between the apartments, followed by a second. Adrenaline tingled across Walt's gut. Otto must have botched the fuse, the chemistry. This was it.

  A metallic bang splintered the night. Shrapnel pinged into car doors, shattering windows. The van rocked against his back. Walt stood. A blinding light burned from the side of the dark oblong flier. At first he thought it was a weapon, but then there was light and noise and force and darkness.

  And Otto stood over him and he could smell blood and burning and plastic and smoke and his ears keened and the sidewalk under him swelled and rippled, carrying him nowhere. Otto was saying something. He said it a few times more before Walt understood.

  "Sure," Walt said, standing to prove it. His knees buckled. Otto grabbed his arm with tough, knotty knuckles.

  "That doesn't look like any fine I've seen."

  "Well, see it." He frowned. "Where did the ship go?"

  "Davy Jones' of Mars."

  "Those aren't words."

  "Come on, kid."

  "We have to get the ship." A craggy heap of metal smoldered where the ship had rested. It must have taken off, but he couldn't hear it. Just the ringing in his ears. The crackle and whip of flames. And Otto chuckling ruefully.

  "Oh, you got it. Now lean on me. We got to be gettin' ourselves."

  Walt tried to resist, pawing at the smoke as if waving it away would reveal the flier, but Otto pulled him along like a leashed beagle. By the time the keen of a second ship whined across the skies, Walt understood. They were already a mile or so from the explosion, but he mumbled something about holing up in a nearby boarded-over Thai restaurant to wait out the search. Otto helped him through a gap in the boards, then grabbed a newspaper from the table by the front bench and swabbed dust from a booth.

  "Well, shit." The big man eased himself into the padded seat. "It was a good idea, kid."

  "It was an awful idea."

  "Don't see anyone else doing any better."

  "Can't try the tracking devices again. They'll just bomb us. Then bomb our bombed-out craters."

  Otto retrieved a red handkerchief and swabbed his sweaty face. "It ain't the end of the world. If Los Angeles is about to get turned into a silicon parking lot, you don't need a Ph.D. to know you might be better off hitting the trail."

  Walt leaned back into the squeaking plastic seat, sighing with something a lot like relief. It felt good, in a way, to be done. Not just with this campaign. It had been a long time since he'd wanted to die in LA. If he left—and the fact that, one way or another, the city was about to be destroyed made that "if" something of a nondecision—he couldn't imagine himself rejoining the fight in San Francisco or San Diego or wherever the hell else there were still people trying to do something about the uninvited guests. He could no longer pretend resisting would do anything for the survivors or the ghost of Vanessa or even himself. It would simply be suicide in another form, a helpless admission of a lack of imagination. He supposed he'd like to watch the city blow up before moving on. That would probably be pretty spectacular. The hills would probably be far enough away to be safe. Or get up above it all somehow, watch from the skies. If they noticed, there would be worse ways to die.

  He went very, very still.

  "I changed my mind," he said. "I'm going to die after all."

  Otto's brow wrinkled. "Look, I don't see how's there any reason to stay. You're young. You go b
e a pirate or some such."

  "I have a better idea. In that it's much, much worse."

  29

  "That's it, then," David said under the sound of the surf. Down the beach, alien children tumbled in the waves. "There's no hope. They'll outbreed us."

  Raymond rubbed his mouth. "There's always hope. All we have to do is get to the nukes."

  "They could have these creches everywhere."

  "And if we take out their carrier, they won't have anything to defend them with."

  "You propose we stay the course," David said.

  "Let's get out of here before they see us."

  Anna wagged her head. "We can't leave."

  Raymond frowned. "It's dark. We'll just cross the street and sneak north."

  "Those are monsters in our ocean. If you see a monster, you don't say 'Oh, I hope the water's not too cold.'"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "We should...you know." She mimed a machine gun with her hands, made a "sh-k-k-k" noise down in her throat.

  He cocked his head. "They're kids."

  "For now."

  "No, that makes sense," David said. "Every day they continue to grow, they will become that much more threatening to whoever eventually contends with them."

  Raymond glanced between them. "What if we get hurt? Who will get to the missiles?"

  "What's going to hurt us?" Anna said. "I count three adults and a whole lot of nothings."

  "Kids."

  "So what? You find a baby rattlesnake in your bed, you grab the biggest boot you got. You think after we kill all their parents, we can just hug them up and say 'Hey, now who wants some s'mores?'"

  Raymond was struck with sudden mental vertigo. Who were these people? "We don't know how those things think. We can cross that bridge when we come to it."

  Anna laughed, cold as a Northwest rain. She kicked to her feet and sprinted from the alley onto the dry sand. She whooped and drew her laser. David glanced at Raymond, eyes wide as hubcaps, and started after her. Blue light streamed between her and the whirling adults. They fell as fast as she could press the button. Amidst the breakers, the children froze, silent as always, all the more terrifying for having no voice. Raymond raced after David, slowed by the sand.

  "Stop it!"

  Anna charged the nearest child, black hair flapping behind her. Her laser knocked the youth into the surf. David shot, too, screaming, not as a battle-cry, but something wilder, the scream of a man falling off a ledge. Electric lines criss-crossed the beach, lighting up those long, bug-eyed faces, their whipping tentacles and quivering claws. Raymond slowed, drifting to a stop beside a clump of stinking kelp. Anna whooped, surf splashing her knees. David held his gun in both hands with his elbows tucked tight against his belly. The last child ran parallel to the water, glancing behind itself, Anna high-stepping at its heels. She drew close enough to grab it, then shot it down.

  Bodies bobbed in the waves. Others twitched on the tideline, cold water foaming over their punctured shells. Limbs rolled in the shells and seaweed. Raymond felt thrilled and sick and frozen. His leg throbbed. David blinked by the water, clearing his throat. Anna shot the last corpse again, then turned and strode back down the beach.

