Endangered Species

“Holy shit.”

Mike’s eyes widened as I shined my flashlight on the dead Marine’s face. There wasn’t a lot of blood on the front; he’d taken the bullet and died instantly. “Notice anything weird?”

“Like the dead Marine isn’t weird?”

I pointed at the face. “He’s wearing full gear, including a vest with a hard plate, but no weapons. He’s got a radio holder on his belt, but it’s not here. Why carry the holder if you don’t have a working radio?”

“Maybe he didn’t bother taking the radio holder off the belt?”

“Maybe. There’s a small-caliber entry wound in the middle of the forehead. No powder burns or other wounds are visible. It blew the back of his head out but didn’t penetrate the back of the helmet. He’s in the middle of the road, so he wasn’t expecting trouble. He’s not on the docks, so he wasn’t protecting them. He was guarding against someone coming from the water. Someone he didn’t see killed him from a distance.”

He picked up on what I was saying. “Sniper?”

“Looks like a 5.56mm. Maybe, but most snipers use something bigger. That would have gone through the helmet for sure. Notice anything else?”

He looked closer, then shrugged. I pointed to his neck. “His hands, face, and neck. They aren’t burned. That means he wasn’t outside during the day. He was killed tonight, but has been staying underground since the event occurred last week.”

“Fuck. Whoever did this could still be around!”

He was right about that. “He’s not warm, so it didn’t happen in the last few hours. It does mean there are survivors here somewhere underground.”

“At least there were,” he replied. “Turn the flashlight off. It makes us a target.”

He was right about that. I clicked off the flashlight. “Grab our gear out of the kayak. I’m going to check out the docks for survivors. Meet me back here.”

He turned and jogged back down the road, while I kept my pistol at a low ready while working my way to the triangular docks. I made a circuit of the docks and noticed some weird things. The shore power cables and mooring lines for the two submarines we’d left behind were hanging into he water. That meant the crews had gotten underway without help from the workers on shore. There were a few bodies I ran across; all were civilians and had been dead for a long time. I made my way back onshore, joining Mike by the bags. I filled him in on what I found.

He took it in, then looked at his watch. “We’ve got less than an hour until sunrise. We need to get shelter quickly.”

He was right about that. “We need to find the base commander and give him our message.”

He pointed up the road. “The admin building is right up the hill.”

“Let’s go. I’ll take point, you follow ten yards behind me with the backpacks.” We only had one pistol, and I had it. I moved out, trying to move quickly and quietly along the side of the road. I didn’t hear anything but our breathing and the waves coming in. No insects, no road noise, nothing.

As we got closer to the administration building, we started seeing more bodies. Most of them were old and decaying, while others were from tonight. Each had been killed by small arms fire, and none had weapons or radios. I knelt next to one behind a parked car, waving Mike up next to me. “Whoever attacked came from the water,” I said. “See the blood spatter?” The front of the car behind the dead man had his blood and brains over the fender.

“Heading where we are,” Mike said. “You sure you want to do this? They could still be there.”

We could barely see the outline of the building in the twilight, about a hundred yards away. “Stay here. I’m going to check out the building. If you hear shots, get the hell back to the pier and find a place to hide, maybe the drydock or under the road. Do not come after me.”

“I can’t leave you,” he said.

I reached inside my overalls, removing the message. “If I don’t come back, you need to continue the mission. It’s more important than me.”

He took the message and put it in his pocket. “Don’t do something stupid, Summers. I don’t want to paddle out of here alone.”

I gave him a smile, then resumed my approach. As I got closer, the signs of battle couldn’t be ignored. The defenders made a stand at the main entrance, which had been blown to shit. One of the large decorative doors was next to the building, the other hanging at an angle. Bodies were all around. Most had been shot, but others were bloody messes, with throats ripped out and chunks missing from arms and shoulders. What the hell did that?

I moved to the entrance and paused, listening for any activity. Hearing nothing, I moved inside. I had to use my flashlight to make my way around the debris and fallen defenders. I didn’t see anyone I could identify as an attacker.

