William Meikle

OPERATION: MONGOLIA

- 1 -

“I don’t fancy yours much, Sarge,” Wiggins said. “Although the hairy humps remind me of your missus.”

A pair of Bactrian camels brayed loudly in unison.

“Aye, and that too,” Wiggins added before going quiet when Hynd clouted the corporal roughly on the side of the head.

Captain John Banks ignored the banter and spoke directly to the two khaki-clad men who stood beside the camels high on a rocky outcrop on the desert plain.

“For the third time, gentlemen, I have my orders and I’m not here to negotiate. We’re walking out of here. There is no other transport and we’ve got fifty miles of desert and rough terrain to cover.” He waved at the tall pile of stacked wooden boxes that were the subject of the current argument. “This stuff will just have to wait here until it can be picked up.”

The older of the two men in front of him, his face already red from sun exposure and even more so now with the heat of the discussion, almost shouted back at Banks. There had been a lot of near shouting since the squad’s arrival and Banks was just about reaching his limit although the man in front of him wasn’t picking up any of the cues, which were getting less subtle by the second.

“This ‘stuff’ is two summers of my life work,” the red-faced man said. “I’m not leaving it behind. Can’t your men just fix the bloody truck?”

We’re not your fucking pet mechanics, Banks thought but bit his tongue and looked over to where privates Davies and Wilkins had the hood up of the ancient, rusting hulk that was slumped by the side of the track. Wilkins looked up.

“The front axle’s buggered, the engine’s shot to fuck, and there’s three flat tires and only one spare. The only place this wreck is going is to the knacker’s yard.”

Banks turned back to the red-faced Professor Gillings, the man nominally in charge of the site and one of the two they’d come to save, only to get no sign of gratitude.

“There’s your answer,” he said. “We’re leaving in five minutes.”

He turned away before he could give into the urge to punch the man unconscious and strap him to one of the camels.

As a rescue mission, it wasn’t off to the best of starts.

*

They’d come in on a night drop just before dawn, not really knowing what to expect. As always when coming down on rocky terrain, there was the fear of twisted ankles or worse but they’d all landed safely, led down next to the headlights of the truck that was the source of the current argument.

“It’s only two people,” the colonel had said the day before back in Lossiemouth. When the call to a meeting came through, Banks had been contemplating having a few pints of beer while watching Wiggins take the younger privates’ money off them at the pool table in the mess. The colonel had other ideas.

“I’ve got a wee job for you. Nothing onerous this time out, just a babysitting job on two lost lambs. They’re scientists—fossil hunters from Edinburgh University—and the idiots have got themselves stranded in one of the remotest parts of the Gobi Desert. We’ve got reports of Chinese military squads in the area rooting out rebels. We don’t want our citizens getting caught up in that carry on so get in and walk them out to the nearest decent extraction point. Should be a piece of piss for the squad.”

What the colonel hadn’t mentioned was that one of the two men they’d been sent to rescue, Professor Gillings, was, at first glance at least, a monumentally self-important, puffed-up arsehole who was flat out refusing to be walked anywhere. They’d been here for two hours already, all of which time had been spent listening to the red-faced professor working himself up into an ever-greater lather of indignation.

Now that Banks’ back was turned, he heard the man calling on the same sat-phone the scientists had used to call in for help. Banks walked away far enough so that he didn’t have to hear the conversation and took a cigarette from Hynd when offered. The other of their two would-be charges came over to mooch a smoke and looked at Banks apologetically. He was a younger, stocky man in his twenties where the Prof was in his fifties and had been introduced as Doctor Reid, the Prof’s research assistant. Where the Prof was red, Reid was brown, tanned like old leather, a red and white polka dot bandana around his head giving him a piratical look.

“Forgive the Prof. We’ve been working like dogs on this site for months and we’ve got some stuff that’s scientifically very important.”

“What have you been scratching about for anyway?” Hynd asked.

“Dinosaurs,” Reid replied. “Or rather fossils. This, believe it or not, is a dino hotspot. There’s a veritable graveyard under our feet. Nests too, with whole eggs in them. Our cases are full of almost perfect specimens, some of which we believe are newly discovered species. It’s the culmination of not just this summer but of years—decades—of the old man’s work. You’re asking him to walk away from his life.”

“It’s his life we’re trying to save,” Banks replied.

Before Reid could reply, Banks felt someone tap him hard on the shoulder and turned to see Gillings pushing the phone in his face.

“Your superior officer wants to talk to you.”

Banks saw from Gillings’ smirk that the man thought a victory had been won but all that the colonel said when Banks took the phone was, “You already have your orders. Do what needs to be done.”

“Wiggo, hold his arms,” Banks said and before the professor could react, the corporal had him in a tight grip. Within a matter of minutes, they had his hands tied in front of him in tight plastic wraps and when the man started to splutter and curse with rage, Banks had him gagged with three tied handkerchiefs and then mounted him unceremoniously atop one of the camels.

“Now be a good professor and behave yourself,” he said. “Remember, you can make the trip sitting upright or you can do on your belly with your face full of camel hair.”

Gillings looked close to apoplexy.

But at least I can’t hear him now.

Banks turned back to the squad.

“We’re moving out,” he said. “Doctor Reid, collect anything essential you and the old man here need and get it packed. When that’s done, you can walk or take the other camel.”

Within five minutes, the camels were loaded—the professor’s gear in large saddlebags behind and below where he sat high between the humps. The second camel was loaded with Reid’s personal belongings and large water skins, one on either flank. Like the other beast, it had a well-worn leather saddle mounted between its two humps. Reid climbed up as if used to it and minutes later, Banks had Hynd move them all out, heading north. Behind his handkerchief gag, the professor shouted obvious oaths and was so red in the face that it looked like an explosion was imminent.

Banks smiled as he followed Hynd and the others down off the rock.

*

As they descended the escarpment from the campsite, Banks got a good look at the terrain ahead of them. A line of rugged hills ran away to the horizon on either side to their east and west but northward, the direction in which they meant to travel, was a mostly flat barren plain of rock and thin sand punctuated with craggy rocky outcrops and straggly, dried-out bushes. There was no sign of anything moving, not even a grain of sand for the air was still, pressing down heavy on them. The sky hung devoid of cloud, a flat blue as if a porcelain plate was upended above them. It had been cold during their drop but the day was warming up fast. It was going to be a long hard couple of day’s walking.

It didn’t help that he’d chosen to bring up the rear which meant he was directly behind Reid’s camel and the beast stank worse than a dog that had been rolling in a wet cowpat, the stench almost chewable. He chain-smoked cigarettes and tried not to breathe through his nose but even then, it was like being too close to a recently filled diaper.

A piece of piss, the colonel had said. It tasted more like shite.

The first half an hour saw them slowly descend down off the escarpment to reach the start of the flat plain. Banks called a halt, not from any tiredness but mainly to see if the professor was ready to be more compliant; he didn’t plan on keeping the man tied and gagged the whole way.

Not unless I have to.

The man’s first words when the gag was removed weren’t encouraging.

“I’ll have your jobs for this. Do you know who I am?”

“Fuck me,” Wiggins said from below where he was getting a pot of water boiling for coffee on a camp stove. “He’s both an arsehole and an amnesiac. That’s a damn shame.”

All of them, including Reid, laughing at that didn’t improve Gillings’ mood any but untying his hands and getting some coffee into him at least lowered his rage level down from intolerable.

“We asked for help, not bloody kidnap,” he said.

“Maybe if you’d asked more nicely…” Wiggins said until Banks shut him up with a look. The corporal went back to sucking down smoke and brewing coffee while Banks made what he hoped would be the last attempt to get the professor to see sense.

“Look, Gillings, you called for our help, your truck was wasted, and the hills ‘round here are hoaching with either Chinese military or rebels… what did you expect to happen?”

“I didn’t expect to have to leave years of work lying in boxes for anybody to pick them up.”

“I doubt a random Chinese soldier or rebel is going to know one end of a fossil from another,” Banks replied. “And I give you my word we’ll get your specimens picked up one way or another, but my job here is to get you home to your wife. Are you going to play along with me on that or do I have to tie you to yon fucking camel and gag you again?”

For the first time since they met the professor smiled, a rueful grin.

“I was a bit of an arsehole, wasn’t I?” he said and Banks smiled back.

“Aye, and that’s probably not going to change any time soon, but at least you’ve got your memory back.”

*

While pouring a coffee for himself, Banks noticed that Wilkins was rubbing the lower part of his leg. The private had only recently recovered from broken bones received in a previous mission. Before setting out, in Lossiemouth Banks had given him the option of staying behind.

“You can sit this one out if you like, lad. It looks like it’s going to be a long walk and nobody will think any the less of you for giving it a body-swerve.”

Wilkins had smiled broadly in reply.

“And miss all the fun? Not bloody likely, Cap.”

But now he saw pain in the lad’s face and they hadn’t even started the walk proper yet.

“We can swap you around on the camel if you need to, lad,” Banks said, keeping his voice low and between the two of them. “Just ask. Don’t go crippling yourself for pride.”

Wilkins managed a grin.

“I’ll be fine, Cap,” he said. “It was just scrambling around on the rocks aggravated it a bit. Now that we’re on flat ground, there’ll be no problem and the smell’s better down here on the ground anyway. I’d rather walk.”

Gillings didn’t look to be giving them any more trouble, although the professor had a lingering look back up the escarpment as they were preparing to move out again. Banks put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“As I said earlier, you have my word; we’ll get your specimens out of here. With luck, they’ll be back in Scotland before you are.”

He helped the man up onto the camel. As he turned to look north, he saw that the blue sky was now marked with a black line of clouds running across the horizon from east to west, the first sign of weather they’d seen.

It didn’t look promising.

- 2 -

They traveled across the plain for two hours. The black line of clouds crept closer but as of yet was still confined to an area above the distant horizon. Donnie Reid sat high between the humps of the camel, eyes on the horizon but not really seeing. What he was doing was wondering how everything had gone bad so quickly.

Just two days ago, they’d both been as giddy as schoolboys, excited by the find of a whole tail section of an Avimimid that the professor was certain was new to science. It was going to make the months of toil in the heat more than worthwhile—and the professor thought there might still be more of its kind in the current dig area. At the very least they’d get a paper out of it. Being cited alongside the professor in the journals was going to go a long way to kick start Donnie’s own scientific career.

Just forty-eight hours ago—it was hard to believe he’d been in such a good mood. He had helped pack the slab of rock containing the Avimimid carefully in a long box and then got into the truck to take the long drive to the nearest town for supplies. It was eighty miles and over four hours each way on a dusty, rutted track, but he’d done the journey every other week all summer and even looked forward to the wind in his face and the sights along the way. Some time away from the professor was also something to look forward to; the older man wasn’t great company, being too tightly focussed on the finds and his work, his tunnel vision not allowing him to stretch to anything that might approximate to fun.

Donnie had thought that he might even get to have a beer and a chat with some of the locals in town if he made good enough time—and if the truck held out. It had been reliable enough all summer but every trip had brought more tired groans and squeals from the suspension and engine. The professor assured him it would last the summer but this time when he popped the clutch, the old beast let out a roar, then a groan, then it had slumped alarmingly nose down toward the ground, refusing to budge from its parking spot.

Both he and the professor had applied what little mechanical knowledge they had to the problem but the beast wasn’t for moving. Donnie had suggested that the pair of them head for town on the camels but Gillings wouldn’t consider abandoning the finds—especially the latest one. They’d spent several hours arguing about it then finally the professor had got on the satellite phone and called in for help. After that, all Gillings could talk of was how they’d soon—finds and all—be on their way home.

Then the army guys had dropped out of the sky with no vehicular support and their leader had told the old man point blank to get ready to walk away.

I can’t really blame the professor for losing the place.

Without the Avimimid, Donnie’s own future would be in some doubt; research grants were hard enough to come by at the best of times. Returning from a long trip like this with nothing to show for it wouldn’t maintain his place in the pecking order that ruled the allocation of money in academia.

He put it from his mind as something to worry about when they got back.

On his last visit to town, the locals had seemed nervy and anxious. Donnie had put it down to the rumor of rebels or Chinese forces in the area; he’d heard the stories but they’d seen nothing of either, although what little traffic there had been on the desert roads, slight at the best of times, had diminished to almost zero. The soldiers were the first other people they’d seen for two weeks.

Donnie had to admit he felt a whole lot safer now that the guys with the guns were here.

*

“So how did you come by the camels?”

They’d stopped in the shade of a rocky outcrop to avoid the midday sunshine, have a rest and, what looked to be a habit with these guys, brew up some coffee and have a smoke.

It had been the corporal, the Glaswegian one the others called Wiggo, who spoke.

“We got them the same place as these,” Donnie answered and handed the corporal one of the black cigarettes favored by the locals. “The same town I was headed to if the truck would have worked.”

He saw Wiggins wince as he took the first draw of the smoke.

“Bloody hell, these are rough as fuck,” the corporal said.

“Aye,” Donnie replied. “Like Capstan full strength without the subtlety, but you get used to them when there’s nowt else available for hundreds of miles in any direction.”

He held out a hand for Wiggins to shake.

“Donnie, fae Cambuslang originally, then via Perth, Edinburgh, and now here.”

“Wiggo. Fae Carluke, Maryhill and most recently Lossiemouth. Also now here.”

Donnie waved a hand over the scene in front of them.

“It’s not like Glesga that’s for sure.”

Wiggins laughed.

“I dunno, a few bars, a few lassies, and some more of these fags of yours, we’d be fine.”

Donnie pointed at the horizon.

“And it looks like we’re in for some Glesga-style rain too.”

Wiggins followed his gaze to where the black clouds were piling up.

“I thought we were in a bloody desert?”

“Aye, but even deserts get rain sometimes and when it rains here, it really means it. I’ve never seen it myself—it only happens every ten years or so they say but it’s a big thing for the locals—and the camels.”

Donnie now wondered if the possibility of rain was the reason for the locals’ nervousness on his last visit to town, but his chain of thought was broken by Wiggins’ racking cough as he inhaled too much of the local smoke in one puff.

“Keep them coming, lad,” Wiggins said. “If I could get used to Embassy Regal at fourteen, I can get used to these things here.”

*

Banks kept them in the shade as the sun passed overhead, the heat of midday being too intense to allow walking across the sand. Hynd, Davies, and Wilkins played cards for cigarettes—Hynd was winning most of them—the professor fretted about the finds they were leaving behind, and Banks kept his own counsel, standing on point looking north and sipping coffee. Donnie spent most of the time with Wiggins, smoking either his black cigarettes or Wiggins’ Embassy Regal, a long-forgotten taste of Donnie’s own youth. Just the smell of them brought back instant memories of buying single smokes from the ice-cream van on the estate and smoking them ‘round the back of the newsagents. Donnie even smelled the peppermints they used to buy in bulk to mask the smell from questioning parents. Wiggins had almost the same story; kids in the West of Scotland, especially ones growing up poor, share a lot of memories even despite an obvious age gap. For Donnie, talking to Wiggins was like talking to the big brother he’d never had. The time went past pleasantly.

They rested in the shade for two hours more. By the time the captain announced it was time to move out, the black line on the horizon was twice as thick as before. Donnie noticed the professor eyeing it warily.

“Have you ever been here during a big wet spell, Professor?” he asked.

The older man shook his head.

“No, I’ve always been lucky with the weather—if you can call baking like a hedgehog in clay lucky. It’s never rained on any of my trips. But the first time I was here—twelve years ago now—the local man we hired as a guide was in abject fear of any kind of cloud at all and refused to come down off the escarpment to the plain if it even looked like it might drizzle.”

“Some local superstition?” Captain Banks asked.

“I have no idea,” the professor replied. “We could never get him to talk of it. All we ever got out of him was two words in his own language—olgoi-khorkhoi—we never did find out what it meant and when we returned the next year, we had a different man with us.” He pointed at the line of dark cloud. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It looks nasty.”

Donnie stood by Captain Banks’ side as they looked ahead of them across the plain. There was a larger rocky outcrop some miles ahead of them, a black outline against the horizon. Banks spoke first.

“If I’m gauging the wind right, we’ve got time to get over there. Let’s hope there’s more shelter than we’d get here.”

He looked up to where Donnie was now lifting himself into the saddle atop the camel.

“See if you can coax a wee bit more effort out of the beasties, Doctor Reid,” he said. “These things make my grannie’s auld milk cow look like a Derby winner.”

Donnie laughed.

“Speed isn’t really their thing,” he said, “especially with older models like this one. Besides, they might be slow but they’ll still be alive out here long after we’d died of dehydration or exhaustion.”

Banks laughed.

“But it’s speed we need right now, not stamina. We’ll be moving at a fair clip. So don’t fall behind. If yon storm really starts to move towards us, we might have to get a move on faster still.”

*

The captain was as good as his word and worked his men hard over the rocky, uneven ground. Donnie didn’t know how they managed it—he’d struggle to even carry the huge rucksacks each man had on his back, never mind trot at speed over rough terrain while carrying a rifle. Plus, it was a desert, it was hot, and there they were almost running, wearing camouflage suits, helmets, and flak jackets. It made him too hot just to look at them.

Meanwhile, the camels picked their way along in their own stately fashion, not quite as fast as the soldier’s walking pace but not slow enough to cause the captain serious concern as long as the cloud on the horizon didn’t creep any faster. Conversation was kept to a minimum and even Gillings who was normally so garrulous and loud kept his silence as everybody watched the ominous cloud sweep in a stately fashion across the sky towards them. After an hour, the outcrop they were heading for didn’t look all that much closer and the cloud now hung over it, filling almost a quarter of the sky ahead, casting the landscape below it in darker shadows.

“Time to up the pace, lads,” Banks shouted and the men on foot started to ease ahead of the pair of camels that kept on their own sweet way. Donnie kicked his heels against his beast’s flanks and shouted ‘Giddyup’ but the camel paid him no heed, maintaining its almost funereal pace. The professor had a bit more luck with his animal and at least got it to follow slightly faster behind the soldiers, leaving Donnie isolated at the rear.

No amount of kicking and cursing could get his beast to move any faster than it wanted to move, and Donnie was quickly falling behind the rest of the squad. By the time he’d smoked down another of the black cheroots, he was almost fifty yards adrift at the rear and the black clouds had gathered almost overhead. The saving grace was that the rocky outcrop was closer now and looking up, he saw that the soldiers were going to reach it in a few minutes.

Rain started to patter around him.

That gave his camel more impetus than any amount of cajoling had done and as if afraid of the rain itself, the beast put on a burst of speed. Donnie yelled out in joy then between one breath and the next was tumbling through the air as the camel shuddered once and stiffened as if it had hit a wall, its legs giving way beneath it.

Donnie hit the ground hard, black and gray creeping in at the edges of his sight, and all he could hear were wild brays of a beast in pain.

- 3 -

Banks was bringing up the rear of the squad, following them at a run for shelter when he heard Reid’s yell then a loud bray, almost a bark of pain from one of the camels.

He turned to see Reid hit the ground and roll and the camel fall flat on its belly as if hit from above by an invisible hammer. As Banks turned ‘round completely, the heavy spatter of rain became a downpour like the turning on of a multitude of taps. Reid was trying and failing to push himself to his feet.

“Wiggo, get the others to shelter. Sarge, you’re with me,” Banks shouted and moved, knowing that his order would be obeyed. A wind got up out of the north to accompany the rain and he could hardly see Reid and the camel beyond the water running and dripping from his brow as he ran back towards them.

Hynd was alongside Banks as they got to the fallen man. Reid was groggily getting to his feet but looked like he might collapse back to the sand at any moment. Hynd helped the man up while Banks checked on the camel. The animal was dead, gray glazed eyes open and staring as if in astonishment. Even through the rain, Banks smelled a hint of ozone and charred hair.

“What the hell happened?” Reid shouted. The man’s eyes were clear and he rubbed at the back of his head, as if he’d taken a bump. He looked to be none the worse for wear for his tumble.

Pity we can’t say the same about the camel.

“Lightning strike by the look of it,” Banks called back. “Fetch anything you need urgently from the bags. We need to get to cover.”

