After the crash course in Freds 101, the remainder. Prologue
"Why are there monsters?"
An exhausted woman looked at her little boy, who
had asked the question that was burning in her own
mind. His voice didn't tremble. She reached over to
wipe his face. They were not wearing camo right now,
and the smudges of dirt were only dirt. It wasn't right
for a ten-year-old to be a seasoned veteran of war, she
thought, but all of the human survivors on Earth
understood what it meant to fight for their lives
against alien invaders.
A long time ago, when she was ten, her only
question was "Are there real monsters?" What a
wonderful world that had been, a sane world where
nightmares stayed where they belonged, lodged in the
gray matter between the ears. Only in dreams would
you encounter giant floating heads that spit ball
lightning; angry crimson minotaurs; shambling hu-
man zombies fresh from their own death; flying metal
skulls with razor teeth dripping blood; ghosts colder
than the grave; fifteen-foot-tall demons with heavy
artillery in place of hands; obscenely fat shapes, only
vaguely humanoid, that could crush the life from the
strongest man in a matter of seconds; and, finally,
there was the special horror of the mechanical spider
bodies with things inside them that were far worse
than any arachnid.
There was no way to answer David, no explanation
for why dream shapes crawled across the land that
once was a country called the United States on a
planet called Earth.
She thanked God that her son was still alive. After
her husband died, there were only three of them.
Three. The number made her cry. They weren't three
for long.
She'd never had time to grieve over the man she
loved. The monsters didn't give her any time at all.
Her daughter, Lisa, had been thirteen.
At least her husband had died bravely, ripped apart
by the steel legs of a spider-thing. For a brief moment
the woman had caught a glimpse of the evil face
peering out from the dome mounted on top of the
mechanical body. She couldn't stop herself crying
out! Her husband couldn't hear her. But the spider-
thing heard everything.
She still blamed herself for that momentary loss of
control. Her daughter might have been alive today if
Mom hadn't freaked out and drawn the attention of
the mechanical horror at that instant. The sounds of
the monster were the worst part as it headed toward
the remaining members of the family. The heavy
pounding would stay in the woman's head forever,
along with the screaming of her terrified daughter--
right before the girl's head was torn off.
A human head makes a sound like nothing else
when it's played with and crushed.
She thanked God David hadn't seen what hap-
pened to his sister. But lately she found herself
wondering if she should ever give thanks for anything
again. Although she'd always been religious, she was
forgetting how to pray. She told herself it was like the
Book of Job: everyone was being tested as everything
was taken away. But the Book of Job didn't have
spider-things in it.
"I don't know why there are monsters," she said,
finally responding to her son's question. "These crea-
tures come from outer space. We've learned some
important things about them."
"What?" he asked.
She looked out the window of the basement where
they'd been hiding for the past week. It was a clear
night, and she could see the stars. She used to feel
peaceful when she looked at the night sky; now she
hated those eternal spots of fire.
"We've learned they can die," she said quietly.
"They are not what they appear to be. They're not
real demons."
"Demons? Like the minister used to tell us about?"
She smiled and ran her fingers through what was
left of her son's hair. "They can't take you to hell,"
she said. "They can't do anything to your soul. Real
demons don't need guns or rockets. And, as I said,
real demons don't die."
David looked out the window for a while and then
said, "But they are monsters."
"Yes," she agreed. "We have to believe in them
now. But I want you to promise me something."
"What, Mom?"
She pulled him close and tried not to notice his
missing arm. "There's something more important
than believing in monsters, David. Our minister
thought we were in End Times. He didn't even try to
fight the spider-things, except with his cross and his
Bible. But they can be fought with weapons. The
human race will prevail! If we have faith in ourselves.
I want you to promise that you'll always believe in
heroes."
"Heroes will save us," he echoed her. The two of
them stood together for a long time, looking out the
window at the blind white stars.
1
"So how did you guys escape from that
death trap?" asked Master Gunnery Sergeant Mul-
ligan.
"With one mighty leap, sir ..." I began, but he
didn't like my tone of voice.
"Oh, don't give me that, Corporal Taggart," he
said. "You guys are holding out on me. You can't tell
me you were trapped near the top of a forty-story
building in downtown L.A. with all those freakin'
demons after you, and then just leave it there."
When he said "you guys," he meant we didn't have
to call him sir. Not here, not now. "That's exactly it,"
I said with a big grin. "We left!"
"We probably ought to tell him," said Arlene sleep-
ily. She stretched like a cat in her beach chair, her
breasts seeming to point at the horizon. She'd left her
bikini top back at the hotel. The view was spectacular
from every angle.
For the last few days we'd been pretending that life
had returned to normal. Hawaii was still a stronghold
of humanity. On a good day the sky was normal. Blue,
blue everywhere, and not a single streak of bilious
alien green. The wonderful sun was exactly what it
ought to be--yellow, round, and not covered with a
new rash of sunspots. At least not today. We'd slapped
on plenty of suntan lotion, and we were soaking up
the rays.
We weren't going to waste a good day like this. The
radar worked. The sonar worked. The brand-new
really good detection equipment worked, too. Every
detection device known to man was in use for sea and
sky. We almost felt safe. So the three of us decided to
play. The master gun was a great guy. Off duty, he
liked to be called George. He didn't mind being
teased, either.