  "Let's get the fuck out of here," she said. "It's starting to stink."

  * * *

  "I believe our first order of business should be to restore power." David snuggled his blanket over his shoulders, cheeks gaunt in the blue-gray dawn. "That in hand, all our subsequent actions require all the less labor."

  Anna poked a handful of almonds into her mouth. "Yeah, if that includes one damn big electric fence. Once those things are out of here, it's the people who'll come back."

  "Well, security will have to be accounted for, of course. I suspect we won't be lacking for bravos to fill out that niche."

  "I say that's our numero-uno. Find some guys we can trust, set them up with some lasers, and we're gold."

  "We won't be dealing with peasants used to cleaning themselves with their own hand. I think the best way to forestall internal dissent is to reinstall the basic comforts—light, plumbing, refrigeration."

  "Which we just hand right over to the first pack of assholes with AKs."

  "I suppose we'll have to divide our labor. Know anything about windmills, Raymond?"

  He glanced up. He'd barely heard their conversation. After the beach, they'd marched miles up the road, finally stopping at the first threat of dawn to hunker down behind a stand of trees. He'd tried to focus on his feet, counting steps, playing games where he pushed off with the balls of his feet rather than letting them roll forward into the next step, but his mind kept coming back to Mia and the beach. Seeing those things die had been marvelous and hollowing, like the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11: justified, even righteous, but also sickening, because any way you sliced it death was death, and some of those who were about to suffer deserved it far less than others.

  He didn't know for a fact the young ones were innocent. Maybe they tore their way out of their dying mother at birth, or survived the first few weeks through cannibalism. Maybe they were already being trained to enslave and slaughter the human survivors. In any event, they'd grow up, in all likelihood, to finish the genocide or at least accept the fruits of its happening. Part of him was filled with a vicious joy to see their goopy blood boiling away from the holes lasered in their hides and faces.

  But the beach hadn't been a battlefield between uniformed soldiers. It had been something they would have done. Now those kids could never grow up under human rule, a benign captivity where they lived among Earth's natives, but with the back-bending shame of knowing what their parents had done before being defeated. That would have been the best punishment of all.

  "What?" he said.

  "Do you know anything about windmills?" David repeated patiently.

  "Why would I know anything about windmills?"

  "Life teaches a person all sorts of interesting things. If I had the proper clay, kiln, and plants, I could craft you a set of dishes right here. Complete with glaze."

  "I don't know anything about windmills."

  "Ah. We may need windmills to power our initial infrastructure before we get the old gear up and running."

  He stared at David, those sharp cheeks, the quick intelligence in his brown eyes. Was he insane? Already they were talking as if the aliens were incinerated on the wind and not occupying the ruins of the world's greatest cities. As if another week from now, two at the utmost, they'd all be back to playing Xbox and ordering General Tso's chicken for delivery, thinking back on the last ten months as a hiccup, an eye-rolling yet adventurous detour when we all had to shit in the woods and eat out of cans. Without warning, Raymond found himself crying, heaving sobs that bobbed his shoulders.

  David glanced from him to Anna, alarmed, then patted his shoulder.

  "I don't think we should have elections," Anna said. "Those never really worked."

  He was woken more than once by the rumble of ships hunting for those who'd killed their babies. By afternoon it was silent, and Raymond agreed when Anna stated it was probably safe enough to continue north. Privately, he didn't think this was true—he thought the aliens would keep searching for a long time—but a part of him longed to be spotted, to be vaporized and blown out to sea before he knew what had happened.

  He walked. When the others rested, he did too, his mind throbbing with his leg and his feet. They slept sparingly. Pelicans drifted on the constant seaside wind, the great big Vs of their wings throwing fast shadows over the sand and sidewalks. He stared out to the west, pinpointing the precise place the sky merged with the sea.

  The road curved west. Mountains sprung up to the north, folded brown ridges and green foothills dense with brushy chaparral and open grass. Past the sickle of yellow sand, the ocean was so blue he could almost forgive the invaders for wanting it. Midafternoon, he shed his jacket and walked in shirtsleeves, the sun and sea air drawing a light sweat from his skin. Palms s
wayed above the clean glass and red roofs of a college that was all the prettier because there was no one left to use it. The dumb chug of a lawnmower wafted from the city center.

  Their water was low, so when they set camp in a beach gazebo, Raymond offered to go forage. Night settled on Santa Barbara like the evening's first drink. His breath hung in the salty air. He walked fast to stay warm. The ARCO off the highway was dead empty, rats rustling in the wrappers, napkins, and smashed glass. The Rite-Aid was bereft of water, candy bars, toilet paper, soap, contact lens solution, even makeup. He wasn't surprised. Gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies, those were the obvious survival caches, the first place looters would look. Raymond clicked off his flashlight and headed for the Spanish-style church on the corner: it would have snacks and water and canned goods in the basement, the stuff of picnics, socials, and charity.

  The bell tower projected from stark white stucco walls. The doors groaned, huge old oak lined with iron. He held his flashlight up and away from his body. The light splashed over a dried-up fountain, dusty benches, and a foyer with a coat room to one side and an office to the other. The main chapel held row on row of cobwebbed pews. It smelled like dust and dried-up water. His footsteps echoed through the arched whale-belly space. Something scraped in the darkness. He flicked his light over candle-packed cupolas, the stage and its dusty podium.

  Another scrape behind him. He whirled. The flashlight beam glared from a machete and two hard eyes. He was too frozen to scream.

  "Who are you?" Her blade was cocked back, ready to strike his bare neck.

  "I'm looking for water."