He watched as Reid got a satchel from the camel’s saddlebags. By the time they turned to head for the rocky outcrop, they were all soaked through. He thought he saw something move, the camel’s torso shuddering as if it struggled to take a breath, but that couldn’t be; the animal was most definitely dead. Then there was no time to think about it as a peal of thunder roared overhead and the rain came even heavier. All three of them broke into a run for cover.

*

Wiggins had at least found then a modicum of shelter up on the outcrop under an overhang on the south side in the lee of the wind and rain but with seven of them and a camel to accommodate, the ledge was cramped to say the least. At least the surviving camel was calm, showing no signs of alarm at the sudden death of the other, standing calmly while the professor managed an ungainly dismount.

“Davies, take a look at Doctor Reid here,” Banks said. “Make sure there’s nothing broken and no concussion—he took a heavy tumble.”

“Not as heavy as yon camel,” Wiggins said. “What the fuck happened?”

“Lightning strike,” Banks said, echoing his earlier thought but if that had been the case, surely Reid would also have been fried—unless the saddle somehow insulated him? They were questions he wasn’t going to be able to answer without a closer examination of the dead beast and now that the rain was pelting down, it wasn’t going to happen soon.

Davies gave Reid a clean bill of health then there was little any of them could do but watch and listen as the storm roared wildly around the outcrop. Wiggins managed to get the camp stove operating in a calmer spot against the wall and they were able to get some warm food and more coffee into them. Banks took a smoke when Hynd offered one and joined the sergeant in staring out into the rain.

“It’s going to make the rest of the walk a mess, that’s for sure,” Hynd said.

“It’ll still be better than Rannoch Moor in January,” he replied and the sergeant laughed.

“Aye, but anything’s better than that. Hell, even Wiggins’ patter is better than that.”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Banks replied but he wasn’t really paying attention; he was looking out over the plain to the dead camel and the rain beginning to form a puddle around it as if it lay in a depression. He couldn’t get that final movement of its torso out of his head and the more he thought about it, the more he realized it hadn’t looked like a natural movement at all; it looked like something had pushed at the beast’s stomach, pushed outward from the inside.

And now it was hard to see anything through the rain but even at the distance of some forty yards, it looked as if the camel’s huge body had sunk in on itself and was strangely deflated, like a punctured football. He was now wondering whether his diagnosis of lightning strike wasn’t somewhere wide of the mark.

But what else could it be, out here in the middle of nowhere?

*

The storm raged on for several hours before showing signs of starting to wane. By then, the stink of the camel in their shelter was only being alleviated by their chain-smoking, although Reid’s black cheroots were almost as foul as the animal. Banks’ gaze turned often to where the other camel lay dead. It was almost centered in a deep puddle now, with water raised up almost drowning the body. That made it difficult to be sure but he was certain now that the body was considerably deflated, as if emptied from within.

When the rain stopped and the cloud started to dissipate overhead, he should have given the order to move out immediately but instead, he walked out from the shelter and over to have a closer look at the dead animal. Reid and Hynd walked over with him and all three stood at the edge of the puddle, looking at the carcass.

It looked to be little more than a bag of loose skin and jutting bones. Banks stepped into the puddle, planning to get a closer look but as if his foot had flipped a switch, the puddle started to drain away toward the center where the dead animal lay. The water gurgled as if falling into some deep chamber below. It took the remains of the camel down with it, slowly at first then faster as the water rushed away.

Banks stepped away from the rim of the puddle as the camel’s head, the last thing to go, stared at him accusingly from empty eyes. Then it was gone, along with all the water, leaving only a mud-filled crater in the center of where the puddle had been.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Hynd said.

“Some underground chamber? An old river channel under the sand? It must be,” Reid added.

“That might explain the water running away,” Banks said. “But it doesn’t explain what ate that camel from the inside out. Or what brought the beast down in the first place.”

Once again, Banks had many more questions than answers.

*

“Funny kind of lightning strike, Cap,” Hynd said once they were back at the outcrop as they prepared to move out.

“Funny kind of business all ‘round,” Banks replied. “But I’m not about to launch an investigation. We’ve got a long enough walk still ahead of us without worrying overmuch about a dead camel. Move them out, Sarge.”

Banks allowed Hynd to lead Wilkins and Davies, then Wiggins and Reid, chatting amiably like old friends, between him, and the stench of wet camel from where Gillings sat half-asleep on top. The sun had passed well overhead now, beginning its long descent to their left, but they had plenty of walking yet between them and any further rest.

“That storm has cost us hours we couldn’t really spare,” Banks said, loud enough for all to hear. “Let’s get a head of steam up, lads. We’ve got miles to go before bed.”

He settled into the loping bounce he used for carrying his pack over distance. It was a gait perfected in weeks of training in the Scottish Highlands in weather far more inclement than here in the desert which, if it hadn’t been for the dampness in all his clothing, might almost be pleasant. Both he and Hynd had expected the ground to be damp, possibly even muddy, but the desert had been so dry the rain appeared to have mostly soaked straight through. The only puddle of note had been the one where the dead camel had lain and by the time they’d left it behind, even the mud there was starting to dry and crack. Looking ahead, the desert looked flat and barren, punctuated by darker rocky outcrops that gave the impression of having been dropped from the sky to splash in the sand.

Nothing moved but them. A heat haze soon hung on the horizon as the last effects of the storm evaporated quickly in the dry air, making the outcrops of rock ahead dance and shimmer. The effect became so disorienting that Banks took to walking with his gaze fixed only five paces in front of him.

He maintained his loping stride and fell into that almost restful watching state that came from many hours of carrying packs in boring terrain. He put one foot in front of the other, thoughts drifting, almost asleep in one sense but some part of him always wary, like a cat, ready for action should the need arise.

*

He was almost surprised to find they’d been walking for nearly two hours when Hynd called them to a halt from the front.

“Something for you to see to the West, Cap,” he said when Banks walked forward to join him.”

“What is it, Sarge?”

Hynd pointed out into the desert. “Keep your eyes on a patch fifty yards out. Buggered if I know what’s causing it though.”

Banks quickly saw what the sergeant meant; the surface of the desert was rising and falling like waves on an ocean. The phenomenon covered an area the size of a football pitch and the soft swish and whisper of shifting sands accompanied the rise and fall of the ground.

“Professor? You ever seen anything like this?”

Gillings, up on the camel and with an even better view, shook his head.

“It’s a new one on me. Maybe that’s where all the water from the storm ended up? Could be that it’s running away below there, causing the movement we’re seeing?”

“Sounds as plausible as anything I can come up with,” Banks replied, then noticed that the camel the professor rode on was trembling all over its body, its eyes wide with what looked like terror.

“Whatever it is, it’s spooking your beast and as long as it’s over there, it’s not over here. Let’s move out.” He looked ahead. They were closing in on another of the larger rocky outcrops and now that they were nearer, he saw that this one appeared to be larger than the previous ones and showed signs of habitation, having a tightly packed cluster of wooden buildings perched like a hat on the summit. “We need somewhere to rest up for a couple of hours. Let’s see if the locals are friendly.”

- 4 -

Donnie had never driven out in this direction from their dig but he knew where they were; they’d had visitors over the summer who’d come across the desert and those herdsmen had spoken of a temple on the plains, a place of silence and ritual, closed to outsiders. Donnie thought of alerting Captain Banks to the fact, but the professor hadn’t said anything at the captain’s suggestion, so he let it ride. Besides, he wasn’t about to turn down a chance to get a glimpse of what was surely a place full of history and artifacts.

They arrived at the foot of the outcrop ten minutes later then made their slow way up towards the buildings on the top. The pathway to the monastery wound in a tight spiral around the tall outcrop. Almost at the peak it came to a halt at an ancient wooden gateway flanked by twin pillars, polished tree trunks that had to have come from a very long way away from this arid desert. The large double door, closed against them, was intricately carved and polished smooth as if by the touch of many pilgrims’ hands. It rang, almost like a bell, when Captain Banks rapped twice on it with his knuckles.

For long seconds, Donnie thought there would be no answer and they’d be left on the doorstep like Bible salesmen but finally, with a creak that echoed across the plain, the double door opened inwards and a small bald man in a purple silk robe stood in the entrance. He smiled, eyes twinkling but put a hand across his mouth when Banks looked as if he might speak. Only when he saw that silence would be observed did he allow them to pass through. The small man seemed anxious despite his smile and hurried them all, camel included, through the doorway, closing it firmly behind them. He belied his stature by lifting a huge latch of wood into place to bar the entrance. Indicating that they should follow, he scurried away up a narrow path between dark, tightly clustered buildings. The only sign of other movement was the flutter of long red and yellow silk pennants high above, held by a forest of tall poles above the clay-tiled rooftops.

The wood from which the whole place had been built looked almost black down here in the alleyway and it had been polished to a sheen that shone almost high enough to reflect their faces back at them. They ascended a long set of stone steps worn smooth by time and the feet of many celebrants and were led, finally, to the very top of the outcrop.

They found what appeared to be the total populace of the monastery gathered in the tallest building, a high-sided temple, almost a pagoda, rising in three distinct floors above the outcrop. The monks, some thirty of them, were gathered together on the lowest floor area, a cubic space with a deep circular eight-foot diameter well sunk perfectly in the center of the floor. All of the gathered monks proved to be as equally bald and diminutive as the one they’d already seen and although all were smiling, Donnie sensed the same nervous tension in them all.

*

Everything proceeded in strict silence. Donnie saw Corporal Wiggins champing at the bit to say something but the captain kept him in check with a stern gaze. They were served, almost ceremoniously, with bowls of saffron-scented rice topped with dark succulent berries and drank from high-polished wooden cups filled to the brim with crisp, clear—and almost icy cold—water that seemed to fill all the dry places inside Donnie at once. Even the camel seemed pleased with the offerings. It let out a loud bray of happiness that had the monks smiling again even as the sound echoed and rang around their silent temple.

They left the beast in the care of a red-robed monk while they were given a tour—a silent tour—of the temple itself. It was mostly empty; the two huge upper rooms built from more of the dark polished wood with panoramic views over the desert were obviously sleeping quarters but seemed to have no other purpose. There was no lighting apart from what daylight made its way inside, but it was enough for Donnie to see that the interior walls, every part of them, were intricately carved. He stepped over for a closer look.

In the main, it was a telling of the life of Gautama Buddha —Donnie had seen the likes of these in other temples on his travels in this country but where this differed was in the added depictions of what he could only describe as some kind of monstrous apocalypse.

The story ran along the wall opposite the main window on the uppermost floor. Both Donnie and Gillings traced the carvings with their fingers. The soldiers meanwhile stood by the window, looking out over the view.

Donnie was captivated, although he couldn’t make too much sense of what the carvings were trying to convey; there was obviously meant to be some kind of disaster besetting the monastery on the outcrop—perfectly depicted in miniature in the wood but the nature of the attacking force was confusing. It looked to be a combination of some kind of stylized dragon and great worms, scores, hundreds of them. Donnie heard the professor whisper beside him, a question, speaking to himself, repeating words Donnie had heard him speak earlier.

“Olgoi-khorkhoi?”

The room seemed to pick up and amplify the words, echoing them around and back on themselves. Donnie saw, too late, the dismay on the faces of the monks accompanying them in this chamber. The purple-robed monk—Donnie assumed him to be the elder—came over at a run, put a hand to his mouth, and then pointed at the professor, who had the good grace to look ashamed of himself. Gillings managed to indicate that he was sorry and that, and a conciliatory bow, seemed to placate the monk.

But it looked like the tour was over. Captain Banks pointed at his watch and the door, his intent clear. They descended the stairs to the main hallway of the temple below them—only to find the doors being closed to prevent their exit. Donnie wondered whether they might have given some kind of offence with the professor’s whispering upstairs but the monks continued to smile, although when Banks made for the door, six of them stood in his path, palms up in front of them, their intent also clear.

The purple robed monk took charge of what seemed to be a request—a polite request—for them to stay and see something of great importance. Donnie saw Captain Banks struggle to contain a growing frustration but he allowed the squad, the professor, and Donnie to be led back into the center of the room. One of the monks took charge of the camel again, keeping it quiet near the door while the purple-robed monk gathered them around the well.

Half a dozen monks arrived, each carrying a pottery vase. The pots looked to be uniform in size, terracotta clay in an oval shape around a foot high, their lids sealed with wax, each trailing a metallic cord. The monks arranged the pots equidistant around the outer edge of the well and spliced the cords together so that the pots were linked in a chain.

The purple-robed monk took a wooden pail of water from alongside one of the walls, returned to the well, and with a flourish poured the whole contents down into the dark.

*

The monks went still, their posture telling Donnie that they expected something to happen but for several seconds, there was only more of the heavy silence. Donnie looked to Banks and saw an irritated expression cross the captain’s face. Then the hairs on the back of Donnie’s hands rose upright as did those at the nape of his neck and he felt his fingertips tingle.

Something crackled and sparked down in the depths of the well and blue flashes lit up the wall like strobe lights. The crackles got louder, the lights flashed faster. The chain that linked the vases glowed, faintly at first then ever brighter, a soft, almost golden glow in counterpoint to the blue lightning flashes coming up the well. A humming vibration—Donnie thought it was coming from the now golden chain—filled the room, setting his teeth tingling, rising through him from feet to skull.

One particularly bright flash caused Donnie to close his eyes against the flare and when he opened them again, he looked into the well to see that it was filling up, not with darkness but with a writhing mass of what looked at first glance to be giant earthworms.

Blue static charge sparked and flashed around the squirming bodies that were far thicker in the body than garden worms, barrel-shaped and ridged, varying in size from a foot long to monsters of at least six feet. Their skins were moist and blood-red, almost crimson. When a large one opened its mouth, Donnie realized his comparison to earthworms wouldn’t hold up. These things were fanged, their circular mouths full of twin rows of ivory-white, pencil-thin teeth.

The creatures seethed and roiled in the well, filling it to the brim but not advancing past the golden glow from the chain of vases. The blue flashing continued to spark and clash around the chamber but only seemed to intensify the yellow glow from the vases, the gold battling the blue as the humming vibration set the walls to thrumming in sympathetic vibration.

The worms tossed themselves against the rim of the well but each time were repelled by whatever thing it was that the circle of vases had created. The gold was winning. The surging, squirming mass of worms slowly subsided back into the deep, the gold glow filled the room in one final flare then it too faded away as slowly as an autumn sunset. The hum receded, lost in some far distance, and the temple fell as quiet as it had been before the performance.

The purple-robed monk clapped his hands once and gave them a wide smile.

*

This time when Captain Banks decided to go, the monks made no move to prevent their departure. Using just hand gestures, Banks got them all moving, having to wait only for the monks to open the doors. The purple-robed monk accompanied them down the alley of dark houses, out of the gateway, and off the outcrop as far as the point where it met the desert floor. He bowed, smiled, and somehow managed to convey the fact that he wished them a safe journey. He also had one more thing to show them. He jumped up and down on a rock and pointed at the squad. Then he jumped down onto a piece of softer sand and jumped again before speaking the only words they would hear him say. He pointed at the sand to emphasize it.

“Olgoi-khorkhoi.”

He wasn’t smiling now and with that he turned away and scuttled back up the pathway, as if in a hurry.

“What the hell was that all about?” Wiggins said, lighting up a cigarette.

Banks said what Donnie was thinking.

“I think it was a public service announcement of a kind,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’ve seen a demonstration and a warning for strangers to the area.”

“What, stay on the path, keep off the moors kind of thing?” Wiggins replied.

“Exactly,” Banks replied. “And I think we know now what happened to the poor camel.”

- 5 -

Banks took the lead as they headed north away from the monastery and, heeding the monks’ advice, attempted to keep where possible to rockier ground. Hynd came forward to join him, offering him a smoke.

“You really think it was a warning, Cap?” the sergeant said.

“I can’t see how it could be anything else, do you?” Banks replied. “It was a fine piece of showmanship, I’ll give them that.”

“But big electric worms? In the desert? It’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? The spice must flow and all that crap?”

Banks laughed.

“You mean like big bugs in the arctic, giant snakes in the Amazon, big fucking spiders in Syria… that kind of far-fetched?”

Hynd laughed.

“Fair point. So the water—the rain—is bringing them up to the surface?”

“Aye, at least I think that’s what they wanted to tell us. That and keep to rocky ground. Keep an eye on yon camel, will you, Sarge? It seems to ken when there’s trouble about.”

“There’s one other thing, Cap,” Hynd said. “Young Wilkins is struggling. He’ll not admit it but that bad leg is giving him gip—you can see it in his face and his limp’s getting worse.”

Banks looked across the plain to where another outcrop sat squat on the horizon.

“Two more hours, then it’ll be getting dark anyway and we’ll camp down over there for the night. Keep an eye on the lad and if it looks to be getting too bad, we’ll get him up on the camel.”

*

The afternoon passed uneventfully. The professor fell asleep on the camel, Wiggins kept Davies and the young doctor Reid amused with stories, some taller than others, of the squad’s previous missions. Banks kept an eye on both the camel and young private Wilkins, who was sweating profusely and now had a distinctly pronounced limp.

“I’m okay for a few more miles yet, Cap,” he said when Banks dropped back to check on him.

“Good man,” Banks replied. “But don’t overdo it and that’s a bloody order, do you hear me?”

Banks knew that the lad, like any member of the squad, was trained to suck up discomfort and work through it but this wasn’t a combat situation. If it came to it, he’d do as he said, cut the lad some slack and allow him a rest on the camel, but it looked like they were going to reach the outcrop before any such respite would be needed.

*

As they approached their goal, Banks saw that this latest lump of rock was just that—there was no sign of any habitation although as they got closer still, he saw there were remnants of campfires on some of the lower ledges, which he took as a good sign.

If the locals think it’s safe, it’s good enough for me.

He had Wiggins and Davies set up camp on the largest, flattest of the ledges, not bothering to look for an overhang. He’d deal with more rain if any showed up but for now the sky was completely clear, stars beginning to show as the sun went down in the golden west. The water they carried tasted flat and warm after the liquid they’d been given in the monastery, and their field rations were no match for scented rice and fresh berries but the monks hadn’t had coffee and for Banks that trumped just about everything else. As the last of the sun went out of the sky and full dark descended, the squad were sitting around a campfire with a mug each, sharing smokes.

“Prof,” Wiggins said, “you’re the man with experience in these parts. What’s with the big red worms?”

Gillings shrugged.

“I only know what you know.”

“No traveler’s stories? No local legends?”

“Apart from the two words we all heard, words I first heard from a badly frightened man, I know nothing. I’m a paleontologist, not an anthropologist.”

“So, that’s a no then?” Wiggins said, grinning. “Not even a theory?”

“Oh, I’ll idly speculate all you want, especially back home with some whisky inside me, but I saw just what we all saw. They look like big, red, overfed earthworms, with teeth. Whether they’re carnivorous or not remains to be proven but judging by the fate of the other camel, I think we have to assume that they are meat eaters.

“With regard to what they are, where they came from… Donnie and I had a closer look than you at the carvings in the top room. That frieze on the back wall showed what I presume was the worms swarming but I have no idea if that’s something that’s ever actually happened or whether it was purely allegorical.”

The younger man piped up.

“Aye, and the ones in the carvings looked more like dragons than those thick red squirmy things we saw.”

Wiggins laughed.

“Thick red squirmy things? That’s the scientific term for them, is it?”

“I don’t know how we’d go about classifying them without a closer look,” Gillings said. “They might be little more than a mouth and an arse, or they might be vertebrates, some kind of legless lizard. We’d have to get up close to one to find out for sure.”

“Aye, well good luck with that,” Wiggins replied.

The professor laughed in reply.

“It’s not something I’ve got in my immediate plans.” He turned to Banks. “How far do you think we came today?”

“Twenty-five miles at a guess. I’ll check later with the GPS. If we get an early enough start in the morning, we should manage to get to the pickup point by this time tomorrow. It’ll be a fair hike, so I suggest we all rest up as much as we can.”

He addressed the squad.

“Wilkins, you take first watch, a two-hour stint then get your head down, that’s an order. Then it’ll be Davies, Wiggins, the sarge, and then I’ll take the early shift and kick all your arses out of bed in the morning.”