Hawaii Base employed the services of a number of
scientists and doctors. I'll never forget Arlene's reac-
tion when they said that Albert was going to be all
right, despite his having taken a face full of acidic imp
puke. Best of all, he wasn't going to be blind. Once
Arlene heard that, she allowed herself to genuinely
relax. I was damned glad that our Mormon buddy had
pulled through. He'd proved to be one hell of a
marine all the way from Salt Lake City to the monster
rally in L.A. What was more, he'd proved to be a true
friend.
The docs said they could bring Ken back all the
way. Not that Ken had been exactly dead; but he
might as well have been when the alternative was to
exist as a cybermummy, serving the alien warlords
who had turned Earth into a charnel house. He'd
already helped us against the enemy by communicat-
ing to us through the computer setup our teenage whiz
kid, Jill, had thrown together in record time. Arlene
and I had used every kind of heavy artillery against
the demonic invaders, first on Phobos, then on
Deimos, and finally on good old terra firma. Jill had
taught us that a good hacker was invaluable in a war
against monsters.
That's why we were so happy when we landed at
Oahu and found not only a fully operational military
establishment but also a prime collection of scientists.
Arlene and I were warriors. Our task was to buy the
human race that most precious of all commodities:
time. Victory would require a lot more than muscle
and guts; it would require all the brainpower left on
the old mud ball. We needed to learn everything about
these creatures that had brought doom to the human
race. And then we would pay them back ... big time.
Yeah, Arlene and I felt good about the men and
women in white coats. For one thing, they said it was
okay to swim. It had been such a long time since I'd
plunged my body into something as reasonable as
cool salt water that I hardly cared about their reports.
If it didn't look like a pool of green or red sludge, that
was all I needed to know. The Pacific Ocean looked
fine to yours truly, especially today as we enjoyed
fresh salt breezes that would never carry a whiff of
sour-lemon zombie stench.
Jill had decided to spend the day working instead of
joining us. One of the best research scientists had
taken her under his wing. Albert had gone to town. Of
course, the "town" was every bit as much a high-
security military zone as the "hotel." (I'd never had
better barracks.) After what we'd all been through,
this place was heaven on earth. The other islands were
also secure, but they were not set up for the easy life
we enjoyed here.
As I took a sip of my Jack Daniel's, I reflected on
the miracle that I felt secure enough to risk taking a
drink. For the past month of nonstop hell, first in
space and then on Earth, I wouldn't have risked
dulling my senses for a second, or saturating my
bodily tissues with anything but stimulants. Earth
could still count on Corporal Flynn Taggart, Fox
Company, Fifteenth Light Drop Infantry Regiment,
United States Marine Corps, 888-23-9912. I was in
for the duration.
Glancing over at Arlene, I was pleased to see that
she was healing nicely. Even though we treated each
other as best buddies instead of potential lovers, I
wasn't blind. Even the flaming balls of demon mucus
hadn't burned out my capacity to see that PFC Arlene
Sanders had the perfect female body, at least by my
standards: slender but with well-cut muscles and with
everything in ideal proportion.
Sometimes Arlene did her mind-reading act. Now
she glanced in my direction and gave me the once-
over. I guess similar thoughts were going through her
mind. More than our bodies were healing. Our souls
had taken a beating. When we first arrived on the
island, and Arlene could finally accept that we had
found a pocket of safety, she had tried to sleep; but
she was so stressed out that only drugs could take her
under. Even then she'd wake up every half hour, just
as exhausted as before.
I wasn't doing too well when we first arrived, either.
But I was too worried about her to pay attention to
my own aches and pains. She said she'd never felt so
empty. She couldn't stop worrying about Albert. So I
told her all the things she'd said to me when I was
down. About how it was our turn to man the barri-
cades and we had to keep going, past every obstacle of
terror and fatigue and despair. Then I shook her hard
and told her to come out of it because we were on
vacation in Hawaii, dammit!
Master Gun Mulligan was an invaluable help
throughout this period of adjustment. He was an old
friend none of us had ever met before. You meet that
kind in the service when you're lucky. It makes up for
all the Lieutenant Weems types.
Of course, you should only tease a friend so far. The
master gun had every right to know how we'd pulled
off our "impossible" escape from the old Disney
Tower. He just had the bad luck to be caught between
Arlene Sanders and Fly Taggart in a game of who-
gives-in-first.
"All right," said Mulligan, half to himself, slipping
a little as he climbed out of his beach chair. He was a
big man, and he was right at the weight limit. He
didn't really have to worry about it, though. No one
would worry about the minutiae of military rules for
a good long time. If you could fight and follow orders,
the survivors of civilization as we know it would sure
as hell find you a task in this human's army.
Mulligan planted his feet firmly, put his hands on
his sizable hips, and gave us his personal ultimatum.
"Here's the deal," he said. "I'm going back to the
'hotel' to bring us a six-pack of ice-cold beer. When I
return, I have every intention of sharing the wealth.
That's what will happen if you make me happy. But if
you want to see a really unhappy marine, then don't
tell me how the two of you escaped from a forty-story
building with a mob of devils after your blood when
the two of you are in a sealed room, the only exit to
which is one window offering you a sheer drop to
certain doom."
