The Bloodless Read online

  Crist came back around decked out in her camouflaged gear, mine in her left hand. “Hurry up, we have to get a move on before it’s too late.”

  “I know,” I retorted as I grabbed my gear from her. “We’ve been doing this for how long now? Are you going to tell me that every time?”

  “No,” she grabbed her sidearm off the workbench that was cluttered with shell casings and empty clips. “Just until you stop being so damn lazy in the mornings.”

  “To be fair, sometimes I can’t even tell if it is morning.”

  “Not my fault, fix your watch.”

  I threw on my vest and pulled my shirt down over my head then walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her waist, “Will you fix it for me?” I said in my most helpless voice.

  “Fuck you’re worthless!” She kissed me again and gave me a little slap on the face. She acted tough around the others and tried to with me, but I knew her softer side. I kissed her back. Then again and then a couple more times with each kiss lasting a little longer than the previous. She turned around and our lips met. Somehow I was starting to get turned on by the soft feel of her skin, plus she was an excellent kisser. She pushed me away, “We can’t do this right now. We’ll be behind schedule.”

  “Oh come on,” I placed my hand on her crotch, “we haven’t done it in days.”

  She reached down and felt me through my pants, “That’s true.”

  I was starting to win her over, but I usually do. She was a sexual being and damn good at it too, just like she was good at everything else she did. As we kissed a couple soft moans escaped from her lips as I resumed gently pecking her neck and ran a hand down her back, onto her hip.

  “We’d better hurry up,” Crist said as she put her vest back on and as she stood there with no pants on I couldn’t help but admire. She had a great ass.

  I got to my feet and put my gear on. She soon had hers on and we loaded up to leave.

  We stepped out of the shack and headed along our usual trail. It was a carefully crafted path that kept us out of the ever watchful eyes of the facility’s tracking systems. We drudged across the scorched and barren landscape with intermittent stops to check our surroundings. The last point we stopped at was a site that held the century old remains of a stone cathedral the town was built around. It had a completely intact and structurally sound bell tower. It gave us a panoramic bird’s eye view of the entire area, a definite advantage as it also kept us out of sight.

  We entered the church and looked around for anything we might be able to use. After not finding anything we made our way up the tower and camped out at the top. Crist and I sat in the tower for a little longer that day and the leaking light gave me an even better view of the land further out than normal.

  All that light made the scene just a little more depressing as the emptiness seemed to engulf us more absolutely than at any other time. We could see all the way to the compound, it was about fifteen kilometers from our base, which may seem like a lot, but it wasn’t that much for us to walk. It was also the edge of the reach of the surveillance system. Yeah, it was that extensive.

  “You ready to go?” I asked as I turned from the view.

  “Shh.” Crist had become very still, this was never a good sign. I looked around too and that’s when I saw it. A counter patrol of a half dozen Bloodless, way more than two people could handle and we were lightly equipped. We hunkered down low and prayed we weren’t seen or heard. And just our luck, a spasm caused my arm to move just enough to make contact with the tower wall which sent a few bits of the stone work down to the ground below. This instantly caught the attention of the patrol. Half of the squad split off and headed straight into our cathedral. We were trapped.

  It was easy to hear them moving around in the hollowed out holy place as they went through the main level with laser like precision, leaving nothing untouched. At this rate it was only a matter of time before they found us at the top. I tried to get a look at the other three Bloodless walking around the outer perimeter; they were in a spread formation that let them see every side at any given time. Jumping was a no go. Closer the inside patrol got to us as they headed up the first flight of stairs. Soon they would be in the shaft of the tower.

  “Shit, look!” Crist whispered as softly as she could. It was futile as the Bloodless inside quickened their pace up the stairs. I looked over the edge again and saw three headless, convulsing bodies on the ground, stacked in front of the main doors.

  “What the fuck?” I stood up to get a better look and to try and see who had eliminated them. There was no sign of anybody. The footsteps in the shaft were getting louder and more rapid, they’d be there soon, but with just three left the task at hand didn’t seem so daunting. The only thing was that they had the tactical advantage with us cornered in a small room.

  Crist acted first. Using her grappling hook she jumped out of the window and swung around into a hole in the shaft, knocking two of them off the steps and all the way back down to the main floor. I sprang into action and met the third one half way up to our location. It struck first with a glancing blow to my jaw, but I ran through it and slammed it against the wall. We engaged in a flurry of hand to hand combat moves with neither side getting the upper-hand.

  Suddenly it caught me with a sweeping blow to my midsection that doubled me over and knocked out every last bit of breath I had in me. I felt myself tumbling down the stairs until I slammed head first into the wall in one of the turns. It’s hard to say what happened after that because everything was a little fuzzy. I remember the wretched thing being on top of me and then feeling a splatter on my face that I could only assume was the killing blow because after that I blacked out.

  When I came to I was laying in one of the pews. I sat bolt upright and looked around but didn’t see anybody. “Crist!” I yelled into the void in a desperate voice that was hardly my own. I was still groggy and I placed my hand on the back of one of the pews to stabilize myself. I felt another hand come down on top of mine and I spun quickly to see who it was.