*

For most of the first watch, they were all still awake, sitting around the fire and trying to come up with a coherent explanation for what they’d seen in the monastery.

“It was all some kind of magic trick—ABRACADABRA, look at the wee white rabbit I’ve had hidden up my jacksie—that kind of shite,” Wiggins said.

“If it was, it was the best one I’ve ever seen,” Professor Gillings replied. “I’ll agree it was certainly staged like one, a bloody good show as you said earlier, but I’m pretty sure those worms were real. Did it look like a hologram to you? And how in God’s name would a bunch of monks in a remote desert monastery get hold of hologram technology in the first place? No, I prefer to use Occam’s Razor—the simplest solution is the first one to consider and given what happened to Donnie’s camel, I’d say we have to assume it was all too real.”

The conversation went on for a while but it kept coming back to the same simple fact: everyone agreed that what they’d been shown was a warning and one that they should take seriously.

One by one, they drifted away to find a spot where they might if not sleep at least rest. By the time Davies replaced Wilkins, Banks was the last man sitting by the fire.

He dampened it down with the dregs of his coffee and flicked the butt of a last cigarette out over the ledge of the outcrop. He retrieved his sleeping bag from his kit, wandering to the south away from the others mainly to try to get out of range of the stink of the camel.

He chose a spot near the edge of the ledge with an open view along the previous day’s route and tried to pick out the monastery on the horizon but there was only darkness. The stars were obscured now by wispy fast-moving clouds that he guessed must be the last remnants of the storm. He checked the GPS to confirm what he already knew—they had a long walk ahead of them again on the morrow if they were to reach the extraction point by nightfall. He considered placing a call with the colonel but knew one wasn’t expected until they were ready for pickup and put the phone away inside his jacket before lying down on top of his sleeping back, gazing out over the desert. There was nothing to see but gray and black shifting shadows and he fell asleep to visions of squirming red, flashing blue, and golden wire all shifting and dancing behind his eyelids.

He woke some time later to the sound of raindrops pattering heavily on his clothes and came fully awake when one struck his forehead above his eyes. He checked his watch—not quite 4 a.m. so dawn was still some way off. The rain wasn’t heavy, more of a constant drip, but he noticed it had been enough to wake everyone from their sleep apart from Hynd, who was upright and standing guard at the edge of the ledge, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

“Wiggo, stoke the fire and get a brew on,” Banks said, catching the corporal in the act of lighting his own first smoke of the day. “Sarge, you’re with me. Let’s get up someplace high and scope out the day’s walk if we can.”

It didn’t take them long to scale the outcrop and stand facing north but even in that short time, the patter of raindrops had become steadier and more persistent. Banks’ heart sank at the sight as they looked out over the desert. The plain below them was dark and in shadow for the most part but although it was not yet dawn, it was plain to see that there were obstacles in their path if they wanted to head north. Huge swathes of ground had blue electric flashes running in sheets across the sands. Before yesterday, he might have imagined it to be a natural phenomenon, some product of the previous day’s storm, but having seen the writhing worms in the monastery, Banks feared that this was exactly what the monks had been warning them of.

“Bugger me, Cap,” Hynd said. “How do we make our way through that?”

Banks kept his gaze on the plain, trying to visualize a possible route.

“Bloody carefully. We stay on the rocky bits if we can,” he replied after a while. “And as Wiggo would say, we beware of the moors. We have no idea how many of the buggers there are or where they are or even whether they’re interested in us. All we can do is start walking and hope that this drizzle eases off and calms things down a tad.”

- 6 -

Donnie had seen the blue flashes for himself when he stood to relieve himself over the ledge. Wiggins came to stand beside him and join in the morning ritual.

“Bloody hell, how many of these buggers are there?” he asked.

“A fuckload by the looks of it,” Donnie replied.

“That would be another of yon scientific terms, would it?”

“Well, it’s more than a shitload anyway… my scientific eye tells me that much but speaking as a piss-poor excuse for a scientist, I can tell you that it looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”

“Not if the captain’s got any say in the matter,” Wiggins replied. “We’re on a schedule here. No amount of wee sparkly worms are going to slow us down much.”

The corporal motioned to the skies and the drizzle. “But I thought it didn’t rain much here? We had some yesterday.”

Donnie laughed.

“And I thought you wanted it to be more like Glesga?”

“If you’ve got a bridie and a can of Irn-Bru on you, I’m willing to abide the rain for a bit of decent breakfast.”

“Sorry. Another of these crap local fags is all I can offer.”

Wiggins took the offered smoke and lit it from the butt of his own. He coughed at the first draw and grimaced.

“Let’s go and see if coffee makes these any better. Wilko will have a brew going by now.”

It turned out the hot bitter liquid did ameliorate some of the cheroots’ astringency. By the time Donnie had two mugs and some of the soldiers’ hard biscuits, he felt just about ready for the day. It seemed that Captain Banks did indeed plan to attempt the walk across the plan, despite the electrical activity.

“Doctor Reid, Professor Gillings, we’re going to need your local knowledge of the terrain,” the captain said as around them the squad packed away their gear. “We’re going to want to stick to rocky areas and avoid the sand where possible.”

Donnie remembered the purple-robed monk’s little jumping dance outside the monastery and saw the captain’s plan.

“That’s going to slow us down,” he replied.

“Aye but the alternatives are either getting fried or sitting up here on this rock all day, and they’re both a damn sight slower still.”

They moved out five minutes later.

*

The first traces of dawn were just starting to lighten the eastern sky but Donnie didn’t welcome it; the darkness had made it easier to see the swathes of crackling electricity. Even the dim arrival of daylight had already washed out the blue from the landscape leaving only the distinctive smell of ozone to remind them of the deadly menace that might be lurking underfoot.

The camel wasn’t keen on descending onto the plain, its nostrils flaring, eyes wide, but it moved quickly enough when the professor kicked at its flanks and Wiggins gave it a hefty slap on the rear end. The corporal was rewarded with a loud moist fart, noxious enough to cause Donnie’s eyes to water even though he was some yards farther back.

“Fuck me,” Wiggins said, holding his nostrils pinched shut as he fell back to walk beside Donnie. “And I thought your fags were bad.”

Captain Banks called Donnie forward to join him at the head of their small caravan.

“I need you to be my eyes, Doctor. Find me a trail through that avoids the softer parts.”

“I’m a paleontologist, not a geologist,” Donnie started but he realized he was as close to the latter as it made no difference in the captain’s viewpoint and besides, looking out over the plain, he saw that he could probably make a decent guess of the path they’d need to take. The rocky areas were slightly darker in color, made more so by the slight dampening from the drops of rain and were noticeable by the prevalence of the low, tough grasses and occasional shrubs that would not grow on shifting sand.

“Straight north for a hundred yards or so then veer a wee bit west,” Donnie said.

“You point and I’ll break the ground. Just give me a wee bit of warning when I need to stop,” Banks said and walked off when Donnie pointed due north. Donnie followed in his footsteps with the rest coming along single file at his back.

*

The drizzle persisted and although it was a warm rain, the dampness crept down the back of Donnie’s shirt, making his clothing cling wetly to him, his collar chafing at the neck. There was no smell of ozone now, no blue flashes visible, but every so often he’d hear a crack like a whip and feel his body hairs rise up.

They were moving much slower than they had been the day before, limited by the frequent stops and starts as Donnie and the professor tried to keep them all on a trail of stonier ground. The rain helped, as the harder rocks definitely showed up darker when wet compared to the sandy soils and made picking out a track much easier.

As they got farther across the plain, they started to see the same shifting sands phenomenon they’d seen the day before, although now they knew the origins. Donnie’s thoughts echoed Wiggins’ question of earlier.

How many of these buggers are there?

Donnie realized it must be the wet weather bringing the things up, probably from stygian depths that was their normal habitat. He knew that many species had behavioral triggers linked to changes in weather patterns and that it was most probably some kind of breeding behavior.

But if there’s going to be even more of them as a result, I hope we’re long gone before they reach any kind of maturity.

He concentrated on finding the fastest route to get them off the plain.

*

They made a first stop two hours later on a flat slab of rock only a foot higher than the surrounding plain. The rain hadn’t got any heavier, just a constant, steady, dreary dripping that sapped their spirits. It was obvious that Wilkins, the youngest of the soldiers, was in pain, hobbling in a heavy limp before coming to a halt on the slab and letting himself fall to a seated position. Davies was over by his side immediately. Donnie was too far away to hear what was said but it was obvious that Wilkins had pushed his stamina to the limits and that Davies was berating him for stupidity. Donnie was close enough to the captain to hear Davies’ report a few minutes later.

“The daft wee bugger’s been trying to be a brave soldier,” Davies said. “God knows what damage he’s done to that bad leg. He’s not fit for any more walking today, I can tell you that.”

Banks nodded.

“I was going to get him up on the camel for the next stint anyway.”

He turned to the professor.

“Looks like you’re walking, Professor, if you’re up to it?”

At first, Donnie thought that Gillings might refuse—he wasn’t a man known for any fondness for much apart from his own well-being—but he got down off the camel without having to be cajoled further.

“Take fifteen minutes, lads,” Banks said. “A brew and a smoke then we’ll be on our way again.”

The professor took Donnie’s arm and led him away to the edge of the rock, out of hearing of the others.

“You’ve been talking to them,” Gillings said. “Have they said anything about securing our finds?”

Donnie laughed.

“I think they’ve got more important things on their minds, Prof,” he said and realized, too late, that the other man was building up to one of his red-faced rages.

“More important? More bloody important? There’s nothing more important than what’s in those boxes.”

Young Wilkins there might disagree with that, Donnie thought but didn’t say. He knew the man well enough to know when not to provoke any more outbursts—Gillings’ rages were legendary in the department but they usually passed as quickly as one of these desert storms.

“I’ll tell you something; I’m not leaving without them,” the professor continued. “One way or another, those boxes are coming home with us. I know people in high places. Our captain here would do well to take heed of that. In fact, I’m going to make sure he does. I’m going to make sure right now.”

Gillings took out his sat-phone, checked his menu, and chose a number, pressing the button to make the call. The call didn’t go through, didn’t even get a ringtone.

“Aren’t these buggering things supposed to work anywhere?” he wailed.

Donnie took the phone and attempted a call for himself but there was still no ringtone, just a fuzzy screech, not even a ‘your number cannot be reached’ message. Without handing the phone back, Donnie walked over to where Captain Banks was having a coffee and a smoke with his sergeant.

“I think we’ve got a problem, Captain,” Donnie said. “The professor’s sat-phone is on the fritz. I think you should check yours.”

“The GPS was working fine last night before we bedded down,” Banks said, taking out his own phone and tapping the screen, then more urgently when he obviously didn’t get the desired result. “But you’re right, it’s buggered now.”

Donnie waved out over the desert.

“If you want my theory, it’s all the electrical activity. There’s some kind of EM field being generated—one that’s strong enough to interfere with our signals.”

Wiggins piped up from where he sat by the camp stove.

“We’re sorry, your call cannot be connected due to the wrong fucking kind of worms on the line. That’s a new one, right enough.”

“Not to worry,” Banks said. “I’ve got a line of sight bearing on where we need to be and this field as you call it cannot stretch forever. We’ll just have to walk out of it.”

“There’s another thing,” Donnie said. “The professor’s dwelling on those boxes of finds we left behind. Is there anything you can do to reassure him you’ll get them out with us?”

Banks smiled grimly.

“Not without a phone, but I gave him my word. That’ll have to be good enough for him, for now.”

- 7 -

Banks had too many other things to worry about to pay much heed to the professor’s finds at this point. The phone was down, Wilkins was out of commission when it came to walking and the rain was now showing signs of becoming more persistent, darkening the sand itself and making the stonier patches they needed to walk on less distinctive. His gut roiled but he didn’t need the old signal to tell him that their troubles were mounting up. What had started as a simple mission was slowly but almost certainly getting out of control.

And we still have a long walk ahead of us.

“Will they send anybody to look for us if we’re late?” the professor asked.

“Doubtful,” Banks replied. “It’s a big desert and if your man’s right and there is a widespread EM problem, they’re not going to risk putting anything in the air until it’s cleared up. We’re on our own but dinna fret—we’re used to that.”

He gave the squad their fifteen minutes then gave the order to move out. He saw young Wilkins eyeing the camel warily.

“Just get up between yon humps and enjoy yourself, lad,” Wiggins said. “Pretend it’s the sarge’s wife.”

Wilkins climbed up with some difficulty, sat up in the saddle, and took the reins. He nudged the camel’s sides with his good leg. The beast didn’t budge.

“I’d better lead it,” Doctor Reid said. “They’re temperamental buggers at the best of times and this lassie’s a wee bit spooked.”

“It’s a lassie?” Wiggins said. “Let me at her.”

Reid laughed. “You’ve heard the joke then?”

“What joke’s that?”

“It’s as old as the hills. Stop me if you’ve heard it before. This wee man joins the French Foreign Legion and gets sent to a fort way out in the desert, miles from the nearest town. There are only men at the fort, no women. After a few months, the wee man gets desperate for a woman, so finally he approaches his sergeant and confesses.

“‘Sarge,’ he says, ‘I cannae take this any longer. A man has needs, ye ken? What do the lads here do for relief?’

“The sarge says ‘It was only a matter of time!’ He lowers his voice to a whisper and says ‘When the men get desperate, they use the camel.’

“‘That’s fucking gross,’ the wee man says. ‘I’d never do that.’

“The sarge simply smiles and says, ‘All men come to the camel in time. The desert is patient and can wait.’

“Sure enough, after a couple of more months pass, the wee man is beside himself with desperation. He dreams about women every night and wakes every morning with a raging hard-on. He cannae take it, so he returns to the sergeant and agrees to meet him in the stables that night.

“At midnight, the sergeant is waiting for him, with a bad-tempered, fly-blown, dung-encrusted, ancient-old camel on a short lead.

“‘I will hold her head,’ the sergeant says, ‘so she cannot bite you while you mount her.’

“The wee man disnae reply, he’s too embarrassed by the situation but his hard-on is getting bloody painful by this point, so he decides to do the business. While the sergeant holds the camel’s head, the wee man gets behind the beast. The animal grunts and bawls as the legionnaire thrusts and moans behind it. Eventually, the wee man sighs, catches his breath, and does up his flies.

“‘Thanks, Sarge,’ he says. ‘That was pretty gross but I feel better now.’

“Too late, he spots that the sergeant is horrified.

“‘I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! How could you do that to this poor old camel?’

“‘But you said all the men mount the camel when they get desperate!’ the wee man says.

“That they do,’ replies the sergeant. ‘Then they ride her to town, to meet women.’

They were all laughing as Banks gave the order to move out.

*

Their good spirits didn’t last long. The drizzle continued under low gray skies that washed all color out of the landscape. Banks now had Professor Gillings up front with him to check the lie of the land ahead but as the rain had got heavier so the wetness had seeped everywhere. It was much harder to distinguish the rocky parts from the sand so their going had slowed considerably. Banks was damp and feeling every pound of the weight of his rucksack. He wasn’t sure he could get much more miserable.

Then he found that he could. They had been in view of a group of buildings ahead of them for half an hour. He’d been looking forward to them possibly being inhabited and given that they appeared to be on a rutted track that ran east to west, possibly even in possession of a working telephone, but as they got within four hundred yards, it became obvious that the site was derelict. At one time, it had been a filling station of a kind. There were a pair of ancient pumps, a shack, and several outbuildings surrounded by half a dozen ancient trucks, but all had been abandoned many years before and the desert was making inroads into it, with sandy drifts lying alongside the walls and around the rusting vehicles.

Worse still, the ground between where they stood and the buildings was clearly a wide stretch of sand with no rock or stony patches in evidence.

Gillings didn’t seem to see the decay—he only had eyes for the trucks.

“We can surely get one of those running,” he said. “Come on, we can get back in an hour and retrieve my finds.”

Before Banks could stop him, the man stepped out onto the sand and broke into a shuffling run.

“Come back, you daft bastard,” Wiggins shouted but Gillings kept running, heading directly for the filling station. Banks held Doctor Reid back from trying to follow.

“Not yet, lad,” he said. “One daft bugger at a time is enough.”

Gillings got almost halfway to his goal before he collapsed, pole-axed. They all heard the whip-crack of a jolt of static electricity, then the sand around the fallen man began to roil and seethe.

“Fuck,” Banks said. “Wiggo, Davies, you’re with me. Sarge, watch these others.”

Banks broke into a run, his chest tight, his balls tucked up in hard knots between his legs, expecting at any moment to be hit with a jolt that would floor him. The sand sucked at his feet and ankles, like running through treacle. He unslung his rifle as he ran. Up ahead, the ground around the fallen man seemed to boil. A worm rose up out of the turmoil, four feet of it in length above the sand and almost two feet in diameter, a wide mouth full of teeth gaping. Banks fired on the run, blowing the whole top half of the worm to pieces with three shots. As the decapitated thing fell to the sand, the ground where it lay seethed even more violently and the worm disappeared quickly, dragged away below.

Banks arrived first, out of breath, over the prone body of the professor and laid down covering fire into the sand, not knowing if he was hitting anything, not caring, only hoping that the jolt and blue flash wasn’t in his immediate future. Wiggins arrived seconds later and began to fire downwards on the other side of the prone man, while Davies bent to check for vital signs.

The sands stopped roiling and seething under them. Banks’ magazine, then Wiggins’ ran dry and they stood, gunfire still echoing in their ears, on a suddenly, deafeningly quiet plain.

“No heartbeat,” Davies shouted and immediately started CPR on the downed man.

Banks looked back to where Hynd and Reid stood with the camel and Wilkins, then looked north to the derelict station. They were about equidistant. He slammed a new magazine into his rifle, still aiming at the sand, knowing that another attack could come at any moment.

We’re stranded in no-man’s land.

Davies continued to work frantically on the downed man. He had torn the professor’s shirt open and was pumping, double-handed, at his chest, alternating with blowing down his throat, trying for a kick-start.

“Davies? We cannae hang about here in open ground for long. Is he a goner?” Wiggins asked.

At that same moment, Gillings coughed and his eyes opened but they fluttered wildly and were unfocused. All color seemed to have drained from his normally ruddy features and he was breathing too fast, hyperventilating.

“He’s tachycardic,” Davies said. “We need to get him lying down somewhere safe where I can work on him properly.”

“Okay,” Banks said, pointing towards the derelict service station. “You two get him up and get him into yon shack over there. I’ll cover your arses. If anything but us moves, put it down hard and fast.”

He waved to Hynd to bring the others over and stood where he was while the two soldiers carried Gillings away.

The sarge and the others began to come towards him.

- 8 -

It had been all Donnie could do not to rush out onto the sand to go to the professor’s aid but one look from Sergeant Hynd was enough to freeze him to the spot. He could only watch as gunfire echoed across the desert, then the black private worked on the prone man. Donnie hardly noticed that he was talking to himself, willing Gillings to live.

“Come on, Prof, come back.”

He almost let out a cheer when Davies and Wiggins lifted the professor between them and hurried away to the north. Gillings wasn’t quite managing to walk but he was at least trying.

He’s alive.

He saw Banks wave them forward.

“Our turn,” Sergeant Hynd said. “If I say run, you leg it, understand?”

Donnie gave him a mock salute, then took the camel’s reins from Wilkins’ hands.

“I’ll lead. Looks as if this old lady still needs some coaxing,” he said.

The camel was trembling again, its eyes wild, and Donnie thought that if he hadn’t had quite so strong a hold on the reins, it might have bolted already. He stroked the ridge between nostrils and eyes and spoke soothing, nonsense words.

“What are we now, the fucking camel whisperer?” Hynd asked. “Get a move on, lad, the captain’s out there all on his lonesome.”

At first, he thought the camel wasn’t going to comply but a ‘Giddyup’ from Wilkins and a hard tug on the reins got it moving, albeit slowly, as if it was testing the ground with every step.

*

The two hundred yards across to the captain’s position seemed to take forever but there had been no signs of seething sands and although he looked more than ready for it, Banks hadn’t had to use his weapon in the interim.

“Take your bloody time, why don’t you?” Banks said to Hynd as they approached and the sergeant laughed.