"You've expressed yourself with admirable clarity,"
said Arlene. She loved showing off that college educa-
tion. Didn't matter to me if she ever graduated. She'd
picked up plenty of annoying traits for me to forgive.
"Yeah, right!" he said.
"We'll take your suggestion under advisement."
Arlene laid it on thicker.
"Bullshit!" said Mulligan, turning his back on us
and storming off down the beach.
"One, two, three, four," I said.
"We love the Marine Corps," he boomed back at
us, still headed toward his--and maybe our--beer.
"I think we'd better tell him," I said.
"He wants to know who the big hero is," she
replied. "So he can get an autograph." I noted that she
didn't say "his" or "her."
"You're on," I replied. God, it was fine to sit in the
sun, soaking up rays and alcohol, watching the gentle
waves rolling in to the shore, seeing an actual seagull
once in a while . . . and giving a hard time to a really
nice man who was a newfound friend.
Our moment of pure relaxation was interrupted,
but not by anything satanic. It was an honor when the
highest-ranking officer in Hawaii--and maybe in the
human race, for all we knew--strolled over to talk to
us while he was off duty. He wasn't our commanding
officer, so that made us slightly more at ease when he
insisted on it. The way Arlene blushed suggested she
would have worn the top to her bikini if she'd
expected a visit from the CO of New Pearl Harbor
Naval Base, Vice Admiral Kimmel.
"What are you two up to?" asked Admiral Kimmel.
We hadn't noticed him walking down the beach. He'd
come from the direction where the sun was in our
eyes.
"Sir!" came out of our mouths simultaneously and
we started to get up.
"As you were, marines." Then he smiled and re-
peated his pleasantry as if he expected an answer.
"We were unprepared for your surprise attack,"
Arlene said to the commanding officer and got away
with it. He laughed.
The admiral continued standing. Sometimes rank
avoids its privileges. He took off his white straw hat
and used it to fan himself in the sweltering heat. His
thin legs were untouched by the least hint of tan, but
there was plenty of color, courtesy of his Bermuda
shorts and the tackiest Hawaiian shirt of all time.
When he was off duty, he wore this uniform to
announce his leisure.
"I'm glad someone of your generation knows the
history of her country," the admiral said, compli-
menting Arlene. "It's a strange coincidence that I
have the same name as the admiral who was here
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. How much
of our history will be destroyed in this Demon War,
even if the human race survives? Guard what is in
your head. The history books of the future may be
written by you."
Arlene sighed. "When we go back into action I
don't think we'll be doing much writing, except for
reports."
"Signing off with famous last words," I threw in
helpfully. It suddenly occurred to me that I might
know something about the admiral that would be
news to Arlene, who was the acknowledged expert on
science-fiction movies and novels. It would be nice to
stump her right here and now on something impor-
tant.
Before I could get a word out, though, Arlene
smiled and said, "Fly, are you familiar with Admiral
Kimmel's book? He's a Pearl Harbor revisionist."
Damn! She had done it to me again, making exactly
the point I was about to make. With this final proof of
Arlene's telepathic ability, I decided in all future
combat situations to let her go over the hill first.
Especially if there happened to be a steam demon on
the other side.
Admiral Kimmel chuckled. "If I hadn't been
friends with the late president of the United States, I
would never have written that book," he told us,
remembering pre-invasion days. The president had
died when Washington was captured by the bad guys.
"He was the one who changed my mind about Pearl
Harbor," the admiral continued, "not my Japanese
wife, as many believe. I believe the evidence proves
that top officials in Washington withheld important
information from the commanding officers at Pearl
Harbor before the Japanese attack in December of
1941. Well, we don't have to worry about that sort of
nonsense in this war."
I nodded, adding, "There's no Washington."
As we talked, I noticed that Arlene became more
relaxed. We discussed our military backgrounds in the
days before the monsters came. I was glad we had a
man in charge of the island who had been a division
officer on a battleship, and a captain seeing action in
the Gulf before that. He'd been doing a shore tour as a
commander when the world capsized.
"There's a pleasant sight," he said, pointing at the
sea. There was a cloud on the horizon. A small white
cloud.
He started to leave and then turned back, his face
suddenly as stern as a bust of Julius Caesar. His
mouth was his strongest feature as he said, "They
won't beat us. It's as if these islands have been given a
second chance. There will never be a surprise attack
here, not ever again. Let them come, in their thou-
sands or their millions. We're going to teach them that
we are worse monsters than they are. This is our
world, and we're not giving it up. And it won't stop
there. We'll take the battle to them, somewhere,
somehow. . . ."
He wanted to keep talking, but he'd run out of
words, so his mouth kept working in silence, like a
weapon being fired on an empty chamber after the
ammo is used up. We both felt the emotion from this
strong old man.
Arlene stood up and put her hand on his arm. She
helped him regain his composure. The gesture wasn't
regulation, but who cared?
For years I'd been asked why a rabid individualist
like me had chosen a military life. Some of the people
who asked that question understood that I wanted a
life with honor, especially after having lived with a
father who didn't have a clue. They could even
understand someone putting his life on the line for his
fellow man. It was individualism that confused them.
I became a marine because I believe in freedom: the
old American dream that had defied the nightmares
of so many other countries. Every Independence Day
I made a point of reading the Declaration of Indepen-
dence out loud.