  “Are you okay?” It was Fox.

  “It was you! You took out the other half?” I asked. Fox looked confused. “Have you seen Crist? Is she okay?” He looked at me funny, like I was out of my mind. “What?”

  “Crist was slain several days ago. We have attempted to establish contact with you for days now, but you never responded. I was sent out to find you and I just recently remembered your old patrol route. I saw you enter this building and it looked like you were talking to someone but I could not see anyone near you. I decided to follow you first to get an idea of what was going on with you. You do realize that Crist is deceased, yes?” There was an inkling of pity in his eyes, a look I understood too well.

  That’s when it all came crashing back to me and my head began to swim once again. I dropped to a knee and Fox came to my side, he placed a hand on my shoulder and left it there as I attempted to gather myself. A ringing in my ears grew steadily louder as that incident crept its way back into my mind.

  *****

  We were walking along the rubble of Abiyah, the town at the perimeter of GoD Laboratories’ compound. All of us were heavily armed and ready for the fight we wanted to avoid. There was a good feeling among the group. Our plans were sound and the strategy was solid. I, of course, was running point and everyone knew their marks. The power station was less than a couple kilometers from our current location. Ready would’ve been a good word to describe us. Scared shitless would’ve been more accurate.

  It’s not like any of us were cowards, but when faced with the possibility of overwhelming numbers of Bloodless, anyone is likely to have reservations. Our mission had to be accomplished; no one else was going to do it as I was the only one left with so much intimate knowledge of the compound. Let’s be clear: some of my co-workers survived The Invasion, but none of them had any desire to continue fighting. I don’t blame them either. What we saw that day was enough to make anyone want to tear their eyes out and put a lump o
f hot steel through their temple. So since their fortitude was null, it was left to me to guide the counter attack.

  This was all new territory for me too. Sure, I had been the project leader at the lab but I wasn’t prepping battle plans and strategies in there. My area is science and electronic components. Cells, mitosis, DNA, and other genetic related roughage. I hadn’t ever killed a mouse let alone an undead person. How I even came to earn these people’s trust is a completely different story.

  We had been walking for about an hour when we found ourselves on the outer properties of Abiyah. I pulled everyone up, “Okay, we should probably make sure everyone knows their marks. This won’t work without absolute synchronization. Timing is key and stealth is even more key.”

  “Could one say keyer?” Pillar was the ever consummate smart-ass.

  “No, one could not say that. Shut the fuck up.”

  “Yeah Pillar, shut da fuck up.”

  “Really Burns?” I waved for them all to shut it. “Okay, so here’s what we do.” I went over the entire plan and made people parrot their parts back to me when I came to them. There was no way I was going into this unless everyone had their part down, locked and loaded. It was all timing related. There weren’t any guards to worry about since Bloodless can’t really think in that capacity, as far as we knew. The whole plan relied on constant vigilance and astute mechanical maneuvering.

  “Right now we’re about fifteen minutes from the substation. Let’s lock and load and start fanning out. I don’t expect there to be any guards but we’ve been fooled by these glorified science experiments before.” I took out my side arm and flipped the safety off. “Fox, you go off ahead and we’ll start soon thereafter.”

  Fox nodded and struck out at a swift pace. This plan basically hung on the abilities of Fox, which was why it was such a solid plan. That visor he wears all the time is something special. It had a full holographic heads up display which displayed any information he needed. Distances, temperatures, certain mines, and the visor even produced a low energy cloaking field. He also managed to get a very useful old world motor vehicle technology in it. It warned him every time someone or something was in his blind spot, making it impossible to sneak up on him.

  A couple minutes after Fox disappeared from our sight we split into our groups. Crowder and Saturn, Burns and Pillar, Buggs went by himself, as is his custom, and that left Crist and I. We walked in a similar path to the one Fox took but slightly more due East. Our job was to get to the rear of substation and keep an eye out for any wandering Bloodless. We also had to arrive first in order to disable any laser trips that may have been set up since The Invasion.

  It was always nice to get some alone time with Crist, even in the current situation of impending death. Although, that did make it a bit hotter, fear and a heightened sense of arousal is basic chemistry. We walked in silence for about five minutes when I suddenly remembered, “You brought the Torch, right?”

  “Of course I brought the Torch, dumbass. Who do you think you’re talking to?” She gave me a look and then tapped her pocket.

  I smiled at her, “Wanna do it when we’re done?”

  “You’re a horny little bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a scientist. When we’re not thinking about protons and neutrons, we think about sex.” I gave her butt a little tap. She smacked my hand.

  “Hey! Get your damn head in the game! Assuming we survive this suicide mission? Sure. Now focus, because I’d rather not bang a corpse.”

  I chuckled and we kept walking. Finally the rest of the substation came into view. It was foreboding and it looked as though it had been outfitted with a few upgrades. “Yeah, I didn’t expect Mendel to ignore the importance of these stations. Looks like an extra eye is in the sky. I’d better relay that to the team.” I passed the information along on my communicator.