“We stopped over for a pie and a pint on the way. I had yours. It was braw.”

“The professor,” Donnie asked, “is he okay?”

He was looking over to where Wiggins and Davies were already entering the biggest of the derelict buildings, Gillings hanging between their shoulders.

“He’s alive,” Banks said and Donnie heard the implied words that weren’t spoken.

For now.

Banks led them away from what was now no more than a slight depression in the sand, with pieces of almost meaty-looking flesh scattered in a circle around it. The flesh had started to harden in the sand, looking more like melted candle-wax than anything that had so recently been alive.

They moved at pace across the sand, all of them watchful for an attack. The camel tugged and fought Donnie every inch of the way but at least it was moving in the right direction. As they approached the derelict building, Wiggins came to the doorway to wave them forward.

“Come on in,” the corporal shouted. “It’s got mod cons.”

As if in reply, an area of ground five yards to their left rose up in a mound and a mouth, three feet wide, came up, trailing sand as it tasted the air. Hynd blew the worm away with volley fire.

The camel decided at that moment that it had definitely had enough and set off at a run, tearing the reins from Donnie’s hands and dumping Wilkins unceremoniously on the ground in its wake. It headed west, keeping to the rocky track and was soon lost in the murk and drizzle despite all of Donnie’s shouted entreaties to try to get it to stop.

“The professor’s not going to be happy,” he said. “Yon bugger was carrying all of his clothes.”

“That’s the least of your man’s worries,” Corporal Wiggins said and ushered them all into the gloom inside the shack.

*

Their first impressions had been right—the place had obviously been a filling station in a previous incarnation but it looked to have been abandoned at least a decade previously. Wiggins checked the ancient manual till on the long counter.

“Empty. It’s just not my lucky week.”

The interior of the shack was in disrepair. A fine layer of sand and dust lay over everything, the roof sagged low, just above head height near the doorway and open to the sky at the northern end and there were only broken shards of glass in any of the windows. Donnie only had eyes for the center of the room, where Davies had the professor lying on a table and was once again performing CPR.

“He’s stuttering and chugging like a Fiat Uno with a low battery,” the private said when he had to stop to take a breath. “Sarge, can you take over here for a sec? I’ve got to get some adrenaline into him.”

Hynd continued to pound at Gillings’ chest, while Davies rummaged in his bag and came out with a needle that looked more fit for a veterinarian’s work than a field medic. He exposed the professor’s chest, felt for the sternum, then plunged the needle in like he was stabbing with a knife. Gillings’ whole body jerked as if he’d taken another jolt of electricity, his eyes went wide and he coughed, loud like a bark.

Davies had to stop the professor from sitting up too quickly. The older man had no color on his cheeks and his eyes seemed like dark pools ringed with gray shadow but at least he was awake and breathing.

“He’s back,” Davies said.

But for how long? Donnie thought.

*

It started to rain even heavier outside, the pattering drops sounding like a drummer pounding out a beat on the ceiling of the rotting shack.

“Hunker down, lads,” Banks said. “We’ll keep an eye on Professor Gillings here for a while until Davies tells us he’s safe to move and wait this weather out. It’s chow time anyway. Wiggo, get the stove going.” He turned to Donnie. “Any chance you could fetch yon camel back?”

Donnie laughed.

“These things can run at fifteen miles an hour and better when it takes their fancy. The daft bugger’s halfway across the desert by now.”

He stood at the captain’s side at the rear window, looking north out across the plain. It looked to be almost all sandy ground with few rocky areas apart from a large outcrop right on the horizon, half a dozen mikes away or more. The cloud had lowered again and in the dimmer light, it was possible to see faint swathes of blue dancing electricity washing across the plain.

“Bugger,” the captain said.

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Donnie replied.

“Where does the track go that this place sits on?”

Donnie tried to visualize the terrain as a map in his head.

“Eastward it runs for about ninety miles to the same town where we got the camels and I used to go for stores; a four- or five-hour drive if we had transport, God knows how long on foot.”

“And west?”

“It runs straight across an expanse of desert. I’ve never been that way. I know there’s some old mining operations out in the great empty, which is probably what this place was here to serve but you can see how long it’s been since anybody needed fuel. As far as I know, its hundreds of miles of nothing.”

“Well, that’s just fucking marvelous,” Banks replied but Donnie knew it was the frustration talking and not any condemnation of him.

“How much farther north do we have to go?”

“Still twenty miles and more,” the captain replied. “On foot, with a half-dead man, a private with a gammy leg, and fucking electric worms swarming at our feet.”

Wiggins laughed from where he was setting up the stove on what had once been the shack’s serving counter.

“A piece of piss for the squad then,” he said. “And at least you’ve got your clothes on this time, Cap, not like yon night in the Amazon.”

“Don’t remind me,” Banks said. “I should have bloody left you there… at least then I wouldnae have you reminding me of it every time you get the hump.”

“Speaking of humps,” Wiggins said, turning to Hynd, “how’s the wife, Sarge?”

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days,” Donnie said to the corporal, who laughed again.

“Aye, so the sarge’s wife keeps telling me.”

*

By the time Wiggins shared out cups of some kind of peppery beef stew to them all, Davies had the professor sitting upright, feet dangling off the edge of the table. The man still looked too pale and his eyes were still too wide, as much in shock as his hair, which stood out in tufts framing his skull in a wispy aura.

“Whisky?” he whispered but Donnie shook his head.

“The camel’s buggered off with your gear, Prof… including the two bottles.”

“Whisky? On the camel? You could have fucking told me,” Wiggins said from where he was now brewing up coffee. “I’d have chased it from here to Glesga if I kent it was carrying a bottle.”

“And I’d have raced you for it,” Gillings said and laughed weakly. “Don’t let this auld body fool you. I’m in my prime.” He felt at his chest, at the spot where a bruise was raised, then looked around at the squad members. “I know I’ve been an auld arse about leaving the finds behind but I think you lads just saved my life. If that whisky wasn’t halfway to China by now, I’d have got a round of drinks in for you.”

“Save it for when we get home,” Banks said.

Donnie was still looking out the rear window, where a dancing blue aurora of sparking electricity hung over the desert. Home seemed a long way away.

*

Coffee helped to revive the professor further and once he’d got some inside him, he got high spots of color on each cheek but he still had to hold the mug with both hands and even then they shook enough to slop hot liquid over the cup’s rim.

“How do you feel?” Donnie asked.

“Like I’ve been skelped up and down Princes Street. Twice,” Gillings replied. He looked up to Banks. “You definitely saved my life though. I was awake for a few seconds after getting zapped. I felt the bloody things squirm against me. I think if I wasn’t wearing clothes, they might have started feeding on me there and then. I saw you blow the beast away so thanks for that and I’m sorry, again, for being a daft auld bugger. At my age, I should know better.”

Banks nodded.

“You had the right idea when it came to the trucks though. Maybe we can get one running. Wiggo, Wilkins, go and have a shufti and see if you can get something serviceable to get us out of here. It has to manage twenty miles north across the plain. After that, I don’t care if it falls to bits like a clown car. Meanwhile, professor, get some rest. We’re not going anywhere until Davies tells me you’re fit to travel.”

The professor handed Donnie the coffee and smiled wryly.

“Best do as mother says, eh,” he said and lay down on the table.

Donnie looked to Banks.

“I’ll go with Wiggins if that’s okay… it’s probably best if I smoke my fags outside anyway.”

Banks nodded and Donnie joined Wiggins and Wilkins in heading out into the rain.

“Be careful,” Hynd added. “Stay on the hard stuff and make a noise if you need backup fast.”

*

The rain was steady again but at least it was warm. Wilkins seemed to be none the worse for his tumble off the camel, although he still had a pronounced limp.

“How you doing, wee man?” Wiggins asked. “The doc and I can do this job if you need a rest?”

“I’m not about to let a fucking cave troll ruin my life, Corp,” the private said and when Wiggins showed no reaction, Donnie realized Wilkins had said it in all seriousness.

“Cave troll?”

“Aye,” Wiggins answered. “It fucked up Wilkins’ leg bad on our last mission in Norway. A big nasty fucker, so he was. But it wisnae his fault, really. He was the result of a mad scientist experiment gone wrong and he went berzie, as they do. The squad helped put him and his pals down in the end, so it all worked out okay. Just another day at the office.”

“Who the hell are you guys?” Donnie asked and it was Wiggins who answered again.

“Fucking monster magnets, that’s us,” he said. “Need a giant snake? Big fucking howlin’ things in Siberia? Or the bloody Loch Ness monster? How about a spider the size of a bus? And don’t even mention yon fucking flying saucer in Antarctica—yon bastard nearly had away with me but that’s us, so it is… fucking monster magnets.”

“You’re having me on,” Donnie said.

“Not a bit of it, lad. Did I look surprised when these buggering electric worms showed up? Did I fuck? That’s because I knew there would be something… there’s always something. It’s a fucking curse is what it is. Wherever we go, the monsters follow.”

Donnie didn’t get time to process any of Wiggins’ rant, for by that time they were among the rusted heaps of the vehicles to the rear of the shack. It quickly became obvious that most of the vehicles were long past being able to be repaired. Wiggins and Wilkins got the hood up of one that looked to be in slightly better condition than the others and Donnie stood to one side, lighting up a smoke and looking out over the desert.

Blue swathes of electricity ran across the sands.

- 9 -

“How’s the patient, Doc?” Banks said to Davies back in the shack.

“He’s stable, for now,” Davies replied. “But he needs a real doctor looking at his heart—it’s still fluttering like a caged bird.”

“Can he walk out of here if needs be?”

Davies waved his hand in a seesaw motion.

“Fifty-fifty at best, Cap,” he said. “If we do have to walk, he’ll have to take it slow and easy. By rights, he should be in hospital.”

“Aye,” Banks replied, “and by rights, I should be on holiday in Ibiza on a sunbed with a bucketful of cocktails. We’ll just have to make do, like always.”

He turned to Hynd.

“Can you get the stove and stuff squared away, Sarge? I’d like to be ready to move fast if Wiggo and the others somehow come up with a miracle.”

Hynd gave him a salute that was somewhat ruined by the cigarette dangling in his lips. Banks was lighting a smoke of his own when Davies called from a room at the rear.

“You need to see this, Cap,” he said. “I came through looking for somewhere to take a piss… and found this.”

Banks joined the private in a small room that had indeed once been a washroom, containing little more than a cistern and a sink. The cramped floor space was mostly taken up by one of the worms—what was left of it.

It looked to have been dead for as long as the station had been abandoned, a desiccated husk, the bright red of the body dulled to deep crimson like dry rust but with the sheen of dry candle wax. The bulk of it was four feet long and about a foot wide, lying almost in a circle like a discarded tire. Banks didn’t want to touch it. He used the end of his rifle barrel to prod what passed for lips. Waxy pieces of dry tissue fell away exposing twin rows of pencil-thin teeth that seemed to shine white in the gloomy room. The touch of the rifle barrel was enough to disturb whatever delicate balance the thing had lain in—it collapsed in on itself, raising a faint puff of red dust that had both Banks and Davies standing back, not wanting to breathe any of it in.

Once the dust settled, Banks sifted the remains, again using the barrel of his weapon. What was left was a waxy residue that left a smear on the end of the rifle. There appeared to be something more solid in the center of the collapsed mess but when he uncovered it, he wished he hadn’t bothered—it was a skeletal, all too human hand with most but not all the flesh stripped away from the bones.

*

“Sarge,” he shouted. “Check on Wiggo and the others. These buggering things got in here at one time; there’s no reason why they can’t again.”

It was raining harder now, running in runnels off the roof and starting to puddle even on the rockier ground on which the shack sat. Out of the window to the north, the view was grim, the weather having closed in, reducing visibility to twenty yards.

“I think we might be here for a while, Cap,” Hynd said.

“I hope not,” Banks replied but any hope of Wiggins producing a miracle was dashed minutes later when the three men returned from outside.

“Nowt there but heaps of junk, Cap,” Wiggins said. “The batteries, the ones that are left, are flat as pancakes. Somebody’s already cannibalized a good many of the engine parts and there’s only two good tires among the lot of them.”

“It’s shanks’ pony again then,” Hynd said.

Banks looked again out the remains of the north window and over to where the professor lay snoring softly on the table.

“We’ll give yer man here a rest for a bit and hope this is just a passing shower,” he said with more enthusiasm than he felt. “Sarge, get that stove back out again and get a brew on. Looks like this is home for the duration.”

*

Banks went to stand by the north-facing window. It only had a third of its glass remaining, a jagged triangle to the right-hand side—the remainder was open to the elements. The wind was coming from that direction, blowing rain in his face, but he hardly felt it. His mind was twenty or more miles north, at a rural airstrip that was their destination and one where they’d be expected at nightfall. It didn’t look like they were going to make it and with their comms out of service, he could only hope that the plane would wait for them.

Otherwise, it’s going to be a bloody long walk home.

Every fiber of his being was telling him to get moving but the professor was still sleeping—soundly by the looks of things—and every bit of rest would stand him in better stead on the long march yet to come.

Besides, Banks had these fucking electric worms to worry about. The view outside was restricted by the weather but he saw enough to know that as the rain got heavier, the blue swathes of dancing static got more intense, with fewer patches of clear ground between them. He wouldn’t be surprised if the whole expanse of sand to their north was filled, just beneath the surface, by a multitude of squirming, roiling worms.

The only plan he had in mind was to walk along the track, either east or west, and hope to find rockier ground heading north at some point. That was trusting to luck and was more Wiggins’ style than his own but he could see no other option. Even that was going to prove to be fraught with danger, for the rocky ground around the shack where they’d taken shelter was now surrounded by puddles.

He thought of the dry, dead thing in the washroom and suddenly knew how it came to be there.

“Wiggo, Davies,” he said, turning, “I want a guard on the front door. Wilko, Sarge, you take this window here.”

“What are we watching for?” Wiggins said, heading for the door carrying a coffee with a smoke hanging from his lower lip.

“Blue and red meanies,” Banks replied. “And if any turn up, don’t wait for an order, just take the fuckers down.”

*

They didn’t have to wait long for Banks’ hunch to be proved right. Taking advantage of the wet conditions, the first of the long red worms slithered onto the rocky station concourse before the squad had finished their coffee. This one was three feet long, a foot thick, glistening red in the gloom, with blue crackling flashes of electricity running in waves from front to rear. It raised its head, opening the fang-filled mouth as if tasting the air, and started to move towards the doorway.

Wiggins put three shots down its gullet and it exploded into a puddle of pink mush that left not so much as a bone behind, just a tumble of white fangs that looked like white pencils scattered on the wet rock.

“At least they go down easy enough,” Wiggins said.

“Aye, but it looks like there’s a fuckload of them,” Banks said at his back from where he’d come to have a look. He pointed out into the gloom to the south. The desert was alive with squirming worms coiling wetly around each other in a rolling mass surrounded by crackling blue static—a mass that was slowly but surely heading their way.

- 10 -

The noise of Wiggins’ shots had been deafening in the confines of the shack. Donnie saw the soldiers put in earplugs as they unslung their rifles, and he saw from Hynd and Davies’ body language beside the north window that they were expecting trouble.

The gunfire woke the professor. He sat up with a start, his white face appearing ghostly in the dim light.

“What the hell is this now? Can’t a man get a bit of sleep around here?”

Donnie did the first thing that came to mind. He grabbed Gillings and pulled him down under the table. Thankfully, the professor didn’t look to be in the mood to argue. They squeezed together in the cramped space.

“Keep your head down, Prof,” he said. “Looks like there’s going to be a firefight.”

He had enough time to notice that flickering blue light showed at both the open doorway and out the north window, then felt his hair stand on end, smelled ozone on the air.

“Short, controlled bursts,” the captain shouted, then Donnie covered his ears with the palms of his hands as the shack filled with the roar of gunfire. All he could see was the backs of the soldiers and the muzzle flashes, yellow against the dancing blue, lighting up the shack like a manic disco strobe. Hot shell casings rattled to the floor and despite all of Donnie’s attempts to cover up his ears, they rang as if great bells were going off in his head.

It seemed to go on forever but wasn’t more than thirty seconds later when he heard, faintly, the captain call out again.

“Save them,” Banks shouted and the firing stuttered to a halt, leaving Donnie with ringing ears and a burnt smell in mouth and nose.

He saw the captain step out the main door between Wiggins and Davies and his curiosity getting the better of him, got out from under the table and went to stand at Wiggins’ back, looking out over the small concourse.

The wet rocks were strewn with pieces of pink, oozing mush that looked like someone had spilled a load of jellied confectionery then scattered thin, white needles among the remnants. Out in the gloom, the swathes of blue were slowly drifting away southward, soon lost in the murk and drizzle.

“Well, we know more than we did before,” Wiggins said as he put a fresh magazine in his rifle.

“What’s that?” Donnie asked.

“They’ve definitely not got a backbone,” the corporal answered. “And they fuck off quickly when we shoot at them, which is always a bonus.”

*

It took several minutes for the ringing in Donnie’s ears to fade and for his hearing to lose a strange, echoing, muffled quality that was distinctly unpleasant. He lit a smoke, having to fight a tremble in his fingers, then joined Banks in looking out the north window.

“Were they actually attacking us?” Donnie asked.

Banks shook his head.

“No, at least I don’t think so. They were just taking advantage of the wet ground to try to move across the rock. We gave them cause to think again, that’s all.”

“Think? I doubt there’s a lot of that going on.”

“And yet, they know enough to back off under fire. That’s not mindless behavior. Not completely.”

“They’re nothing but mouths and arses from what I can see.”

“Aye.” Banks laughed. “Much like Wiggo and yet, also like Wiggo, they’ve got the good sense to keep their heads down when some fucker is shooting at them. I wouldn’t rule out rudimentary behavior patterns among them just yet, Doctor. If I can teach Wiggo to make and fetch coffee, then anything’s possible.”

Sergeant Hynd spoke up from the left side of the window.

“Looks like the rain’s easing up, Cap,” he said.

Donnie looked out to see that some of the gloom was lifting, the weather improving from the north where the sky was definitely lighter than it had been minutes earlier. As the view brightened, the blue washes and swathes that showed where the worms congregated faded and dimmed. By the time the squad was ready to move out again, the sky was clearing fast, only wispy clouds above them and steam rising from the rocky concourse of the shack as both the rainwater and the remnants of the shot worms evaporated in the heat.

*

Gillings pulled himself up from under the table and although he still looked far too pale to Donnie’s eyes, he announced that he was okay to walk.

“The sooner we get going, the sooner you’ll get to retrieving my finds,” he said to Banks.

Donnie knew already, just from observing the captain, that the soldier had hardly given their gear back at the base a second thought and wouldn’t until much later, when he was sure he had got everyone to safety. But trying to explain that to the professor at this stage would only chance a temper tantrum—and in Gillings’ current condition, he might not survive one of those.

“Are you sure you’re ready for a walk?” Banks asked.

Donnie interrupted before Gillings could reply.

“I’ll keep an eye on him, Captain. Me and Private Davies will make sure he’s okay.”

Banks turned his attention to young Wilkins.

“How about you, lad? This is likely to be hard going for you.”

Wilkins looked pained just to be standing up but he gave Banks a thumbs-up and a smile.

“As long as we don’t have to do a few miles double-time, I’ll be fine.”

Despite the lad’s protestations, Banks had the young private redistribute the contents of his pack among the other men so that all he carried was the camp stove in his pack and his weapon slung over his shoulder. Donnie noted that the other soldiers had no complaint at having to carry extra; indeed, they seemed keen to take on the weight if it would help the lad. He couldn’t help but make comparisons between the cutthroat every damned day competition of the University hierarchy and the casual camaraderie between these men. He’d always thought that the rigid discipline of soldiering wasn’t for him; but here he was, seeing something he was missing, something he envied.

*

The captain moved them out heading not east as Donnie had expected but west, deeper into the desert but keeping to the rocky track.

“Captain Banks,” he said, “I told you, there’s nowt out there but old mining installations and I don’t even know how far they might be.”

“I’m not heading for them,” Banks replied. “I’m just looking for better ground heading north.”

