Free Dark Victory - eARC by Brendan DuBois Page A

the stupid part hits home. I’m alone with Thor, with no flare gun at my side, with no back-up waiting to roar in and help me out. It’s just me and my dog. I advance up the road, Colt M-10 straight out, hoping that once Staff Sergeant Muller gets over being pissed at me, he’ll tell the CP that I’m out here by my lonesome, so that maybe other soldiers can be peeled away from the nearby battlements to join the fun.
    The light and the sound of the flames and the stench of things burning are all overwhelming me. Thor keeps stride with me, as I pace up the road, looking, scanning, not seeing any target.
    Up ahead. First burning house. Then the second. And the third. They look like small Capes, homes built here during the 1950s after the last real big war, nice homes for the returning veterans, full of piss and vinegar and a G.I. Bill after destroying fascism on both sides of the globe.
    At the first house, a body is halfway out of the doorway, collapsed on a brick set of steps. It’s charred so badly I can’t tell its age or sex. I take a deep breath, move along. At the second home, bodies are scattered on the burnt front lawn. Three small shapes, two larger shapes, smoke wisping up from the blackened corpses.
    Mom, dad, and the kids. Killed in view of a military base supposedly dedicated to their protection. Some job we’re doing.
    I look up. The night sky is its usual chaos of moving dots of light and flares as debris comes back home to earth.
    Thor is right next to me. If it weren’t for him, I think I’d turn around and run back to the fort.
    Third house, burning along. A bearded man with a ponytail is standing on the lawn, staring at the flames roaring up from what was once his home. Two young boys are at either side, holding onto him. They are all barefoot, the boys wearing pajama bottoms, their dad in a patched pair of jeans. The boys have their heads burrowed in dad’s side. Dad turns to me, eyes wide.
    “It’s gone,” he says, voice raspy.
    I lower my Colt. “Do you know where it went?”
    He tries to move but it’s hard to do, with his sons holding on so tight to him. He raises an arm and points it to the northern end of the road. “It . . . it hit the Crandall house, then the Johnson’s, and then ours . . . me and the boys, we ducked into the woods. My wife . . . Thank Christ she’s working the night shift at Concord Hospital. From the woods, I saw the damn thing move fast . . . I mean, real, real fast . . . could be miles away by now.”
    My legs are quivering and I sling my M-10 over my right shoulder. Thor sits down and he doesn’t seem to sense anything alien in the neighborhood. Poor civilian seems right. Creepers can creep right along at the speed of a lazy cockroach, hence the name, but when they want to, those eight legs can move fast and they can be over the horizon in a manner of minutes.
    I say, “I’m sure the Concord Fire Department and the Red Cross will be along soon, sir. You just take care, okay?”
    I rub Thor’s head and make to walk back to my duty station, and one really angry staff sergeant, when the man says, “Oh, do you mind?”
    I hesitate, wondering what in hell he’s going to say to me, especially since he’s just seen his neighbors get scorched down, his home and their homes flattened and destroyed. So I’m not really ready for what happens next.
    He breaks free from his sons, comes over and offers a hand.
    “Thanks for your service.”

    I make it back to the battlement and Staff Sergeant Muller meets me at the bottom of the stone steps. His face is taut and he says, “That was disobeying direct orders, Knox. Clear as can be.”
    I tug my helmet off, tap my left ear. “Sorry, staff sergeant. My bum ear. I was certain that you said move. So I did.”
    He crosses his arms. “Dunlap will back me up when I meet with Lieutenant May. You’re going to be in hack so long that when you get out, that damn dog won’t even recognize you. What do you think about