The ground floor looked empty, but I figured any survivors would be in the basement. The security door on the stairway had been blown open, and a half-dozen men lay dead on the stairs below it. I moved into the lower level, shining my flashlight around.

I found what the attackers came to get. Part of the basement was devoted to base security, including the Marine armory. The base supported boomers, which meant storage and maintenance facilities for torpedoes and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Nuclear weapons meant a large security force and plenty of weapons. I’d seen satellite photos of the base at the Academy; it had dozens of underground weapons bunkers connected by tunnels and an underground railroad. The base also held warehouses full of food, military vehicles, and communications gear.

It was the perfect place to survive this shit.

Someone else had figured that out and decided to take it for themselves. They killed everyone and took all the weapons they grabbed and the ones they didn’t. Empty shelves and weapon racks were all that remained. “Fuck me. They cleaned the place out.”

“They took the women, too.” The voice came from across the room, barely audible above my breathing. “They took everything.”

I shined the flashlight into the corner, the light reflecting off the eyes of a man holding his stomach together with his hands. “Jesus Christ,” I said as I rushed over. He was barely alive, surrounded by three dead men. It looked like a hand grenade had taken them out.

The injured man reached for me with a bloody hand. “He kept me alive to warn you,” the man said. “You need to hide. They took the women with them. If they come back, they will take you, too.”

I ripped the shirt off a man nearby, wadding it up and putting it under his hands. “Hold this. I’ll get help.”b

“I’m already dead.” He grabbed my hand. “I’m so cold. Don’t leave me.”

That was a good indicator of blood loss. The man was right; he was dying. “Who did this?”

He struggled to talk, and I leaned over to hear him better. “Werewolves.” I turned to look at him, wondering what the hell he meant. I never got to ask again because he let out a wheezy breath and died on me.

I closed his eyes and folded his hands over his stomach. Had God kept him alive to warn me? Why take the women? How did an attacking force take out dozens of trained fighters without taking heavy casualties?

And why the hell would he say werewolves did it?

His last word made no sense.

I stood up and circled the battle area but didn’t find any other survivors. It took me another twenty minutes to clear the rest of the building. The attackers had killed everyone, either in the fighting or with single bullets to the head.

I only saw the bodies of three women. One was in her sixties; they had executed her with a shot to the head. She was still on her knees. The other two were in uniform and died fighting alongside the men.

I looked at my watch; there was nothing else I could do. Sunrise was coming fast, and I had to get back to Mike.

I walked outside, breathing in the fresh air when the adrenaline crash hit. I started shaking, then my stomach rolled. I threw up in the planter at the stairway’s base, then sat down with my back to the cool concrete. I had to get my shit under control fast, I told myself.

I took deep breaths, holding them for a second, then letting them out. I was making progress when I heard footsteps approaching. I rolled behind the planter, raising my Beretta towards the parking lot.

“Summers? Is that you?”

I lowered my pistol. “Dammit, Mike, I almost shot you!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t. The sun is coming up, and I figured if you hadn’t shot anyone, it was ok to come up here.”

I stood up, shaking my head. “We’re a long damn way from ok. Let’s get inside.” He didn’t say anything as I took him back downstairs. “We’ll stay here for tonight.”

“They’re all dead,” he told me.

“Yeah. The bad guys might still be around, but they cleared this building already. I figure they won’t come back now that they have what they want. We can stay here today after we remove the bodies.”

“Holy shit,” he said as he shined his flashlight around the room where they made their last stand.

“Yeah.” I grabbed my backpack from him, taking it into the armory. I dumped the contents on an empty shelf, then took the bag with me. “The armory is like a bank vault, so we should get good shielding. You start moving the bodies into the locker room. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“What are you doing?”

I held up my backpack. “Raiding the vending machines for dinner before the upper floors start getting sunshine. Whenever this happened, they never went back up there.”

We finished moving the dead, then explored the rest of the basement. The garbage cans were full of Meals Ready to Eat, canned foods, and packages, but no food remained. The bastards took that too.

It wasn’t until we were lying on cots in the armory that I told him about the man I’d found alive and what he said. Mike didn’t know what the fuck it meant either.