For the first hour, there was no sign that they would find any—there was only more of the same sandy wastes to the north. Although they could see the larger outcrop of rock on the horizon that they’d spotted earlier, there appeared to be no way to get to it without crossing open sand.

The walking was proving hard on both the professor and young Wilkins, and Banks was forced to call a rest stop. By Donnie’s reckoning, they’d only covered three miles before they were called to a halt. The lack of speed seemed to have brought the captain to a decision.

“Davies, Sarge, you stay here with the others,” Banks said. “Let them rest up a bit longer. Wiggo and I will go on ahead and have a shufti, see if it’s worth keeping on this track. I’ll fire two shots if it’s okay for you to come up to join us—the sound should travel clear enough in this thin air.”

The professor slumped alarmingly as if the act of stopping had sapped the last of his will to stay upright and it needed both Donnie and Private Davies to catch him and lower him gently to the ground. His face looked more gray than pale now, his eyes sunk in dark shadows, and when Davies gave him some water, Gillings had trouble getting his hand to stop shaking and got more of the water on his shirt than in his mouth. Wilkins wasn’t in much better shape although when Hynd asked how the lad was doing, he got the customary smile and thumbs-up in reply.

“We can’t go too far like this,” Donnie said to the sergeant. “Certainly not twenty miles.”

“The captain will come up with something. He always does,” Hynd said and once again, Donnie envied that simple faith in a superior.

- 11 -

Banks and Wiggins walked side by side, heading west along the rocky track. It stretched away in an almost straight line ahead of them to the horizon where it swam in a heat haze. There was still no sign of the escaped camel.

“Bugger,” Wiggins said. “I was hoping for a dram from the professor’s bottle.”

“You and me both, Wiggo,” Banks replied. “But keep your eyes off the track and look north—we need a route that’ll take us at least to yon outcrop over there.”

“We’re going to have to go slow in any case,” Wiggins replied, “what with the lad’s gammy leg and the prof’s dodgy ticker. I cannae see anybody coming along the road here to give us a lift.”

Banks nodded.

“Aye, and the sat-phone’s still out of action. I guess we’re in for another night out here, whatever happens. Let’s just hope the rain keeps away, eh?”

The skies had continued to clear, even in the north, the direction from which all the rain seemed to come. The expanses of sand on either side of the track were only stirred by the light breeze that ran north to south. There was no vegetation of any kind here, only sand and wind-scratched rock—and not enough of that to provide them passage north.

“Maybe we should take a chance and head across the sand while it’s dry?” Wiggins said.

“Naw,” Banks replied. “You saw what happened to the professor. These wormy fuckers are sitting around under there waiting for a happy meal. I’m not about to provide them with one. We’ll stay on this track for a bit longer and hope for better luck.”

They walked for more than a mile before Banks saw a darker patch ahead on his right, raising his hopes. Ten minutes later, they reached a long stretch of rockier ground heading almost directly north at right angles to their track.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Banks muttered and fired two shots into the air.

*

Wiggins gave Banks a smoke while they waited for the others to come up to them—they could see the small band of five coming along slowly, the figures wavering in the heat.

“What’s the plan, Cap?” Wiggins said.

Banks was watching the approaching figures, gauging their pace. He shook his head, as if coming to a decision before answering.

“I’d like to find somewhere—maybe yon outcrop on the horizon—where we can leave Wilkins, the Prof, Doctor Reid, and Davies in safety, then me and either you or the sarge will head off at double time to the pickup point and bring back the cavalry.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Wiggins said. “The less running about I have to do over this kind of ground, the more I like it.”

The figures in the distance were still coming on slowly—far too slowly. The outcrop Banks had in mind as their refuge for the night was still at least five miles north of them.

It’s going to be touch and go if we get there before nightfall.

*

Both Gillings and Wilkins were in need of more rest after the walk along the track to reach Banks and Wiggins, causing the captain to revise his estimated time of arrival at the outcrop to even later.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s all we can afford, then we head north. Even if the weather holds, those fucking worms stay away, and we make good time, it’s still going to be dark when we get there so suck it up, lads. This is going to be tough.”

Even after the ten minutes were up, Gillings had to lean on Doctor Reid’s shoulder before he could take a step, and young Wilkins was wincing every time he put weight on his bad leg. They headed north slowly along a flat patch of gray rock.

The going was easy at first but after twenty minutes, the ground became more broken, the rock worn and eroded with deep holes and ruts that had to be avoided, stepped over, or walked around.

Progress became painfully slow and Banks’ gaze kept turning to the west, watching the sun descend closer to the horizon. The rest periods became almost as long as the stretches of walking in between and although the rocky outcrop ahead was definitely nearer, the light was going fast from the sky and they were still two miles short.

Banks used his rifle sight to scope out the outcrop while there was still enough light. There were more of the wooden dwellings on the summit of this one, similar in type to those there had been at the monastery, but there was no smoke from kitchen fires, no fluttering flags above the roofs, no sign of any movement. The place appeared deserted.

But it is shelter for the night, and it can be defended. That’s all that matters.

*

They found a charnel pit five minutes later, a deep sandy hollow in the rock some ten feet deep and filled with bleached white bones; there looked to be goat and camel in there but there were also rib cages and grinning skulls that were all too human.

“What the fuck is this now?” Wiggins said. “Some kind of all you can eat buffet for those fucking worms?”

The bones were all tumbled together and weathering meant it was impossible to tell whether they had all been deposited at the same time or was the result of a phenomenon that took place over a long period of years, although Banks guessed the latter. There were no remnants of clothing and no skin or flesh remaining. Everything had been picked clean.

Or sucked clean.

The professor showed the first signs of interest in their surroundings since the start of the trek and would have stopped to investigate the pit if Banks hadn’t insisted they kept moving.

“Old bones don’t interest me. The young ones of all of us here are what matters. Come on, there’s a settlement up on yon outcrop. Let’s see if there’s any monks offering us supper and another wee show.”

*

It was full dark before they arrived at their destination but they knew before they got there that the place was deserted; no lights showed anywhere on the dome of rock, no smell of kitchen fires or smoke in the air. The night was silent save for the sound of their feet on rock and the harsh gasps of both Gillings’ and Wilkins’ breath, both of whom were struggling to cover the last few yards of ground as they reached the base of the outcrop.

Banks switched on the light on the barrel of his rifle and using it as a guide led the way off the plain. A set of well-worn stone steps led in a winding path up to the cluster of houses on the summit a hundred feet above the desert plain, a dozen empty huts in a circle around a larger, obviously communal structure. Several of the huts were circles of stone open to the sky, their roofs having long since collapsed inward and others showed holes in the thatch. In contrast to the ornate splendor of the monastery of the day before, the architecture was workaday, cruder in every aspect, the large central building being only a single story with a high domed roof thatched in old, tinder-dry foliage. The only thing in common with the chamber back in the monastery was a circle of egg-shaped sealed vases around the inside of the outer wall, but there was no central well in this place, just a large circular fire pit, its ashes long gone cold.

“Looks like this is our base for the night. Sarge, Wiggo, you’re on firewood duty. Some of the tumbled roofs in those other huts should burn just fine,” Banks said. “We’ll get some heat into us and some grub. Professor, Wilkins, make yourselves comfortable—your walking is done, for a while at least.”

The two tired men flopped to the floor. Both of them looked totally beat and Banks knew he couldn’t ask them to go any further. Even a night’s rest wasn’t going to help much. He waited until they had a fire going and a pot of stew on the camp stove then lit a cigarette and laid out his plan.

“We’re already late for our pickup,” he said. “And whatever’s affecting the phones hasn’t eased up. I don’t know how long they’ll wait for us and both the professor and Wilkins aren’t fit to go any further. So the sarge and I will do the heavy lifting. We’re heading out in ten minutes and planning on running as much of the way as we can. I estimate we’re somewhere around fifteen miles short of where we should be, so let’s say three hours if we’re lucky. We’ll bring the cavalry to you. Wiggo, you’re in charge while we’re gone. Don’t fuck up, there’s a good lad.”

Wiggins grinned.

“Just leave the whip and thumbscrews with me, Cap,” he said. “There won’t be any trouble.”

Banks deliberately hadn’t said what might happen if they weren’t lucky. He didn’t have to—everybody understood the situation.

If there’s a large patch of open ground in our path, or if it rains again, all bets are off.

- 12 -

Donnie saw to the professor, getting the older man fully clothed into the sleeping bag from Private Davies’ kit; Gillings was too tired to put up any complaint and using the private’s rucksack as a pillow, was asleep almost immediately.

“Is he going to be okay?” Donnie asked Davies. The private checked the professor’s pulse and looked grim.

“He’s still thready, jittering badly. He’s lucky the shock didn’t kill him outright. Normally, I’d suggest zapping him in a controlled environment to get him back to a steady rhythm. Failing that, he should take complete rest to give his system time to get back on an even keel—the heart can regulate itself in this kind of case, given time.”

“And if he’s not given time?”

Davies’ look was all the reply Donnie needed. Much depended on Banks and Hynd, who had just put on their rucksacks and were preparing to leave.

“Don’t forget us,” Donnie said as the two men headed for the door.

“I couldn’t if I tried,” Banks replied. “Wiggo here would never let us hear the end of it.”

And with that the two men left, heading into the night.

*

Wilkins had another coffee brewing. Donnie took two mugs when offered and went over to join Wiggins at the doorway where the corporal stood guard. Donnie passed over another of his cheroots and they both lit up. Wiggins screwed up his face.

“I don’t ken what’s worse—Wilko’s coffee or your fags.”

“Tell you what, get me home in one piece and I’ll stand for a Starbucks and a packet of Marlboro.”

“That, plus a pie and a pint and you’re on,” Wiggins said with a grin.

They looked out into the night. The view from the doorway was south, back across the plain they’d covered earlier. The captain and sergeant had already made their way off the outcrop and there was only shifting darkness to be seen under a glistening carpet of stars.

“There’s none of that blue static,” Donnie said.

“Too dry now—the wee fuckers will be burrowed deeper, where it’s still damp.”

“That’s good news for your captain and sergeant anyway.”

Wiggins nodded.

“Aye. Just about the first thing that’s gone right on this fucked-up mission.”

“How did you get into this game anyway?” Donnie asked. “If you don’t mind me asking?”

“There’s not much to tell. It was either the army or a spell in Borstal as a juvenile delinquent. I was running with a bad lot, I didnae ken any better and was just a stupid wee boy. Then the smack killed two of the lads I’d went to school with, I took a long hard look at myself, and went and signed up.”

“You took to the discipline okay?”

“Not at first. The sarge will tell you I was a loud wee tosser who gave him no end of aggravation—but it was him that sorted me out. He saved my life—well, stopped me from throwing mine away anyway, and it was him that got me my chance to get into this squad once I proved to him I could knuckle down and take orders. He’s like a big brother to me.”

“So what’s with all the jokes about his wife?”

Wiggins went quiet and Donnie thought he wasn’t going to get an answer then was surprised to see tears in the corporal’s eyes when he finally spoke.

“She died. The cancer got her a few years back. It nearly ended the Sarge but I stood up with him at the funeral, I helped put her in the ground, and I got pished with him that night.”

“So, the jokes are…?”

“How he copes. How we cope, lad,” Wiggins said. “How anybody copes.”

*

They stood in the doorway, swapping smokes and chatting about Glasgow, about home, which seemed a long way away. An hour after the captain and sergeant left, it started to drizzle. Donnie looked out the doorway and saw that the sky had gone dark, the stars now obscured by thickening cloud.

“Bugger,” Wiggins said.

“They’ll be a good way there by now,” Donnie said. “And maybe this is just a local shower.”

“Aye, well if it’s local, we’ll all probably get it. Still, they ken what they’re doing and worrying never gets us anywhere. All we can do is wait and see. The cap and sarge are giving your man there a chance to get some sleep, so that’s good news for him anyway. Still, I could really be doing with some of that whisky the camel had away with.”

The rain got heavier. Soon they heard it patter on the steps outside the door and saw dampness glisten dimly on the stones. Out in the desert, a wash of blue ran like sheet lightning across the plain.

“Looks like the wee fuckers are at it again,” Wiggins said.

“We’re safe up here though?” Donnie said.

“You saw what happened back at yon service station. If it gets wet enough, these fuckers like to travel.” Wiggins clapped Donnie on the shoulder. “Dinna worry, lad. We’ve got the firepower to keep them at bay if they get this far. You’re not ready to be worm food for a few years yet.”

*

Over the course of the next hour, the rain got steadily heavier until it ran in small streams off the roofs and a curtain of water obscured their view out the door. They saw enough to know that blue washes of electrical activity covered most of the visible plain to the south.

“Can I start worrying about your captain and sergeant yet?” Donnie asked.

“The cap and sarge have seen just about everything there is to be seen and come home safe every time,” Wiggins replied. “They’ll be fine.”

The corporal’s eyes told a different story but Donnie didn’t push it, for he saw that both Privates Davies and Wilkins were listening in and their worry was showing clearly in their eyes. Wiggins saw it too and spoke up.

“Remember being caught outside up on yon glacier in Norway with the troll after us in the storm, lads? That was a far tighter spot than this. At least here we’re warm and dry. Always remember, it could be worse.”

Davies grinned.

“That’s your pep talk is it, Corp?”

“The only one I’ve got,” Wiggins replied. “And if you don’t like it, you can fuck off.”

He’s done the trick though. Donnie saw from the smiles of the younger men that their mood had been lifted.

I wish mine was.

He left the doorway to check on the professor. The older man still slept and he looked less pale in the face than previously, with some color showing high at his cheeks, although his eyes resembled a panda, almost circular black shadows around fluttering eyelids. His breathing seemed to stutter ever few minutes but not enough to wake him. Donnie left him sleeping and went over to the fire to sit beside Davies and Wilkins.

“So, I got your corporal’s story,” he said as Wilkins passed him another coffee. “How about you two? How did you come to join up for this lark?”

Davies went first.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like growing up black in Easterhouse?” he said. “My old mum always told me not to take any abuse and to stand up for myself but when there’s only you against the pack, you have to do something or you’re going to get battered senseless every time. With me, it was martial arts—at first, because I wanted to kick some wee tosser’s arse, later for the discipline not to. I always gravitated towards structure and one day I saw a recruitment poster at college during a job fair—that was not long after my mum died. I needed something, I needed steady money, and I needed out of Easterhouse. So here I am.”

“And the medical stuff?”

“Mum’s fault. She was ill for years with just me to look out for her. I found I liked looking out for people. This job lets me do it either as a medic or a fighter—I get the best of both worlds,” he said, laughing.

“And how about you, Wilkins?” Donnie asked.

“It’s in the family,” the young private said. “From way back as far as Waterloo so I’ve been told. We’re all Scottish, all soldiers. Great Granddad was in the Black Watch and died in Normandy; Granddad was in Aden; Dad served in Belfast. I never thought about doing anything else, even now with this buggered leg. Signed up as soon as I could after school. When the chance came to get onto the squad, I jumped at it. The cap and sarge are kind of legends to the younger lads.”

“How is that leg, by the way?” Donnie said.

“Better for the rest,” was Wilkins’ reply, although the private’s face was almost as pale as that of the professor earlier.

Further conversation was cut short when Wiggins shouted from the doorway.

“Davies, get your arse over here and bring your rifle. We’ve got problems.”

- 13 -

The first hour of Banks’ and Hynd’s run had gone well. They made good time under a clear starry sky, running on rocky terrain that wasn’t too hard or too soft. They’d been trained for times like this, maintaining an even loping pace that ate up the miles. Neither had spoken, saving their breath to keep them moving forward. They only stopped when Banks noticed the sky was darker ahead, clouds moving in from the north. He tasted moisture in the air as he slowed to a halt.

“Take five, Sarge,” he said. “We’re on hard ground here. Let’s see what’s coming our way.”

Hynd took the chance for a smoke but Banks’ concentration was on the still darkening horizon and the increasing hint of dampness at his cheeks.

“More fucking rain on the way. That’s all we need.”

“Do we head back, try to stay ahead of it?” Hynd asked.

“No way. We’re too far in. I’d rather get caught trying to make headway than have something snapping at my arse as I run away.”

“You’ll get no disagreement from me on that score.”

Banks tried to gauge the ground ahead of them but the cloud was already sweeping overhead, bringing deeper gloom without even the benefit of starlight. Raindrops pattered, already wetting the rock.

“I’m ready to push on if you are, Cap,” Hynd said, flicking the butt of his smoke away where its red glow was quickly extinguished as the rain spattered heavier. As of yet, there was no sign of any blue flashes.

“Let’s do it then, but we stick to the rocky ground—first sign of it getting soft underfoot we backtrack to firmer stuff.”

“Lights?”

“Let’s keep them off as long as we’re able. We don’t ken what triggers the beasties into action, so best not to give them any excuses.”

They set off running again.

*

The first swathe of blue flashes appeared twenty yards off to their left minutes later.

“Cap?” Hynd said.

“I see it. We’re fine as long as they’re over there and we’re over here,” Banks said and upped his pace, concentrating on trying to stay on solid ground, peering to identify the darker patches that indicated better footing. Rain dripped down the back of his neck and his rucksack had begun to chafe at the shoulders again. He knew from experience that the first hour of running was always deceptively easy and that aches, pains, and discomfort were all ahead in his immediate future. He was also aware they still had a couple of hours running ahead of them and without the GPS or stars to guide them, they were running blind, trusting to gut instinct and lines of sight in increasing gloom.

But what choice do we have?

The quicker pace couldn’t be sustained as the rain got heavier and the rock turned slippery underfoot. The swathes of blue increased in number and density and soon the two men were forced to a halt, standing on a slab of rock raised only a foot above the main surface of the plain, surrounded by dancing, crackling blue flashes.

He moved so that he and Hynd were standing back to back, weapons raised. There was an area of sand only half a dozen steps to his left, seething and roiling as the worms coiled just under the surface, the sand itself lit by a blue crackling haze that ran across its surface sending loose grains swirling. The rain was heavy now, pattering hard on the top of Banks’ head and running down his brow to drip steadily from his nose. His suit protected him from the worst of it but he was going to be damp through and through before too many more minutes passed. The only thing in their favor was that it wasn’t cold so the possibility of hypothermia wasn’t a problem.

Besides, we’ve got other things to worry about.

A worm’s head rose up from the sandy area to Banks’ left, a foot-wide cavernous mouth open, tasting the air and the rain. Blue static ran around the white, stick-like fangs. Banks switched on his rifle light and washed a beam across the area, hoping that the beast was a subterranean thing that would react adversely to the sudden brightness.

No such luck.

The worm took no notice of the light and pushed itself farther out of the sand so that three feet of it was raised upright like a tree trunk—a red, glistening tree. It was soon joined by others, a whole forest of a score or more, all pushing straight up as if to suck down the rain deep into their bodies. They varied from eight inches in diameter to one monster farther out in the sand right at the edge of their visibility that looked to have a gape nearly two feet wide with a glistening red torso of the same width below it. When that one rose up out of the sand, its mouth was more than eight feet high as it sucked at the rain.

“Steady, Sarge,” Banks said, little more than a whisper as he felt Hynd tense. At that, the nearest four of the beasts swung their heads—they had no faces as such—to point their wide-open, fang-filled mouths directly at where Hynd and Banks stood.

They heard me. They’re keying in to sound.

All four of the nearby worms, the biggest being the first one they’d seen with the foot-wide gape, dropped flat to the sand then came forward, straight at them.

*

Without speaking, Banks put a finger to his lips and took six quick steps north out of their path. Hynd followed without a word as the worms came on, not deviating from their course, crossing the rock where the men had been standing and coming to a halt with their heads raised, tasting… listening.

Banks held his breath, expecting an attack… but none came. Ten seconds later, the worms slithered back off the rock into the sand and raised their bodies upright again, joining the others in tasting the rain. It was coming down in curtains of water now, small streams forming at the soldier’s feet as puddles merged and water tried to find low ground. The blue flashing became a hanging, swirling aurora above the uplifted mouths of the worms and the red bodies swayed, all in time, as if dancing to some unheard rhythm.