  Fox came back first, “I am aware of the extra security. However, from what I have seen, it should not pose a problem. I can eliminate it easily.”

  “Good, take it down. Everyone halt until it’s taken care of.” I wouldn’t normally use “halt” but I like to try and sound official, like I have half a clue of what I’m doing. When Fox radioed back I gave the go ahead order and we resumed and made it to our inception points.

  *****

  “I’m gonna show you the finer points of shootin’ Crowder,” Saturn said as they hunkered down in their elevated vantage point. “First, you’re goin’ to spot for me. A sniper is nothin’ without her spotter.” Crowder nodded. “Take these.” She handed him a pair of binoculars, “They’re similar to Fox’s visor but less sophisticated if you can believe it. They’ll give you a distance read out and that’s the first thing you’ll relay to me when any Bloodless are spotted. They have an automatic detector calibrated to their unique energy signature with a ten mile range, but I had to scale ‘em back for this mission. So if anything comes within 5 kilometers of our location you’ll auto lock to the target. Got it?”

  “I think so, yeah.” Crowder seemed less than confident which didn’t sit right with Saturn.

  “Now, I need you to be on my page kid, we can’t afford to fuck up on the first mission. Understand?” Saturn gave him a little smack on the side of the head.

  “Yes ma’am. I do understand and you can count on me.” There was a little more confidence in his tone that time. Crowder smiled.

  “What?” Saturn looked confused.

  “Oh it’s nothing. Well, it’s just that you seem much more refined when you’re not around the others. It’s just kinda funny.” Crowder looked around with the binoculars.

  “Yeah, well, when it comes to shootin’, I get excited and when you know as much as I do, it can’t be helped.”

  “No, it’s cool.” Crowder lowered the binoculars, “It’s kinda sexy.”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Saturn said, snapping a clip into her gun.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  *****

  Burns and Pillar made their way around to an alcove in a cluster of rocks that had a direct view of the front of the substation. They ducked behind it and started setting up shop. Burns primed a few plasma grenades and then activated his napalm launcher.

  Pillar loaded a bullet box into her minigun. She looked around at Burns, “You think this shit’ll work?”

  “The fuck should I know? Ima soldier, I follow orders.”

  “Man, this dude better know what he’s doin’.”

  “You a real asshole, ain’t ya?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Look, all I know, is we gotta do what we gotta do. People weren’t meant to live like this. When we die, we supposed to stay dead, none of this comin’ back to life shit. Things have a natural way about them, but what’s goin’ on now, that ain’t natural. So we gotta step in and make it right. See? We created this mess, we gotta clean it up.”

  “I didn’t create shit, man. It was those damn lab coats who done all this. They thought they were gods up there, playing with life.”

  “Yet you still here. Why’s that?”

  “Because those empty vessels murdered my whole damn family,” Pillar said and she laid her gun down before continuing. “Now the only thing I want to do is take down as many of those fuckers as I can. I can’t cause them pain, but I can rip their bodies to shreds and that’s what I plan on doin. You?”

  “Like I said, Ima soldier. I always been a soldier. When they came lookin’ for folks to enlist, I signed right up. By that time military had been dismantled. Lotta hope was lost, task seemed impossible. Then one day they came ‘round, started recruitin’ anybody and everybody willin’ to fight. Lotta people weren’t interested, didn’t want to go head first into a shit storm, see? But he said he knew how to take them down. Said he had information the military or government never got.”

  *****

  “So what’s your story?” Saturn decided to take a break from scanning with her scope. Crowder didn’t respond right away. She tapped him on the shoulder.


  Crowder pulled the binoculars off his face. “What’s that?”

  “Your story. Why’re you here?”

  “Same reason most people are fighting these days. Got nothing left to live for. Like most people, I lost my whole family to The Cloud.”

  “Most of us were soldiers before the military disintegrated. What about you? You don’t seem like military,” Saturn said.

  “Naw, I’m not military. My pops was a gun collector. Favored assault rifles. He taught me how to shoot. After they took out everyone I knew and loved, I had no other choice. Do you know what it’s like to have to shoot your own father in the face?”

  “Do I know what it’s like to have a father, would be a better question.”

  “Oh, shoot, sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Didn’t need ‘em growin’ up, don’t need ‘em now. So… seen anything yet?”

  “Nothing that’s threatening our perimeter. Those soulless sacks of death are nowhere to be seen.”

  *****

  “How long is this asshole goin’ to take to get his job done? My trigger finger is getting’ itchy.” Pillar was visibly antsy. She was dancing around doing a “pee dance” but for her it’s more like the “I need to shoot something” dance.

  “Calm ya ass down. We have to be patient in this situation. Jumpin’ the gun’ll get us ripped apart.” A couple minutes of silence passed as they waited for the signal to move to the next phase.

  “You got any family left?”

  Burns lit up a cigarette, “Wow, you don’t seem like the type to care.” He took a long draw from his smoke.

  “Well, I figure we’re in this together, might as well try and at least act friendly.”