I loved my country enough to fight for it. Now we
faced an enemy that threatened everything and every-
one on the planet. Any military system that had its
head stuck up its own bureaucratic ass was finished.
Now was the time to adapt or die. Now was the time
to really send in the marines!
2
"I almost brought you some iced tea," said
Mulligan, "with lots of lemon."
Arlene and I both grimaced. "He's getting mean,"
she said.
"A sadist," I agreed. We'd told the master gun
plenty about our adventures, and he had fixated on
the way Albert, Jill, Arlene, and I had passed our-
selves off as zombies by rubbing rotten lemons and
limes all over ourselves. The odor of the zombies had
forever spoiled the taste of citrus for me.
" 'Course I could let you have one of these instead,"
Mulligan continued, holding out two frosty Limbaugh
brews, one in each paw.
"The man's getting desperate," I said.
"Who goes first?" asked Arlene, ready to spill the
beans; and Mulligan hoped they would be tastier than
the typical MRE.
The admiral had left us. He looked like an old
beachcomber as he wandered down the beach. I
thought about what he'd said--how he'd tied the past
and future together with these precious islands as the
center of his universe. Maybe they were the center of
the universe for all humanity.
"Beers first," I volunteered, holding my hand out.
Mulligan looked as happy as Jill when I let her drive
the truck. He passed out the brews and settled his
considerable bulk back in his beach chair.
"Once upon a time ..." I began, but Arlene
punched me so hard it made her breasts jiggle very
nicely. With that kind of encouragement, I got plenty
serious.
"We had to take down the energy wall so Jill could
fly out of L.A. and get here," I began. "In the Disney
Tower we located a roomful of computers hooked into
a collection of alien biotech--"
"Yeah, yeah," Mulligan said impatiently. "I re-
member all that. Get to the window already!"
So I did.
We were too high. I'd never liked heights, but it
seemed best to open the windows.
"We took down the energy wall, at least," I had said
over my shoulder. "Jill must notice it's gone and start
treading air for Hawaii."
Arlene nodded, bleak even in victory. I didn't need
alien psionics to know she was thinking of Albert.
"The war techies will track her as an unknown rider,"
added Arlene, "and they'll scramble some jets; they
should be able to make contact and talk her down."
"Great. Got a hot plan to talk us down?" I asked
my buddy.
Arlene shook her head. I had a crazy wish that
before Albert was blinded, and before Arlene and I
found ourselves in this cul-de-sac, I'd played Dutch
uncle to the two lovebirds, complete with blessings
and unwanted advice.
Somehow this did not seem the ideal moment to
suggest that Arlene seriously study the Mormon faith,
or some related religion, if she really loved good old
Albert. The sermon went into my favorite mental file,
the one marked Later.
She shook her head. "There's no way," she began,
"unless . . ."
"Yes?" I asked, trying not to let the sound of
slavering monsters outside the door add panic to the
atmosphere.
Arlene stared at the door, at the console, then out
the window. She went over to the window as if she
had all the time in the world and looked straight
down. Then up. For some reason, she looked up.
She faced me again, wearing a big, crafty Arlene
Sanders smile. "You are not going to believe this, Fly
Taggart, but I think--I think I have it. I know how to
get us down and get us to Hawaii."
I smiled, convinced she'd finally cracked. "Great
idea, Arlene. We could use a vacation from all this
pressure."
"You don't believe me."
"You're right. I don't believe you."
Arlene smiled slyly. She was using the early-bird-
that-got-the-worm-smile. "Flynn Taggart, bring me
some duct tape from the toolbox, an armload of
computer-switch wiring, and the biggest goddam boot
you can find!"
The boot was the hard part.
The screaming, grunting, scraping, mewling, hiss-
ing, roaring, gurgling, ripping, and crackling sound
effects from beyond the door inspired me to speed up
the scavenger hunt. Hurrying back to the window
with the items, I saw Arlene leaning out and craning
her neck to look up.
"Do you see it?" she asked as I joined her. Clear as
day, there was a window washer's scaffold hanging
above us like a gateway to paradise. When the inva-
sion put a stop to mundane activities, all sorts of jobs
had been left uncompleted. In this case, it meant
quantities of Manila hemp rope dangling like the
tentacles of an octopus. A few lengths of chain, with
inch-long links, were even more promising than the
rope. The chain looked rusted, but I was certain that
it would support our weight.
The tentacles started above us and extended well
below the fortieth floor--not all the way to the
ground, but a lot farther away from the demons in the
hallway working so hard to make our acquaintance.
Arlene used the duct tape and the wiring to create a
spaghetti ladder that didn't look as if it would hold
her weight very long, never mind my extra kilos. But
we needed an extra leg up to get over to the ropes.
"Great," I said. "This looks like a job for Fly
Taggart."
Before I could clamber out the window, however,
her hand was on my arm. "Hold on a minute," she
said. "My idea, my mission."
The locked door was rattling like a son of a bitch,
and the thought of our entrails decorating the office
made me a trifle impatient. That was one kind of
spaghetti I could pass over.