Banks retreated six more steps north with Hynd at his side. The worms paid no heed and stayed where they were, swaying in the rain. With their mouths raised and the red glistening torsos moving slowly from side to side in unison, they looked like a field of exotic plants.

Banks watched them for thirty seconds more to ensure an attack wasn’t imminent, then led Hynd out again, finding a patch of rocky ground and heading north in silence into the rain.

- 14 -

“What is it? What do you see?” Donnie Reid said as Davies went to join Wiggins at the hut doorway.

“More of that blue flashing crap,” Wiggins said. “And it’s getting closer, coming up the rock towards us.”

“The worms?”

“I’d guess so. Stay back by the fire with the professor. Wilko, you stay there and watch our backs. Davies, you’re with me. We saw these wee buggers off easily enough earlier. Let’s hope they didn’t go just to fetch their big brothers.”

The professor was still asleep, not disturbed when Davies stood to move away to the doorway. Donnie saw that Wiggins stood in the open space, his feet in a growing puddle of water coming in from out in the dark. The light from the fire meant that the wall of water and darkness at the door looked like a sheet of gray metal but after a few seconds, he started to see blue flashes show through from the other side.

“None of these fuckers get in here,” Wiggins said. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, Corp,” both Davies and Wilkins replied in unison. Wilkins hadn’t moved from his place beside the fire but he’d turned face on to the doorway and had his weapon raised in readiness. Remembering the cacophony in the service station when the firing started, Donnie clapped his hands over his ears.

The first worm arrived in the doorway seconds later.

*

The head came through the wall of water, and Wiggins and Davies took two steps back as a six-inch wide mouth opened, as if tasting the air inside the hut. Wiggins put two shots down its throat, blowing it away before Donnie had time to get a good look at it

The shots brought Gillings awake with a startled yell and as if in response, two more of the worms came through the sheet of falling water in the doorway. These were larger, each nearly a foot thick, each with mouths flared open like a flower looking for the sun, white fangs glistening in reflected firelight. Blue static sparked at the interface where their bodies met the sheet of rainwater and once again Donnie smelled ozone and felt his body hair crawl and rise up.

The two men at the door each took a worm and two shots from each of them sent the worms to the floor, little more now than piles of red and pink protoplasm, white teeth scattered like dropped needles at the soldiers’ feet. Professor Gillings was still only half awake and swearing loudly.

“What the fuck is going on? Will somebody tell me what the fuck is happening here?”

Donnie couldn’t take his eyes from the doorway as another worm came through, this one even larger, eighteen inches wide, slithering over the remains of those that had come before, mouth wide as it lunged, like a striking snake, for Davies. The private had to step back quickly and consequently his aim was off—one of his shots missed completely and the second raised a long, ridged wound along the worm’s length. It didn’t slow the beast down and its mouth gaped wider, ready to bite down at Davies’ thigh just as Wiggins stepped forward and fired three shots into its body.

The beast collapsed to the floor, where Davies, his balance recovered, put two more shots down its throat to make sure it stayed down. It fell apart in a mess of pulpy gore, white teeth rattling on the stone floor.

“Let’s show these fuckers who’s the boss around here,” Wiggins said. The corporal stepped into the doorway and began firing, three rounds at a time in rapid bursts, out and downward into the gloom outside the hut. Davies stepped up alongside him and joined in. Donnie had to clamp his hands harder at his ears as the gunfire rang like overhead thunder, echoing around the chamber and setting everything ringing as if they were inside a great bell being struck by hammers.

The men emptied a full magazine each out into the dark—Donnie didn’t bother counting rounds, although the scattered shells on the floor told him there had been scores fired. The air tasted burnt at the back of his throat and even after Wiggins called a cease-fire, the echoes appeared to ring long and loud in Donnie’s ears. When Wiggins spoke, he sounded as if he was far off, shouting into a heavy wind.

“I don’t see any more of the fuckers,” he said to Davies. “Do you see any more?”

“No, Corp,” the private replied. “I think we’ve seen them off again for now.”

Donnie turned to check on the professor in time to see the older man clamber out of his sleeping bag. His face was still pale but Donnie recognized the look of excitement in the man’s eyes—he’d seen that gleam every time they came across a new find at the dig site. Gillings was all the way out of the sleeping bag and kneeling beside the remains of the largest of the downed beasts before Donnie had stood away from the fire.

*

By the time Donnie reached him, Gillings was sifting among the putrid remains with a pencil.

“We’ve got a mouth, teeth, skin, gut, rectum,” he said, pointing at places along the length of the thing. “A simple worm for all intents and purposes. So what causes the electrical discharges? There’s bugger all else here.”

Donnie knelt by the professor’s side, covering his mouth against a rising stench of decomposition. What little there was of the worm was going fast, turning into a thick waxy residue.

“It must be something in the tissue,” Donnie replied. “Something at a cellular level.”

Gillings sifted the pulpy protoplasmic ooze with the tip of his pencil. The red skin was breaking up and melting as the decomposition became even more rapid. He held the pencil up and the ooze dripped thickly from the point. It seemed to be steaming faintly.

“It’s not acidic, is it?” Wilkins asked.

“It’s a worm, not a bloody alien,” the professor replied.

“If you say so, Prof,” Wilkins replied. “But I’m pretty sure we never learned about anything like this in Mrs. Graham’s O-level biology class.”

“No, I doubt if you would,” Gillings replied. He was distracted again, sifting through the remains with the pencil again, as if expecting to find something.

“So what the fuck is it?” Wilkins continued.

“To find that out we’d have to capture one to study it properly,” he said.

“Aye, good luck with that,” Wiggins said from the doorway. “Leave that thing alone, would you? You don’t ken where it’s been.”

“I ken where it’s going though,” Donnie said, looking down as the ooze dried on the stone floor into ridges of wax. Only the teeth were left behind, thirty or more of them. Donnie lifted two of them, each as long and thin as the professor’s pencil, and knocked them together. They rang like clinked glasses.

“Silicaceous?” Gillings said.

“Looks like it,” Donnie said, raising one of the teeth for a closer look. It was the same shade of white along its whole length, as smooth and clean as fine porcelain, cold to the touch despite the heat of the room, no obvious root that might have held it in place in the mouth and with a slight barb at the pointed end. He touched the barb, feeling the cruel point of it, like a fish hook.

“Whatever gets caught in that mouth isn’t getting out in a hurry,” Donnie said, remembering how quickly the camel had been taken earlier.

“Aye,” Wiggins replied. “Top tip for everybody, remember to keep your fingers, toes, and tadgers well clear. Are we learning anything here, or are you just playing in shite?”

“The truth?” Donnie said as he stood away from the remains. “More the latter than the former.”

Gillings attempted to stand from his crouched position but his legs gave way and almost fell before Davies got an arm around him.

“Back to bed for you, Professor,” the private said. “That’s enough excitement for one night.”

“I bloody well hope so,” Wiggins muttered under his breath and went back to guard duty in the doorway as Donnie helped the professor back into the sleeping bag.

*

The professor fell asleep again almost immediately. Wilkins reheated the coffee in the pot and Donnie took a mug and a smoke over to Wiggins at the door.

“Anything moving?” Donnie asked.

“Naw, they’ve buggered off again. If we’re very lucky, they’ll have learned their lesson, but from what I saw, they don’t have any kind of brains at all, do they?”

“Didn’t look like it,” Donnie replied. “They just open their mouth and eat anything that comes in reach.”

“Like me after a night on the bevvy,” Wiggins replied.

While Wiggins drank his coffee, Donnie bent to have a look at one of the oval vases that lined the walls of the hut. He noticed that all but the two on either side of the doorway were connected by strands of what looked to be copper wire and that there was a spare length of wire wound around the top of the one on the left of the door. He remembered the show they’d been given by the monks.

“I think these vases are meant to be connected,” he said.

“Aye? So what?” Wiggins answered, wincing as he took a deep draw of smoke from one of Donnie’s cheroots.

“They’re batteries, at least I think they are,” Donnie replied. “Remember back in the monastery, how they used them to keep the worms enclosed in the sand pit?”

Wiggins nodded.

“Aye, so what?” he said again.

“So, what if we can use them here to keep the beasties out?”

- 15 -

Banks and Hynd’s luck held for another hour of running; they managed to stay on rocky ground and well away from any encroaching worms, although they had seen several more ‘forests’ of raised trunks sucking down the rain to either side of their track. The rain continued to pour down, slowing them more than Banks would have liked and forcing them to find routes around the larger puddles that had formed on the rock. Still, Banks was cheered by their progress and already looking ahead to reaching their goal and returning to the others with aid.

Their luck ran out when they reached a dip in the ground and arrived at a rocky ledge some ten feet above the level of the sand below them. Blue flashes of electrical charge provided all the illumination they needed to see that they weren’t going to get any farther while it continued to rain. The ledge looked down over a channel, an old riverbed was Banks’ guess, filled with a seething, rolling mass of worms. All of them, from some a mere two feet in length to monsters ten feet long and more, traveled from west to east across Banks’ view, a new river to replace the old one, the worms heading with a single purpose.

“What the fuck is this now?” Hynd said in little more than a whisper.

“Migration? Or some kind of feeding behavior maybe? Maybe one of the boffins would ken but I’m buggered if I do,” Banks replied. “All I know is that they’re in our way.”

“So now what, Cap?”

Banks raised his head, checking the weather. It might look a bit brighter away to the north.

Might. Then again, that might just be wishful thinking.

“I’m not going back,” he finally replied, keeping his voice low although the worms below them seemed fully intent on their eastward movement and were paying no heed to the men above. “We’ll wait here for a bit, see if the rain stops and these beasties settle down. We’ve come too far to turn back.”

Hynd didn’t reply, merely lit a smoke for himself and passed another over to Banks, who took it gratefully. They smoked in silence, cupping the cigarettes from long habit inside fingers closed against the rain and wind. The procession of worms continued below their feet, flowing away east, the blue static brilliant enough to leave yellowish clouds swimming in Banks’ eyes after the flashes.

“So how come nobody kens these buggers are here?” Hynd asked after a while.

“The monks certainly knew all about them. I’m guessing they come and go with the rain—it disnae rain all that often and when it does, folks aren’t out and about to notice what the local wildlife are doing.”

“They’re terrifying me, that’s what they’re fucking doing.”

*

By the time they’d finished their smokes, it was obvious that the rain was slowing, first to a drizzle then to a few droplets and finally as quickly as it had come, it was gone. The sky cleared fast from the north, stars winking into existence behind high wispy clouds. As the dampness in the air disappeared, so too did the worms, sinking down into the sand, the larger ones first, the blue aurora fading and dissipating until there was only still, disturbed sand in the old river bed below. Banks began looking for a way down from the ledge.

“I don’t like it, Cap,” Hynd said, watching Banks clamber down onto the sand.

“What’s not to like,” Banks replied. “We’re in the middle of the desert, with no comms, surrounded by big fuck-off electric worms and with two injured men depending on us for a rescue. It’s a piece of piss.”

Hynd laughed.

“Aye, and at least we’ve got smokes this time around.”

“And I’ve got all my clothes on.”

Hynd laughed, then Banks hushed him as he took his first step on the sand.

“Quietly now. We take this slow, keep our wits about us, and shoot the fuck out of anything that gets in our way. Follow in my footsteps.”

He headed out slowly onto the old riverbed.

*

They moved carefully, every nerve tingling, their gun lights washing the ground immediately ahead and ready to shoot at the first sign of an attack. A blue crack of static slashed ten feet to their left, then another to their right. Banks resisted a sudden urge to turn and flee for the safety of the high ledge and forced himself to take another step.

The sand was still slightly damp, firm underfoot. He wondered whether the mass of worms had moved on or whether they were still there, just below his feet. His mind gave him pictures of a great mouth opening below him, sucking him down like rainwater before he had time to do anything about it. He had to force the thought away, concentrating only on the next step then the one after that.

Another crack and blue flash came from his right, further off this time and eastward, giving him hope that the mass of worms had already moved away in that direction. To the north, he saw a deeper, blacker shadow loom and risking the chance, shone his light in that direction, letting out a sigh of relief when it showed another ledge to match the one to the south. If their luck held, it would signal another patch of harder ground leading north. They still had a chance of reaching their target.

He had another dozen steps to negotiate before the safety of the rocks and he forced himself to take each one as carefully as the previous. He was getting ready to congratulate them for getting to safety when a blue crackle of electricity ran across the sand, sending a tingle through him as if he stood too close to a generator. The sand shifted and raised in a mound three feet to his left. He didn’t wait to see if it was going to break the surface—he fired, three shots into the highest part of the mound, then turned and leapt for the rocks.

He knew Hynd would be right behind him. As soon as Banks stepped up onto harder ground, he put his back to the rocks and turned, weapon raised. Hynd was indeed only a step behind him but wasn’t going to make it—a blood-red torso came up out of the sand like a missile, three feet and more wide with a mouth that was already opening enough that it might swallow the sergeant whole when it closed.

“Down,” Banks shouted, already raising his weapon and once more Hynd didn’t hesitate. The sergeant threw himself down and forward to Banks’ feet at the same moment that Banks fired, three shots into the worm’s great mouth, splintering a handful of the white teeth and sending shards of sharp slivers flying across the sand. Even with half of its mouth blown away, the thing kept coming, but Hynd had already rolled onto his back and put three shots of his own into the thick red torso, which popped as if a balloon had burst, showering the immediate area in pink pulp and gore.

Banks helped Hynd up and dragged them both up atop the shelf before turning back to look down at the fallen creature. The sand beneath it shifted and roiled and five smaller mouths appeared above the surface. Banks raised his weapon again but these had no interest in the men, intent only on feeding on the dead. Within seconds, the carcass was reduced to scraps of skin, then even that was gone and the sand was still once more.

“Voracious wee buggers, aren’t they?” Hynd said, lighting a smoke with a hand that trembled slightly with tension.

All that remained of the beast they’d shot was the pulpy tissue that had spattered their clothes. When Banks brushed the worst of it off, it felt cold and waxy under his fingers, slightly slimy like the river eels he’d sometimes caught as a lad when trout fishing. The stink caught in his throat and he was grateful when Hynd handed him another cigarette to mask the smell.

He turned his back on the riverbed, looking north. They once again had a carpet of stars overhead and he saw a long stretch of rocky ground laid out ahead of them.

“Finish the smoke fast, Sarge,” he said. “Looks like we’re in for some decent running.”

- 16 -

“What do you mean, batteries?” Wiggins asked as Donnie moved to connect the copper wire across the vases on either side of the doorway.

“I’m betting there’s a rolled copper sheet around an iron rod inside each of these pots,” Donnie said. “You pour in an electrolyte, say vinegar or grape juice, and you’ve got a simple voltaic cell. Connect them in series with the copper wire and they’ll generate a weak electric field. Think of it as an alarm system if you like. Not very powerful but having seen the vases in operation back at the monastery, I’m guessing it’s enough to interfere with the worms’ own field and confuse them.”

“It’s already fucking confusing me,” Wiggins said. “I thought you dealt with fossils and shit like that?”

“Aye, but I read a lot,” Donnie replied. “And I watch a lot of crap on satellite telly. I heard about these vases in some Ancient Aliens documentary. Chariots of the Gods and all that shite.”

Wiggins laughed.

“Aye. They practically own South America. In that case,” he said, patting his rifle, “I’ll trust to Sweaty Betty here but go on, knock yourself out, connect them up—it cannae do us any harm.”

Donnie finished connecting the wire to the vase, wet his finger, and touched the copper. He felt a slight tingling, heard a faint buzz.

“So now what, Einstein?” Wiggins said above him.

“I’ve no idea. I guess we’ll find out if the worms come back.”

*

Rain continued to run in sheets off the roof. They’d see an occasional blue flash out in the night, dim as if far off but for now at least the worms were not encroaching. After a time, Wiggins and Davies swapped places and Donnie joined the corporal as he brewed yet another pot of coffee.

“Do you think they’ve got to the airstrip yet?” Donnie asked.

Wiggins checked his watch.

“If they got a clear run, they should be getting close,” he replied. “But in this rain, I don’t know. They may have found shelter and be huddling down ‘til it passes. Or they might have met worm trouble. Either way, there’s bugger all I can do about it right now, so I’m not going to waste time worrying.”

It was yet another thing that distinguished the soldiers from Donnie; all three of them, despite the recent shooting and the possibility of another attack at any moment, seemed as calm as they might be sitting around in someone’s front room having coffee and a chat. Probably even calmer than that, for there was a quiet surety to their movements and actions, a sense of control that Donnie could only watch and envy.

It made him feel slightly nervous, as if he was a young schoolboy dropped among a group of his elders. Although he was clearly of a similar age to both Wilkins and Davies, they seemed somehow more assured, more adult.

And they don’t even know it; it’s second nature to them.

*

They smoked, drank coffee, and listened to the professor snoring for another half an hour before Davies called out from the doorway.

“Here they come again.”

Wiggins clapped Donnie on the shoulder as he rose from beside the fire.

“Now we’ll see if your wee theory holds up.”

Wiggins went to join Davies in the doorway.

“Stand back, lad,” he said. “Watch the door. We’ll give Donnie’s idea a shot; if it works, we might not have to waste any ammo on these wee buggers, but if they look like they’re going to get in, take them down fast, same as before.”

The first worm to approach the door was far from a wee bugger, being almost a foot wide, with a mouth to match. It pressed forward through the wash of water running down the doorway, electricity cracking all around it, blue light dancing among the white fangs. It stopped as if it had hit a solid barrier, straining in place but unable to make any headway. The copper wires connecting the vases took on a faint but distinct golden glow and the air hummed.

“Fuck me sideways, it’s working,” Wiggins said.

Donnie pumped the air with a fist as the worm tried to press into the doorway only to be obviously repelled by the new field being put out by the series of vases. The golden glow from the wires intensified and flared in counter to the blue flashes of static coming in rhythmic waves from outside the door. Another worm, equally as large, joined the first in attempting entry and met with the same resistance. The golden glow from the copper wires filled the chamber with a warm light and the hum became a tingling vibration that ran through Donnie from the soles of his feet to the crown of his skull. Neither worm was able to gain entry through the door.

“Remind me to watch those shite Ancient Aliens documentaries,” Wiggins said. “Well done, lad.”

Donnie felt his grin grow wider, sharing, if only for a moment, in the men’s camaraderie. It didn’t last. The blue flashing intensified as the worms strained against the field and the golden glow flared and now flashed in reply, warring colors clashing in swirling patterns around the walls. More worms gathered in the doorway straining to come through. The hum from the batteries raised to a wail, almost a shriek.

“How long will your wee batteries last?” Wiggins asked.

Donnie could only shrug.

“I don’t have a Scooby, sorry.”

“Stay tight,” Wiggins said to the other soldiers. “We wasted these fuckers easily enough before, so even if Donnie’s magic batteries fail, this shouldn’t be a problem.”

There was a distinct creak from above them, loud even above the wail from the batteries. Pieces of foliage fluttered down on their heads, the dry scraps taking flame as they reached the fire. Donnie looked up to see blue electrical discharges dancing along the surface of the ceiling.

“The fuckers are up on the roof,” Wiggins shouted. “Heads up, lads.”

Donnie saw a small hole at the apex of the ceiling, made for the escape of smoke from the fire. He kept expecting red worms to slither down through it but no sign of them appeared as of yet. Instead, the creaks and groans from above increased, more dry debris fluttered down, the blue flashes became more persistent, and more worms strained at the doorway. The glow from the copper wire was bright yellow now and the howl from the vases protective field echoed around them as the blue and the gold warred for control.

Okay, Captain Banks. We could do with the cavalry about now.

- 17 -

Banks and Hynd arrived at the airstrip a full two hours later than they’d planned. Any hope they had of a quick rescue was quashed as soon as they saw the site. The strip lay empty of any aircraft and the whole area appeared deserted, although there was a light on in the shack that passed as a control room and a transport truck with the keys in the ignition parked outside it.

“Somebody’s around somewhere,” Hynd said.

“Aye, or was until recently. Let’s take this nice and slow, Sarge. My gut tells me something’s fucked up here.”

“Mine is saying the same thing.”

They stayed in the shadows as long as possible until they crossed the compressed sand that passed as the landing strip and approached the control room from the side so as not to give themselves away in the light. Banks indicated to Hynd that he would go first and stepped carefully into the shack. It was empty. A large radio of some vintage took up most of one wall but when he tried he got no signal on any band, just rhythmic washes of loud static.

“Cap,” Hynd said from outside. “Got something here.”

Banks went out to find the sergeant at the rear of the shack, standing over what looked to be a pile of clothes on the ground. When Hynd moved a jacket to one side, he saw a white rib cage beneath it. A pistol lay near the body, two shell casings beside it, and more of the waxy, noxious remains of one of the worms.

“I guess this is the guy who ran things here,” Hynd said and Banks nodded as the sergeant continued. “What about our ride?”

“Either buggered off already or not coming,” Banks replied. “The radio’s as fucked as the sat-phone so there’s no way to tell. Looks like we’re on our own again.”

Hynd eyed the truck.

“What do you think? Will we get back the way we came in it?”

Banks thought back over their path.

“Mostly, apart from yon dried river bed and we’ll just have to find a way ‘round it. It’s our only way out of this tonight.”

The truck started first time and held more than half a tank of fuel. They found a thermos of coffee, bread, and cheese in a satchel in the shack—the dead man’s breakfast—and took it with them. They stowed their bags securely behind the seats and with Hynd driving made their way slowly south.

*

“The headlights on this thing are shite,” Hynd said as the truck rattled and bounced in the rough terrain. Even on full beam, the lights did little more than partially lighten up their route ten yards ahead of them. The only saving grace was that it wasn’t raining, for there were no wipers for the windshield.

There had been no sight of either worms or blue electrical flashes since they’d left the old riverbed behind on their way north but now that they were heading back, they saw dancing aurora of blue under heavy cloud cover on their southern horizon.

“It’s still raining down that way,” Hynd said.

“Aye, but we cannae avoid it. That’s the way we’re going and at least this beats walking.”

Banks passed Hynd a smoke and they alternatively drank strong black coffee from the thermos. Banks winced as he tasted the thickly bitter brew.

“I can see why they smoke those crap black fags around these parts,” he said.

“Do we have a plan, Cap?” Hynd asked after a while.

“Beyond getting back to the lads, not much of one. I’m hoping that once the rain stops, the phone will start working again and we can call in an airlift. Failing that, we’ll drive this thing back along the road by yon filling station, head east, and reach the town the professor mentioned as where they got their supplies. From there, we should be able to get some sort of message home, or a better form of transport.”

“And the worms?”

“If they leave us alone, we’ll leave them alone. They don’t seem to give a fuck about us if we don’t make too much noise, so let’s not do anything to change that.”

*

A twenty-minute drive brought them to the dry riverbed, almost at the point where they’d crossed it earlier. Hynd stopped the truck at the rocky ledge.

“We’ll not get down that way, Cap,”

“Or up the other side. Let’s head west a bit—the worms were going east the last we saw of them and I’d rather not tangle with them again if we can help it.”

Hynd drove west along the lip of the ledge that marked the northern edge of the dried riverbed and after half a mile of crawling they arrived at a dip that would take them down to the softer ground. Banks tried to peer into the night towards the southern bank, hoping to see a matching dip on the far side but the darkness was too impenetrable.

“We don’t have a choice. We’ll have to risk it,” he said. “With the rain off and the sky clear, I’m hoping the buggers have all either moved on east or are well underground.”

“Aye, well if one of them’s big enough to think it can swallow this fucking truck, it’s welcome to try it,” Hynd replied and took the truck down onto the riverbed.

The heavy vehicle wallowed as soon as it hit sand. For a few heart-stopping seconds, Banks thought they were stuck before they got started but Hynd dropped down to first gear, put his foot down, and they began to inch forward, painfully slowly at first before finally gaining some traction and picking up speed.

They went across the dried riverbed at barely more than walking speed but at least they were heading in the right direction. Banks kept shifting his gaze, trying to cover as much ground as possible, anticipating an attack, but there was no sign of any worms.

As they approached the south bank, he scanned the ridge for anywhere they might be able to drive up onto the rock.

“There, ten yards left,” he said, pointing at where there was a dip in the rocky ledge.

Hynd sucked at his teeth.

“Risky, Cap. It looks a wee bit steep to me.”

“Put your foot down, man. Take a run at it.”

Hynd still looked unsure but he lined the truck up with the dip and pushed down on the accelerator. The truck jerked forward three feet then lurched to a halt, almost throwing Banks into the dashboard. His side of the truck dipped a foot lower and he saw sand fly as the front wheel spun in place.

“I didnae mean like that,” he said ruefully as Hynd cut the engine. “Hold on, I’ll get something under the wheel.” He got out the truck, retrieved his kit from behind the seat, and took out his sleeping bag, unrolling it and getting it as far under the front of the wheel as he could manage. As he stood to give Hynd the thumbs-up, he saw the sarge’s gaze lift to a point past Banks out on the riverbed.

“Get your arse in here, Cap,” Hynd shouted. “We’ve got incoming.”

Banks risked a look over his shoulder as he moved.

Out in the middle of the riverbed, a three-foot-high hump showed in the sand as if something moved under the surface, something huge, coming straight at them.

*

Hynd had the engine going and was pumping the accelerator as Banks climbed inside. Banks retrieved his rifle and leaned out, attempting to get a clear shot as the truck bucked and swayed, trying to get traction. The worm was gaining fast at their rear, surging up as if from some depth, a thing almost four feet wide. Sand tumbled, revealing glistening red skin and a maw of a mouth that looked big enough to swallow the truck in a couple of bites.

“Floor it, floor it,” Banks shouted.

“I’m fucking trying,” Hynd shouted back.

The worm came up out of the sand, trying to bite at the rear passenger side wheel. At the same moment, the sleeping bag finally did its job, the front wheel caught, and the truck took a lurch forward. That meant Banks’ aim was off when he got a shot in, putting two rounds, not in the beast’s throat as he intended but raising two furrows along its back. He expected the wounds to gape but instead saw things squirming in the opened flesh, a myriad of worms, no longer than his index finger, tumbling in droves down onto the sand where they immediately started to burrow. The wounds continued to split like an over-ripened fruit and the thicker mass of the tiny worms bubbled out from the inside.

That was the last sight Banks had of it for a few seconds. The truck sped off the riverbed and bounced hard when it reached rock. For a second, he thought Hynd was going to lose it but as the suspension squealed in protest, the truck climbed precariously up onto the rocky ledge and level ground where the sarge brought it to a halt.

Banks was able to turn and take a last look back at the worm. It was already deflated, as flat as the sleeping bag it laid beside, falling apart into the pink ooze they’d seen before, with thousands of tiny squirming worms leaking out of it onto the sand and burrowing away.

- 18 -

The glow from the copper wires flared, blazing as bright as the fire at the room’s center. Outside the door, the entrance was packed with worms attempting to thrust through, blue lightning crashing against the gold of the protective field. Above Donnie’s head something cracked, loud as a gunshot. More debris fell from above.

“The bloody rafters are going,” Davies shouted.

Donnie felt something grip at his left arm and looked ‘round to see the professor, wide-eyed and obviously terrified, looking up at the hole in the roof. Donnie followed his gaze in time to see a four-foot-long worm slither through the hole and tumble down, right on top of the fire, raising sparks that scattered above their heads before descending to burn at their shoulders and scalps.

“Bugger this for a game of soldiers,” Wiggins shouted. “Davies, you’re with me. Let’s see these fuckers off once and for all.”

Donnie covered his ears again as Wiggins and Davies moved to the doorway and began firing out into the night. He was so intent on watching them that his heart almost stopped when Wilkins fired three shots upward to the roof, only six feet from Donnie and enough to temporarily deafen him with the thunderous roar. He looked up just as the ceiling collapsed in a downpour of foliage and split timber. Among the wreckage was what was left of one of the large worms it having been burst and split under Wilkins’ shots. What fell was pink and wet and it flooded down on top of Professor Gillings like a waterfall, soaking him in oozing gore.

The man immediately started to scream. Donnie only heard it faintly but the man’s terror was plain to see. He was covered in pink ooze that writhed and boiled, full of tiny, two-inch long, pencil-thick worms. The professor was frantically trying to brush them off his body but seemed to be having problems with that and Donnie soon saw why. The worms had already started to chew on hands and face and some of them showed only the last of their tails as they burrowed, eating into flesh with a rapidity that brought fresh screams of terror from the stricken man. The professor screamed again; three of the worms found his tongue and chewed. His mouth filled with blood, choking the screams.

When Donnie went to move to the professor’s aid, he found the floor covered with more of the squirming worms, all of which seemed intent on heading for the professor for easy food. Donnie stomped down, hard, feeling them squish, greasy and wet underfoot. The professor was frantically trying to drag his legs from where they were caught up in the sleeping bag. He put a hand on the ground to try to get some balance and a swarm of the tiny worms covered it, blood flowing as they chewed and burrowed. Two more went in through Gillings’ left cheek, leaving dark, wet holes as they went in deeper. Worms seethed and roiled at Gillings’ neck where a clump of them had been trapped between his flesh and the collar of his shirt. Blood spurted. The professor screamed again, spraying blood from his wounded tongue and threw himself onto his back, rolling around as if trying to squash the attacking worms. More of them seethed over the sleeping bag itself, material and inner fleece flying as they attacked it like miniature buzz saws.

“Need some help here,” Donnie shouted, still stomping furiously in a St. Vitus dance of rage and worry for the older man, but the soldiers had their own problems; Wiggins and Davies with defending the doorway and Wilkins firing again and again up towards the new emptiness above them.

Donnie waded through the ooze, still stomping, cursing loudly yet only hearing a dull echo of his voice above the ringing in his ears. The professor was only four feet away but by the time Donnie reached him, he’d lost his left eye—Donnie was dismayed to see two tiny red tails disappear inside as the things continued to burrow—and apart from a tremor in his right arm was lying still.

“Davies,” Donnie shouted. “We’ve got a man down.”

Davies finally left Wiggins and ran over but Donnie already knew it was too late; Gillings’ remaining eye stared sightlessly upward and the only movement in his body was an artificial one provided by the myriad of worms that coursed through him, still burrowing, still eating.

*

“Give me a hand here,” Davies shouted, bending to lift the professor. “We’ve got to burn the body, right now.”

Donnie stepped back, squashing more of the worms underfoot but not noticing, only having eyes for the dead man. He shook his head.

“I can’t…”

Davies didn’t have time to argue. Having fed, worms were already beginning to eat their way back out of the body. They were larger now and still hungry.

“Wilkins, give me a hand,” Davies said. “Get him on the fire—fast now.”

Donnie finally managed to move when Wilkins and Davies hauled the dead man up and helped them to throw it over the hearth, into the center of the fire pit. The sleeping bag blazed. Worms popped like tiny firecrackers in the heat and the professor was quickly ablaze. Donnie was aware that both Davies and Wilkins were now stomping on the ground in the same manic dance he’d been doing seconds before but Donnie was rooted to the spot, staring into the flames as the fire took what remained of Professor Gillings away. His gaze followed the smoke up through the hole in the roof.

Cold stars looked back down at him.

The room fell completely quiet, the ringing in Donnie’s ears slowly fading away, the only sound now the crack and hiss from the fire.

Davies was looking down at a mess of pink ooze on the floor, already hardening into waxy furrows.

“Did we get all the wee fuckers?” he said.

Wilkins stomped hard on one last squirming worm, wincing at the obvious pain that had shot up his leg.

“I think so,” he replied.

“They’ve fucked off out here too,” Wiggins said from the doorway.

Donnie hardly heard them. He felt bile rise in his throat and made for the doorway, reaching it just in time to step over the copper wire, lean outside, and lose a mess of coffee and partially digested biscuits onto the steps outside.

*

The next ten minutes were a blank spot in his mind. He was vaguely aware of Davies checking him all over for bite marks or signs of burrowing. Wilkins made a pot of coffee, Wiggins guarded the door, and the fire kept crackling, although none of them ever looked at it.

Donnie came out of his fugue when Davies gave him a steaming mug of coffee and a cigarette. It was only then that Donnie looked towards the fire. Little remained of the professor bar the outline of a rib cage and even that collapsed when Wilkins tossed more wood on the flames.

“There was nothing else we could do,” Davies said softly. “If we’d let those things finish what they were doing, it would have been us next.”

Donnie nodded, not yet ready to speak, taking a hit of smoke and a mouthful of coffee, knowing that neither would do anything to fill the emptiness he felt gnawing at his insides. He realized that Wiggins had asked a question. He’d missed it.

“What did you say?” he replied, his voice still sounding echoing and far off in his damaged ears.

“I said, I’ve been wondering. I think it’s breeding season for yon worms—the rain and water gets them going, they swell up, produce the wee fuckers, and then they’re ready, like big water balloons, to go pop?”

“Hardly scientific,” Davies replied, “but I think that’s close enough.”

“Okay, new rule,” Wiggins said. “Don’t shoot any fuckers if they’re above our heads.”

Donnie didn’t have the energy to reply and even the sound of an engine approaching outside wasn’t enough to get him to drag his gaze away from the fire.

- 19 -

Banks and Hynd made good time after leaving the dry riverbed behind. The weather had improved markedly, the lack of rain giving their headlights a wider range. They were now able to more easily pick out the rock from the sand and they maintained a better speed than they’d been managing previously. They smoked as they finished the coffee, passing the thermos between them.

“Do you think there are more big buggers like that last one?” Hynd said after a while.

Banks nodded.

“The water’s got them all swelling up is what I think. It might only happen once a decade when the big rains come, but I think we’ve had the misfortune to arrive slap-bang in the middle of the fuckers’ breeding season.”

“And what happens next with them?” Hynd asked.

“I’ll be buggered if I know, Sarge, and I don’t care. Let’s just get the professor and the lad home. That’s all I care about now.”

It only took them twenty minutes to cover the ground it had taken them hours of running to cross. They arrived back at the settlement on the rocky outcrop under a clear starry sky and saw Wiggins coming down the steps to meet them as they parked.

Banks took one look at the corporal’s face and knew it wasn’t going to be a happy reunion.

Once they got to the top of the rock, Banks took Wiggins’ report out of earshot, standing outside the doorway while the others gathered their kit inside.

“I don’t know what else I could have done, sir,” Wiggins said when he was done. “The big fucker was on the roof and when Wilkins hit it, it just fell apart and…”

Banks put a hand on Wiggins’ shoulder.

“Don’t sweat it, Wiggo. We saw the same thing out there tonight and it surprised me as much as it surprised you. You kept your head, the squad did what it had to. The man’s death isn’t down to you.”

Wiggins managed a grateful grin.

“Reid’s in shock,” he said. “He’s coming ‘round but we’ll need to keep an eye on him.”

“Hopefully not for too long now,” Banks replied. “A few hours on the road then we’ll be in town and hopefully able to get some word out about the situation. Get your gear, Wiggo. We’re heading for home.”

*

When Banks went into the room, he saw that Reid stood staring into what were now the dying embers of the fire.

“We can’t just leave him here,” the younger man said softly. “It’s not right.”

“What’s right is we get you home so you can tell his story,” Banks replied. “It’s all any of us can really hope for and we know where he is—we’ll someone to come and fetch the remains home.”

“Aye,” Reid replied. “Him and his finds can go home in the same box.”

Reid turned away without another word.

Before leaving, Banks had Davies and Wiggins collect the ceramic jars and copper wire and stow them in the rear of the truck. The vases sat alongside the kit bags under the feet of Davies, Wilkins, Wiggins, and Reid where the men sat up on the rough benches that ran down the side of the bed of the truck.

“Just in case,” he said when he saw Hynd’s querying look. He got in the passenger seat and Hynd took the driving duties again. “South, the way we came in. When we hit the road, go east until the service station. We’ll stop there to give you a break and see what’s what.”

They set off south, the truck’s suspension creaking and squealing under the extra weight of the men in the back.

*

The sun was lighting the eastern sky by the time they reached the east-west track. It had been a bumpy twenty minutes and more than once Banks had heard squeals of protest from the men in the back, but the ride smoothed out when they reached the road and it only took them ten minutes after that to reach the service station. Although it had only been half an hour of driving, the effort of keeping control in the rutted ground had obviously tired Hynd after the exertions of the night before.

“Fag break time,” Banks said as they approached the service station, “then I’ll take a spell at the wheel for a bit.”

The station was as deserted as before, with no sign that anyone had passed since their visit of the day before. The sun came up into a clear sky, the cloud having completely disappeared, heat haze already rising on the horizon. Both rocky ground and sand looked dry, as if last night’s rain was no more than a memory.

“What’s the plan, Cap?” Wiggins said as the squad gathered at the rear of the truck to stretch their legs, get some water in them, and have a smoke.

“We head east,” Banks said. “There’s a town a few hours’ drive away and that’s where we’re headed. I’m hoping this road takes us straight there. Is that right, Doctor Reid?”

Reid hadn’t joined them and was still sitting on the bench in the truck, his head down. When he looked up, his eyes were red-rimmed as if from crying.

“Aye, it should take you straight to town if my bearings are right.”

Banks saw that the man was hurting and offered something he thought might help.

“We can afford a detour—we could go south and pick up your finds.”

“Fuck them,” Reid said harshly. “Whoever comes for the professor can get them all at the same time. I just want to get home.”

“Amen to that,” Wiggins said softly beside Banks.

Five minutes later, they were on the way again, with Hynd in the passenger seat and Banks driving.

*

The truck felt cumbersome and heavy, unresponsive to the accelerator unless it was pressed to the floor, wallowing in any slightly softer areas and squealing ever more loudly in both axles every time they hit a bump.

“This thing’s liable to rattle to bits before we get too much farther,” Hynd said, lighting another smoke from the butt of the last one.

Banks took the speed down from twenty miles an hour to around eighteen and the ride smoothed out a bit, although the squealing in the suspension didn’t appear to diminish any. It was getting uncomfortably warm in the driving cab now, even with the windows wide open, and he felt sweat trickle down his back.

It’s going to be a long day.

At least the track was a straight line heading east but the heat haze meant that anything beyond a few hundred yards was merely shimmering in the distance. They didn’t spot the hollow until they were almost on top of it; the ground fell away in a dip that ran from their northwest to the southeast, a dip that looked to be more than a mile wide. Banks knew exactly what he was looking at.

“I think it’s all part of the same dry riverbed system,” he said. “This used to be a lake at one time, probably one that the river ran into.”

He brought the truck to a halt at the highest point, looking across the wide expanse of sand. The other side—if there was another side—was invisible in the haze.

“You think this is where the worms that we saw last night were headed? Some kind of final breeding ground?” Hynd asked.

“Given what we’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t bet against it.”

“Do you think we can get across?”

Banks didn’t answer, getting out of the truck to stand on the ridge for a better look down. There was a clear track from their position into the hollow and across the lakebed, but it looked more like compressed sand than rock and stone and the fact that they couldn’t see the far side disturbed him.

“What’s the holdup, Cap?” Wiggins asked. Banks saw that the corporal was already red in the face, developing sunburn from sitting up exposed in the back of the truck.

Banks quickly explained to the others about the migration of worms that he’d seen the night before.

“Aye, but they only come out in the rain, don’t they?” Wiggins said.

“You want to bet against your pension on that, lad?”

“No, but I’m willing to bet yours, Cap.”

“What’s the alternative?” Hynd added.

“Going back to the service station, heading south to the dig site and along the roadway there?” Banks said.

Reid spoke up.

“It’s not any better than this—there’s a big dip just like this one, although I’ve never had any problems driving across it.”

Banks looked down into the hollow again. His gut was telling him it was a bad idea but he was more than ready to get home and by the fastest means possible. He nodded, coming to a decision.

“We’ll chance it. If we’re lucky, we’ll all be in a bar waiting for a lift by this afternoon. You guys in the back keep your eyes peeled and shout if you see anything but I’m not intending to stop for a photo opportunity.”

*

They headed down into the hollow. The truck wallowed as soon as they left rock and drove onto the sandier terrain but it kept going forward although the top speed was little more than ten miles an hour. The engine ran hotter than it should and they belched out blue smoke from the exhaust. Banks was starting to think the sarge might be right about it rattling apart before the day was out.