"Arlene," I said, as calmly as possible under the
circumstances, "I have absolute confidence in you,
but this is no time to hose the mission. Let's face it, I
have more upper body strength and a greater reach
than you do, so I should go first." While I explained
the situation, we both worked feverishly to finish our
makeshift rope. Then I tied it around my waist.
Naturally I gave her no opportunity to argue. I was
at that window so fast she probably feared for my life.
A good way to keep her from staying pissed. I took
one mighty leap, making sure she held the other end
of the lifeline, and I climbed up and over, where I
grabbed hold of the nearest rope and started lowering
myself, groaning a bit at the strain and reminding
myself that I had all this great upper body strength. I
only wished I had more of it to spare.
Once I was on the ropes, I swung myself over to
where Arlene could reach them more easily. She
clambered out the window over my head and fol-
lowed my lead.
The annoying voice in the back of my head chose
that precise moment to start an argument. Damned
voice had a lousy sense of timing.
Getting tired, are you? Feeling a bit middle-aged
around the chest area? Old heart hanging in there? The
arms are strong from all those push-ups and pull-ups,
but how's the grip? Your hands are weaker than they
used to be, aren't they? You know, you haven't had
these injuries looked at . . .
"Nothing a blue sphere couldn't fix up," I mut-
tered.
Medikits aren't good enough for you, Corporal?
You'd rather trust in that alien crap, huh? And how do
you know that you and Arlene weren't altered in some
diabolical manner when your lives were saved in that
infernal blue light?
"I'm hanging from a freakin' rope and you choose
this moment to worry about that?" I shouted.
"Fly, are you all right?" Arlene called down.
"Okay," I called back, feeling like a complete idiot.
Normally I don't argue out loud with the voice in my
head.
"Don't go weird on me now," she said. "If I fall, I
want my strong he-man to catch li'l ol' me."
"No problemo," I promised. "But I think we're
getting enough exercise as things stand." Well, at least
I'd convinced her I was playing with a full deck again.
As if life had become too easy for us, the door in the
office flew off with such force that it smashed through
what was left of the window and went sailing in the
direction of the freeway. The door was as black and
twisted as if someone had turned it into burned toast
and tossed it in the trash.
The first monster to peer out the window, if black
dots count as eyes, was one of the things Arlene had
wisely dubbed a fire eater. It must have only recently
joined the other pukes and taken care of the door
problem for them. In a flash it could solve the rope
problem, too, burning our lifeline to cinders. We
didn't have a fire extinguisher this time.
Fire Guy wasn't alone, either. He was the gate-
crasher, bringing with him a whole monster conven-
tion. They'd be pouring down the ropes after us like
molasses on a string if we didn't do something fast.
I stopped the story there because I wanted to finish
my beer, and because I had my eye on another can of
Limbaugh. The master gun had brought a six-pack, so
with the aid of higher arithmetic, I figured I had
another one coming.
"And?" asked Mulligan, fire in his eye; and the way
his mouth was working you could say fire in the hole,
too.
"As the fire eater was getting ready to burn our
ropes--and you can always tell an attack is coming by
the way its skin bubbles and its body shimmers like a
heat mirage in the desert--I swung out and then
came in hard, kicking in a window with one try. In the
remaining seconds I pulled the rope taut and Arlene
shimmied down into my arms as tongues of flame
raced after her. But we'd made it to a much lower
floor. We had a twelve-story head start, so we
booked."
"Story is right!" thundered Mulligan. "I've never
heard so much bullshit!"
For one grim moment I wasn't at all sure I'd be
getting my second beer.
3
"Hold on," said Mulligan, guarding his
small ocean of beer as the larger ocean sent armies of
waves to die on the beach, "I'm not buying it. When I
was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts. I carried the
heaviest knapsack on camping trips. I won all the
merit badges. I was a good scout, but other kids still
beat me up and teased me all the time. Do you want
to guess why?"
"Why?" asked Arlene, genuinely interested and not
the least bit annoyed by the mysterious direction the
conversation was taking.
"Partly because I was a chunky kid, but also
because I loved comic books. They thought I was
gullible or something. They thought I'd believe damn
near anything. But I'm telling you, Fly"--he turned
those cold blue eyes on me--"this story of yours is
bullshit."
"You believe the part about his starting to lose his
mind while he was on the rope, don't you?" asked
Arlene.
"Well. . ." Mulligan began.
"I left nothing out of my gospel rendition," I said.
"Especially not the verisimilitude," Arlene threw
in.
"Huh?" came the response from both Mulligan and
me.
"Still sounds bogus to me," concluded the master
gun, inhaling the rest of his brew.
"That's because it didn't happen that way," said
Arlene. "I'll give you the authentic version--for an-
other beer."
"Yeah, right," the sergeant said morosely, but he
handed her a beer, and she started her engines.
"With one mighty leap . . ." she began.
George Mulligan groaned.
"Flynn Taggart, bring me some duct tape from the
toolbox, an armload of computer-switch wiring, and
the biggest goddamn boot you can find!"
He looked at me like I was crazy, but he did it. The
scaffold was our ticket out of there, but first we had to
get over to it. It made sense for me to go first because I
weighed less. The ledge was narrow and the chains
and ropes were sufficiently out of reach so that a
lifeline seemed like a good idea. At least it would give
me more than one chance in case I fell.
The sounds at the heavy reinforced door told me
two things. First, there was one hell of an enemy out
there. Second, the most powerful ones could not be in
front. A hell-prince would have huffed and puffed the
door down faster than a politician would grab his
pension. Even a demon pinkie could have chewed his
way through that door as if it was a candy bar. So the
wimps were up front, and this gave us a little more
time.
While Fly was collecting the stuff, we received more
evidence supporting my theory. I heard screams that
I'd have recognized anywhere--the noise imps make
when they're being ripped apart. They were up front
and not strong enough to break through. It occurred
to me that this military-quality door dated back to the
time of Walt Disney himself. I was glad that Disney
had been a paranoid right-wing type, according to the
biographies. A more trusting sort would never have
installed the door that was saving our collective ass.
But it wasn't going to hold much longer.
"Got it!" Fly announced, trotting back with the
wire, tape, and boot. "What's your plan?"
I told him. I showed him. He nitpicked.
"I should go first because of upper male body
strength and a longer reach . . ."
"I weigh less! Besides, it's my idea. You're going to
be too busy to go first anyway."
He opened his mouth to ask what I meant, but the
shredding of the door provided the answer. Talons
appeared like little metal helmets, leaving furrows
behind them as they sliced through the last barrier
between us and them.
Grabbing his Sig-Cow, Fly started blasting through
the door before the first one even appeared. I saw that
my buddy wouldn't be able to help with the makeshift
rope so I tied one end to a heavy safe and the other
around my waist and clambered out the window
pronto.
Luck was with me. Fly and I disagree about luck: he
thinks you make your own; I think you're lucky or
you're not. The ledge was so narrow that I couldn't
imagine Fly negotiating it. The stupid little lifeline
came apart before my hand was on one of those
beautiful, thick, inviting ropes.
I shouted my patented war cry, based on all the
westerns I'd seen when I was a kid, and jumped the
rest of the way. I knew I'd better be right about luck.
I swung far out and heard a long creaking sound
overhead, which was fine with me as long as it wasn't
followed by a loud snap. Just a steady creaking, as the
rope settled into supporting my weight. I didn't waste
a moment swinging over to a sturdy-looking cable
chain. I didn't trust the chain, so I tested it out. The
damned thing snapped, and I hung over L.A, like an
advertisement, glad for the rope. My left hand was
covered with rust. I would have thought that the chain
would outlast the rope, but maybe some of the links
were caught in a random energy beam.
A lot of stuff raced through my mind. I filed most of
it for future reference--if I had a future. The stuff
overhead reminded me of the last time I was aboard
ship--on the ocean instead of in space, I mean. The
only reason I wasn't splattered all over the street
below was that the window-washing equipment was
securely attached on the roof. I hoped no alien energy
burst had done any damage up there.
"Fly!" I yelled.
"Coming, coming, coming!" he shouted back.
There was no double entendre in either of our minds.
My bud would either be a fly on the wall out here or a
squashed bug inside.
He chose fly on the wall.
I made like Tarzan, or maybe I should say Sheena of
the Jungle, and swung over toward the window. The
scaffolding held. Fly held on. As he leaped out the
window, a red claw the size of his head missed
severing his jugular vein by an inch. I couldn't believe
I used to feel sorry for the Minotaur trapped in the
lair until Theseus came to put him out of his misery.
I'd never look at those old myths the same way.
We started down. The ropes wouldn't get us to
ground level, but half a loaf is better than none. If we
could descend below the monsters we might have a
chance to hoof it down to the street before they could
catch up with us. I was counting on their habit of
getting in each other's way and tearing each other up
when they should have been focusing on us instead.
Fly had it tougher than I did because he was
hanging like a piece of sacrificial meat directly outside
the window where the enemy was massing. He was
holding the rope with one hand, leaving the other free
to fire repeatedly at that rectangle of horror and
doom.
"Fly, I'll cover you if you climb lower," I promised.
Grateful for the time I'd spent rappelling down cliffs
in my high school days, I maneuvered so that the rope
was wrapped around me like a lonely boa constrictor,
freeing my gun hand. As I started firing thirty-caliber
rounds at the window, Fly slung his weapon over his
shoulder and used both hands to lower himself.
When he was safe enough--safety being relative
when you're playing tag with all the denizens of
hell--he yelled, "My turn to cover you!"
I made like a monkey and headed straight for
certain death. Fly kept up a barrage that was truly
impressive. The odds were at an all-time low, but as I
made it past the window, I was ready to rethink my
position on God. Fly and Albert had God. I had luck
. . . and a fireball that came so close it singed my hair.
Well, my high-and-tight needed a trim.
Fly ran out of rope and I joined him just in time to
see his very special expression, the one he only wears
when Options 'R Us has closed its doors permanently.
I couldn't help myself. I looked up. There is no
mistaking a fire eater. And this one was getting ready
to fry everything it could see.
The only hope was to break one of the windows, get
inside the building quicker than a thought, and then
haul ass down to the street. We had one chance.
Fortunately we'd brought along that really big boot.
"Aw, gimme a break, you two," begged Mulligan,
thoroughly beaten. "I don't care how you escaped
from the tower. It's none of my business. I'll never ask
again."
He threw the remaining beers at Fly and me as if
they were grenades. The way the brews were shaken
up, they might as well have been.
While I pointed mine at the broad expanse of the
Pacific Ocean and fired off the white spray, Mulligan
changed his tone. He didn't sound like a wily old
master gun. He didn't even sound like a marine. He
sounded like a Boy Scout trying to requisition a last
piece of candy.
"Okay," I said. "I'll tell you the rest, from the point
where Fly and I have no disagreements about what
happened."
"Thank you," said our victim.
4
No sooner had Mulligan agreed to be a good
boy and let me finish my story than he changed his
mind. Just like a man.
"Uh, Sanders," he said.
"Yes, George?"
"How about we do it a little differently this time?
I'll ask questions and you answer 'em. How's that?"
"Is that your first question?" I asked the master
gun.
"Arlene," Fly addressed me with his I'm-not-
worried-yet tone of voice, the one he uses right before
he tells me that I've gone over the line. He has a big
advantage in these situations: he seems to know
where the line is.
Mulligan just sat there grinning, waiting for a better
response from a mere PFC. "Okay," I said. "What do
you want to know?"
"Looks like I should've brought more beer," he
admitted. Fly still had some Jack Daniel's left, so he'd
be feeling no pain. All I had to get me through was
truth, justice, and the American way.
"When you reached ground level, you didn't
have any wheels waiting for you," Mulligan said.
There's no way you could've outrun a mob of those
things."
"No problem," I told him. "I hot-wired a car."
He grimaced. "Now I suppose Corporal Taggart
will tell the story of how he was the one who--"
"No," Fly happily interrupted. "Arlene hot-wired
the car all by herself. Can't imagine where a nice girl
like her ever picked up such a specialized skill."
I gave Fly the finger and didn't even wait for
Mulligan to ask what happened next. "I drove like
crazy for the airport with Fly riding shotgun. I had the
crazy idea I could hot-wire a plane and fly Fly out of
there."
"Thanks," said Fly.
"Let me get this straight," Mulligan returned to the
fray. "At that time you didn't realize the teenager was
still waiting for you."
"Jill," said Fly.
"Jill," Mulligan repeated.
I enjoyed this next bit. "We'd told her in no
uncertain terms that she was not to wait for us. We'd
risked our lives taking down the force field so Jill
could fly Albert and Ken to safety."
"So naturally she disobeyed orders," said Fly.
"You've got quite a kid there," observed the master
gun with true respect for Jill. Fly and I exchanged
looks.
"Jill is loyal." Fly spoke those words with dignity.
Mulligan steered the discussion back to my mono-
logue: "So you only had to drive to the airport . . ."
"Except we didn't make it in the first car. No great
loss, as it was an unexploded Pinto. Until it exploded!
A hell-prince stepped right out into the middle of the
street and you know what happens when they fire
those green energy pulses from their wrist-launchers."
"You trade in the old model you're driving for a
new one." Mulligan grinned; he was into the spirit of
the thing now.
"Thanks to my superb driving skills--"
"You were weaving all over the road like a drunk on
New Year's Eve," Fly interjected.
"Exactly," I agreed without missing a beat. "So we
survived the surprise attack. I slammed the car into a
row of garbage cans, and we wasted no time exiting
the vehicle and returning fire."
"I wondered what Corporal Taggart was doing all
this time," said Mulligan.
"Watching the rear," said Fly. "Perhaps you've
forgotten we were being chased."
"So then what?"
"Good luck was what," I told the master gun. "An
abandoned UPS truck was parked on the side of the
street. We made our way over to it, simply hoping it
was in working order. Well, we hit the jackpot. Inside
was a gun nut's paradise, a whole shipment addressed
to Ahern Enterprises."
"The bazooka," said Fly. "Don't forget to tell him
about the bazooka."
Poor Mulligan ran out of beer. He was on his own
now. "The hell-prince, as you call him, didn't fry your
butts before you could use all this stuff?"
"Nope," I said. "His second shot missed us by a
country klick."
"Then what happened?"
"We fried his butt," I recounted.
"But . . ." Mulligan started a thought and came to
a dead stop. He tried again. "We all know how
freakin' stupid these things are, but I'm surprised that
in all your encounters the enemy never has any luck."
"I wonder about that myself sometimes," Fly ad-
mitted. "I wouldn't bet on my survival in most of
these situations, but Arlene and I seem very hard to
kill. That's why we're certain to be put back on a
strike team."
"What helped us that time," I continued, "was that
a bunch of pumpkins were in the vanguard of our
pursuers."
"Oh, yeah," said Mulligan. "Your name for those
crazy flying things. I remember your stories about
how the pumpkins and hell-princes hate each other."
"We learned that on Deimos," Fly contributed.
"While the pumpkins and hell-prince wasted each
other's time, we prepared the bazooka for the hell-
prince. Between the pumpkins and us, we took him
down. Which only left us with the problem of being
surrounded by half a dozen deadly spheres. Fly and I
used another trick that worked on Deimos: we stood
back-to-back, and each of us laid down fire in a 270-
degree sweep. That created the ingredients for a very
large pie."
"So then you checked out the contents of the
truck."
"Like I said, it was gun nut heaven. We did a quick
inventory and took what was easiest to get at."
Fly remembered a grim moment. "I opened one
box expecting to find ammo, but it was a case of books
defending the Second Amendment. I even remember
the title, Stopping Power by J. Neil Schulman. The
stopping power I needed right then could not be
provided by book pages."
"I had a moment of frustration, too," I said. "I
found the shipping form. It showed that the most
inaccessible box contained a number of specialized
handguns, including one I'd always wanted. There
simply wasn't enough time to unload the truck."
"What was the specialized gun?" asked Mulligan.
"Watch out," Fly warned him, but it was too late.
The master gun had asked the question.
"It's a Super Blackhawk .357 Magnum caliber
sidearm. Looks like an old western six-gun, but there
the resemblance ends. The only drawback used to be
that it didn't conceal well, with its nine inch barrel.
But in today's world that's no problem! Who needs to
conceal weapons any longer? Anyway, you can knock
something over at a hundred yards with this gun, but
it helps to have a scope. Best of all, the Blackhawk has
a transfer bar mechanism. If you have a live round
under the hammer and strike it with a heavy object, it
won't discharge. Isn't that cool? But that's not all--"
"Arlene." Distantly I heard Fly's voice. "That's
probably enough,"
"But I haven't told him about the cylinder. It
doesn't swing out so as to empty the spent shells. All
you have to do is flip open the loading gate, push the
ejection rod--"
"Arlene." Fly was using one of his very special
tones of voice.
"Okay, okay," I surrendered. "Where was I? Well,
we were checking out our little candy store, but we
didn't have much time."
"So you hot-wired the truck?" Mulligan guessed.
"Hey, who's telling this story? The same good luck
that provided us with a UPS weapons shipment left
the key in the ignition and enough gas in the tank to
get us to the airport. Who knows what happened to
the driver? His ID was still on the dashboard--some
poor bastard named Tymon. Maybe he was zombified
and went looking for work at the post office. Anyway,
we hauled ass and made it to the airport in record
time."
Fly jumped back in. "Where I would have paddled
Jill on her posterior, except that Arlene thought that
might be misunderstood. Besides, I could only be so
angry with someone who had probably saved our
lives."
"The force field was still down," I continued. "I
was surprised. Enough time had passed for them to
put it up again, but we were not fighting the greatest
brains in the universe. Ken seemed relieved that half
his work was done."
"Half?" asked my burly audience.
"Sure. Ken had been busy while he waited for us to
show up. He'd tapped into the system with an idea
that turned out to be very helpful."
"So what was Jill doing all this time?" he asked.
"We took off. She didn't want to wait any longer,
especially now that we could see imps and zombies
piling into other planes so they could pursue us."
"Jesus," said Mulligan. "According to what you
told me before, Jill had done okay; but it takes a lot
more than not cracking up a plane to survive a
dogfight."
"Jill was thinking along those lines herself," I said.
"I tried to cheer her up by reminding her of the skill
levels of the typical imp and zombie. As it turned out,
it didn't matter. No sooner was Jill out past the shore
than Ken solved the problem he'd been working on.
He raised the force field just in time to swat the enemy
planes out of the air like flies."
"Hey," said my best buddy.
"As a bonus, Ken hosed the password file so they
wouldn't be able to lower the field and follow us. We
realized we could actually relax for a while. Good
practice for our time with you, George."
"Now, that part I believe," said the master gun.
5
"Outstanding mission," was Mulligan's ver-
dict. "You two are a credit to the Corps."
"You've done all right yourself," I returned the
compliment.
"Thanks, Fly," he said.
Meanwhile Arlene took a break from our company,
and from the extended trip down memory lane. She
ran into the surf. I shielded my eyes against the
glaring sun to watch her precise movements. Nice to
see her using her physical skills for fun instead of
taking down demons. The ocean beckoned me, too.
Mulligan gave it a pass.
As I watched Arlene's trim body darting in and out
of the waves like a sleek dolphin, I marveled for the
hundredth time that we were alive and together in a
setting untouched by doom. After wading in a literal
ocean of alien blood, I felt clean again in the cool
ocean water. I discovered scratches and cuts and
abrasions I didn't even know I had as the salt water
caressed my body. Swimming stretched muscles that
weren't often used in battle. I felt truly alive.
Arlene was as playful as a kid as she waved and
challenged me to catch up with her. I obliged. Time
for upper body strength and a longer reach to help me
in my hour of need. I poured it on and moved so
swiftly that my hand found her smooth ankle before
she could get away.
My buddy, my fellow warrior who was as good a
man as any other marine, had delicate little feet! Not
like those of any other PFC of my acquaintance. The
admiral could have slapped together a World War II
poster with Arlene's picture and a caption: "This is
what you're fighting for." We were soldiers in what
might prove to be the last battle of the human race.
But I liked a human face to remind me why I fought.
We splashed each other and played so hard that I
swallowed a mouthful from Davy Jones's locker. And
I kept finding excuses to touch the smooth skin of my
buddy. There had been a subtle change between us
after Albert came into her life, though.
I wasn't going to try to come between them. Just as
I had steered clear of Arlene and Dodd, until her
boyfriend unwillingly joined the zombie corps--
beast all you can be. She and Albert both deserved
whatever chance for happiness they could grab. We
were marines. We didn't need to volunteer for the
crazy suicide miss