But we’re still heading in the right direction.

Half a mile in, Wiggins banged on the roof above Banks and shouted.

“Movement, nine o’ clock.”

Banks looked out his window and saw the surface of the sand dance as several large humps surged through it, worms and large ones by the look of it but heading away to the west. He didn’t slow but only ten seconds later, Wiggins banged and shouted again.

“Movement, eleven o’clock, a hundred yards.”

Banks saw it just in time to slam on the brakes. The truck skidded to a halt in a flurry of sand as a six-foot-high mound went left to right across the track directly in front of them, churning up the road surface and leaving a small hollow in its wake.

Davies banged on the roof above Hynd.

“Movement. Three o’clock, fifty yards… and six o’clock, thirty yards.”

Banks sat there with the engine grumbling over as another mound even larger than the first went across his field of view churning up the track.

We’re surrounded.

- 20 -

Donnie had only been paying a minimum of attention. His mind was too full of images of the professor struggling to escape from the confines of his sleeping bag even as the worms burrowed their way into him, and of the older man’s body burning in the fire pit, the worms popping and crackling as the flames took them. He wasn’t ever going to be able to forget those sights, sounds… and smells, but when Wiggins shouted, Donnie looked up.

“Movement, nine o’ clock.”

He looked over the side of the truck to see a large mound traverse the sand with more rising up on the same side but farther out. Wiggins called out again, looking across the top of the driving cab to the front of the truck. Then Davies shouted from the other side.

Donnie saw the situation immediately; they were surrounded and if the worms attacked now, the professor’s fate might be in store for all of them. He tugged at Wilkins’ arm.

“Give me a hand here, Private,” he said, bending to grab one of the ceramic vases and lift it up onto the bench. “We need to get these arranged such that we can all stand inside a circle.”

The truck lurched to a halt, almost knocking Donnie to the deck, and for a terrible second, he lost his grip on the vase then corrected and caught it before it could smash on the bed of the truck.

“Quickly now,” he said as the others, seeing what he was doing, moved to help. “We might not get a second chance.”

They arranged the ceramic pots on the bench seats on either side of the truck and Donnie completed the circuit by attaching the last on the left to the last on the right across the back end. Immediately, there was a faint but distinctive hum that could be heard even above the thrum of the truck’s engine.

“Cap, Sarge,” Wiggins shouted, reaching over the copper wire and banging on the top of the driver’s cab. “Get up here. We’re protected but you might not be.”

The engine cut off and the hum got louder as Banks and Hynd clambered out of the cab and came up to join the others standing in a tight circle inside the protective ring. Out in the lakebed, the sand seethed and boiled as a dozen worms, none smaller than four feet in width, surged under and through the sandy substrate, circling, spiraling slowly inwards towards the truck.

*

“Now what?” Captain Banks asked and Donnie realized the question had been directed at him.

“Well, it worked up on the rock; the electrical field kept the worms at bay—and at least here we won’t get any crawling about above our heads.”

“That’s true enough,” Banks replied. “But it also means we’re stuck here until we come up with a better plan.”

“Or the batteries go flat,” Wiggins added.

“You’re not helping, Wiggo,” Hynd said.

“Story of my life,” the corporal replied, then there was no time to talk as one of the large worms swerved suddenly in its track and headed straight at the back of the truck.

The soldiers to a man unslung their rifles and Donnie, remembering the cacophony up on the rock, took out a handkerchief, ripped it in two, rolled it up, and stuffed the small cartridges in his ears. He was grateful for it seconds later.

Initially, it looked like the worm intended to barrel into the truck but it was brought up short when the copper wire took on the familiar golden glow and the humming vibration of the protective field sent the whole truck bed thrumming. The worm rose up out of the sand, a five-foot-wide tube of glistening bright red, mouth gaping and showing a forest of the pencil-thick fangs.

“Fire,” Banks shouted and the air filled with the crack and roar of gunfire.

The worm blew apart like a popped balloon… and scattered a myriad of tiny worms into the air. Most fell onto the sand below the tumbling body, some hit the protective field and began to burn, but a score and more of them got through and tumbled onto the bed of the truck. They immediately slithered towards the men’s feet.

Wiggins was fastest to react, striding forward and stomping, almost jumping, on the squirming things, mashing them quickly to a pulp underfoot.

“Top tip,” he shouted once he was sure he’d got them all, “if you’re going to shoot one of the big fuckers, make sure it’s not going to shite these wee fuckers all over us.”

A second worm rose up in the air on the left-hand side of the truck, close enough to reach out and touch.

“Don’t shoot,” Banks shouted.

The worm came out of the sand high enough that Donnie looked right down its gaping throat. The copper wire glowed golden and the vibration rose to a howl. Blue static crackled across the worm’s body. It leaned forward as if intent on attack only to draw away back into the sand when the defensive field flared in a blast of gold.

Something shifted underneath them, the truck taking a lurch to the left of several inches before settling. Out in the desert, more sand was displaced as large worms burrowed and seethed, moving faster now as if angered that they couldn’t get to their prey.

Donnie sensed the tension in the squad. He felt like a spare wheel, surrounded by armed men when he had nothing but the wads of cotton in his ears with which to defend himself so he was surprised when Banks once again turned to him for advice.

“This wee field of yours, does it cover the whole truck including the driving cab?”

Donnie thought about it before replying and knew what the captain was asking—can we drive through this?

“It might work but we’d have to hold the urns on the roof above you and you have to go slow.”

“Aye, well I wasn’t planning an auditioning for Le Mans,” Banks replied dryly, then helped Donnie shift the two nearest vases up onto the driver cab roof.

“Wilko, Davies, you’re up. Hold these in place here.”

“I’ve got one of them,” Donnie said. “You might need the extra gun.”

Banks nodded, clapped Donnie on the shoulder, slung his weapon so that it wouldn’t impede him, and being careful to avoid the copper wire lowered himself off the truck bed and ‘round into the driver’s seat. He turned as he was about to duck through the door, looking straight at Donnie and smiling.

“And if this doesn’t work, I’ll be back to haunt your arse.”

I’m going to be haunted enough already, thanks anyway.

- 21 -

Banks made sure he had his rifle on his lap and in easy reach before settling into his driving position. He had a distant hum in his ears and when he touched the steering wheel, he felt an electric tingle run up his hands, wrists, and forearms. Directly ahead of the truck, worms continued to crisscross the track across the lakebed, churning up the sand into ridges and troughs. It was going to make for a bumpy ride.

Here goes nothing.

He switched on the engine, letting it idle while he checked the worms’ response. They surged and circled even faster than before but none came closer than five yards away, as if wary of the combination of the field’s defense and the squad’s firepower.

Let’s hope it lasts.

He feathered the accelerator but the truck refused to budge until he put his foot fully down. The vehicle lurched forward and Reid banged on the roof overhead.

“Carefully please, Cap. We nearly lost the vases there.”

Banks bit back a rejoinder and drove forward along the increasingly furrowed track ahead of them.

*

Progress was slow but steady to begin with; the worms kept their distance and although Banks couldn’t bring himself to put the truck much above walking pace, they were making headway. The worms circled faster around them, sometimes darting forward only to be repelled back when they were within four or five yards of the protective field. The hum in the air around Banks grew steadily louder and a soft golden light filled the cab. He felt slightly light-headed as if he’d had too much coffee and nicotine on an empty stomach, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.

He looked ahead and for the first time saw a solid outline of a rocky ridge, the far side of the lakebed appearing out of the heat haze. Resisting the urge to head faster towards it, he kept his gaze ahead and concentrated on maintaining a straight line.

The worms had other ideas. A large mound grew up out of the track twenty yards ahead, bigger than any they had yet seen, ten feet across, almost the width of the truck and just as high.

Hynd shouted from somewhere back and above him.

“Let’s plow the road!”

The roar of gunfire—three of them by the sound of it—filled the cab. The worm raised its head up out of the sand, a massive red, wet maw filled with hundreds of pencil fangs. Deep in its throat was a darker, squirming mass. When the rounds hit it, the whole thing exploded in a wash of gore and suddenly Banks’ windshield was coated solid an inch thick with two- to three-inch worms.

He had to slow—he had no visibility but didn’t want to stop, keeping the truck inching forward, chancing to luck that he was maintaining a straight line.

They ran over something large and wet that splashed beneath them, setting the truck wallowing for a heart-stopping few seconds before the wheels hit sand again. The worms on the windshield slid slowly downward, allowing Banks a view out of the top half. The rocky ridge was tantalizingly close now but half a dozen more worms were in danger of blocking their escape, two of them as large as the one they’d just ran over. He looked in his wing mirror and saw that there was only a wet red smear on the track now to mark where the big one had been. The roadway seemed to seethe and roil and he realized that it was the smaller worms eating the remains of the one who had given them birth.

He leaned over and shouted out the window.

“All okay up there?”

“Just fine, Cap,” Hynd replied. “We got a few of the wee fuckers on us but no damage done. The lad’s field seems to be doing the trick.”

“I’m going to head straight for the ridge ahead. Try to keep those fuckers ahead of us away from the road; we might not get so lucky the next time.”

He pressed his foot on the accelerator, taking the truck up to ten miles an hour.

They’d be safe within minutes.

Worms allowing.

- 22 -

Donnie held on to the vase with both hands. It was more difficult now that the captain had picked up speed and made more so by the fact that the surface of the vase had grown hot like touching a recently boiled kettle. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep contact with it. He’d almost lost it for good when the huge worm exploded right in front of them and they’d been showered with a rain of tiny worms. The soldiers’ calm, almost casual, brushing off and stamping on the menace seemed to spread to him and he was surprised to find his hands weren’t shaking as the truck headed for the valley rim.

“Let’s give the captain a smoother ride, shall we, lads?” Hynd said. “I’ll take the front. Wiggo, you’re on the left, Wilko on the right. You other two, just don’t drop yon vases. Another minute and this will be all over.”

Donnie’s hands felt like they were burning but if the sarge needed a minute, a minute is what he would have and he was once again grateful for the cotton in his ears as the firing started again. He saw Wiggins take out the largest worm so far, an almost fifteen-foot-wide mouth was a large target, even at over fifty yards, and Wiggins’ three-shot burst went right down its throat. It blew apart in the same fashion as the one they’d killed on the road. This one appeared to have been crammed to bursting with the smaller worms, a mass of them gathered in a tight ball that quickly collapsed onto the sand in a frenzy of feeding on the scattered remains.

All around the truck the same scene was being played out. Hynd blasted another large worm that was threatening to park itself on the road. Wilkins took out one that tried to sneak up behind them, rising high over the rear of the truck before the private took it out with two volleys of three down its throat. That got them another rain of smaller squirming worms but Wiggins and Wilkins were able to stomp them into oblivion before they could do any damage.

Donnie chanced a look up; they were almost at the rim of the lakebed and as if he too had noticed it, the captain put on another burst of speed. The truck lurched, Donnie stumbled, almost fell, and the vase slid away from him. He made a grab for it but was too late. It slid off the driver’s cab roof, tugged its copper wire attachment away as it fell, and tumbled off the side of the cab and out of sight.

As if emboldened, a huge worm came up out of the sand behind them, the largest one yet, its mouth big enough to swallow the whole truck. Davies abandoned his vase and turned to stand with the others. The line of four of them across the truck all fired at once, even as the vehicle lurched heavily left then right. The worm blew and the truck caught firmer ground and sped forward so that the mass of tiny worms escaping from the downed one fell and scattered only on sand.

Donnie scrambled for the remaining vase on the cab roof, trying to attach it to the trailing copper wire.

“Leave it, son,” Hynd said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’re free and clear.”

Donnie turned and saw that they were now looking down on the lakebed from a higher position on a rocky track. Behind them, the sand seethed with tiny worms as they fed on the sudden feast of the dead. As they watched, the frenzy subsided. The tiny worms burrowed deeper, the sand shivered, and a wave ran through the lakebed heading away north and west toward the river outlet and the wide desert plains beyond.

*

Banks drove them into town two hours later. By that time, the sat-phone had got over its huffy spell and was working again. He’d put in a call for support and made a quick report to the colonel with a request to collect Gillings’ remains and the finds from the dig site.

They had time for a long-anticipated beer in a roadside bar. Donnie joined them and got the first round in.

“We did it,” he said. “We won.”

Wiggins smiled thinly.

“Naw, it was a draw at best. We nearly got our arses kicked. Those wee buggers are all still out there in the sand just waiting for it to rain again.”

“Aye? Well, they’re welcome to it.”

“And what’s with all this ‘we’ shite, Donnie. Are you thinking of signing up? Want to join us on our wee adventures?”

He thought of the camaraderie, of how close he’d felt to these men during the action. Then he thought of Gillings, the worms eating through his body, gnawing at his tongue as he screamed. He could only manage a weak smile as he clinked his beer bottle against the one Wiggins held up.

“No fucking way,” he replied.

The End

Read on for a free sample of Recon Elite

1

CAV V-117 landed on planet Mawholla, setting ablaze what looked like a North American pine tree. But Sam Boggs knew better, this was a long, long way from home. The SA-1 intelligence computer on Colonial Assessment Vehicle V-117 had determined Mawholla to be a forest planet, with considerable volcanic activity and cave labyrinths, but also Earth-like elevation changes (rivers and moisture in the canyons, snow and colder as you go up the mountains).

Boggs emerged from his bunk, and slipped off the virtual device connected to his Happy Box. The “Happy Boxes” made advanced space travel tolerable, as Recon Elite disappeared into their fantasies. Most of his squad chose rock star fantasies, selling out large venues while having hundreds of adoring women throw themselves at them.

Boggs chose fishing trips. Specifically the Rocky Mountains, where he’d fish streams not all that different from the ones on Mawholla. Except in the Happy Box, his wife Sarah was still at his side, before she’d died during childbirth, taking his supposed-to-be son Connor with her.

Boggs pressed the red awake button on the Happy Box chain, and soon the rest of Recon Elite Six awoke.

“Get your fat asses up,” Boggs said as he slid into his forest camo uniform. “We have a planet to explore.”

James T Bone rose from his bunker, rubbing his head, and his short crop of hair. He stood at 6’7, an enormous man, with the body of a WWF wrestler. Behind him, along the row of Happy Box beds rose the other four men: Jim Dagger, Raul Portman, Tim Emoth, and Mark “Pearl” Staunch.

The men rubbed their eyes, yawned, and stretched as the CAV-117 winded down its engines and began the transition into support mode.

A bay door opened, and a rush of oxygen flooded the stale cabin air.

While the fresh air flooded the cabin, a security sensor deployed numerous lasers across the opening. Sure, Recon Elite Six had been briefed, and knew much of what they were dealing with on a surface level. But Boggs again knew better, and so did the commanding officers at Colonial Preparation Base, or CPB. No matter how well recon satellites portrayed a planet, there were always surprises. A man or woman had to get onto the surface and sniff around, get his or her fingernails dirty to truly find out what the planet was all about.

There had been countless reports of snafus and surprises… many the deadly kind. And the recon satellites could not, and would never determine every species on the planet, whether said species was poisonous or hostile. Even the drones had a tough time navigating thick forest, with ancient canopies blocking out however many suns on Planet Whatever. Submersibles were launched too, plying the oceans of Mawholla.

Some of the submersibles had disappeared into underwater caves rather quickly.

A little too quickly for Boggs, as if the recon submersibles had been swallowed by something enormous.

The rest of Bogg’s squad dressed, and slipped into their CR-07 replenishing backpacks. These neat backpacks regenerated a hydrating fluid of water, sodium, and carbohydrates, keeping the men consistently nourished in even the most demanding conditions for up to a week straight. The packs connected to a long over-the-shoulder straw from the top of the packs to their mouths. After that, they’d rely on on-board provisions, and whatever they could hunt and drink on Mawholla. The water had already been tested, and was approved by CPB as safe for consumption. The animals?

Not so much.

But Boggs had learned on plenty of these missions that meat was meat. If it looked like a lizard, and ran like a lizard, it probably tasted like one too, depending on what kind of vegetation the damn thing ate that week. If it had lingered in a swamp, he and his men could expect a muddy taste. If the animal had fed on meadow grasses, light and juicy. If it had fed on lichen, somewhere in-between.

“Fuck these packs,” Dagger said as he stood next to Boggs. “Let’s get some meat. I aint no damn vegan.”

“You pussy,” Emoth said to Dagger as he loaded his ZR-15, the standard colonization assault rifle for Recon Elite Six. “How in the hell did you get this job anyway? Maybe you should be a farmer.”

“Hah,” Portman said, also loading his ZR-15 with stun, frag, and decimate bullets. “I’d kill myself,” he said as he pumped in the ammo. “I need the action.”

Dagger shook his head. “Yeah, ‘cause you aint had any in years.”

Portman grinned and shrugged. “It’s true, it’s true. I lost your mother’s phone number.”

Dagger shot Portman a look, then grinned like a maniac. “Well, I hope she was good.”

Boggs sighed. “Alright you nimrods,” he said. “Recon Elite is better than high school locker talk. Respect yourselves, and in return earn respect.”

“Yes sir,” Dagger said, standing at attention and saluting Boggs. The rest of the men fell in line as Boggs paced the room, a waterproof map clenched in his hands.

“You see that door right there, men?” Boggs said as he leaned into his squad. “You see those protective lasers? Why do you think those exist?”

“To protect us, sir,” Dagger said.

Boggs stepped over to Staunch, and made firm eye contact an inch from his face. “What about you, Staunch? Why are there a hundred interlaced lasers protecting our six right now? Do you think it’s because there are rabbits and possum out there?”

“No sir,” Staunch said, his hands shaking at his side.

Hmmm… Boggs thought. He didn’t care for that. And Staunch had been quiet pre-trip as well, as if he’d been shaken by personal issues. Boggs didn’t need that. He couldn’t count how many times formerly confident and centered men had inadvertently screwed with group dynamics on missions. These kinds of psychological issues had a way of creeping up.

“You good Staunch?” Boggs asked. “Recon Elite don’t get nervous.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Staunch said as he glanced back at the laser-interlaced bay ramp.

Boggs watched as Staunch gulped his own saliva.

“A confident squad is the best squad,” Boggs said as he met eyes with the rest of his men, one by one. Boggs turned and pointed to the bay opening. The smell of pine trees wafted into the craft. “Out there, you’re going to encounter who-the-hell-knows-what. Sure, some of those animals may look like ones we’re familiar with. But don’t be fooled. They might be poisonous. Might bite. Might spit shit at you that melts your face off. Or, they could all hold hands and sing skippety-dee-doodah. You just never know. So no slacking, got it? Your partner has your back, and you have his. We go out two by two, due to the forested nature of planet Mawholla. Listen to that word, men. Mawholla. Twice the size of Earth. Two suns, Little Blaze and Big Blaze, offset by 90 degrees. According to CPB Commanders, this is numero freaking uno on the list. Let’s not let them down. Look sharp, be sharp, or have sharp things sink into you. Got it?”

“Yes sir!” the men shouted back in unison.

Bogs cupped his ear. “What’s that, I didn’t quite hear you.”

“Yes sir!”

“Good,” Boggs said. “That’s what I like to hear.”

2

Recon Elite Six stepped off the CAV-117 and into a breezy meadow. What looked to be North American pine trees swayed in the wind. To Boggs, it felt an awful lot like Montana.

“I don’t get it,” Dagger said as he adjusted his LifeForm Scanner that hung off his belt. “Where the hell are the birds?”

Boggs turned and shot Dagger a look. “Who the hell says there are birds?” he said.

Dagger glanced away. “The recon craft data indicated there might be.”

Boggs nodded once, and spat. “Key word there is MIGHT. The drone’s sensors weren’t optimal due to bad weather. But CPB was hot to get here, so here we are. Let’s not let our people back on Earth down.”

“Roger that,” Portman said, flexing his bicep as he gripped his ZR-15.

Boggs flashed his LifeForm scanner in front of him. He didn’t want his men to know that he too, had suspicions as to why there were no flying life forms such as birds. This meadow was excellent habitat. Beyond the ancient-looking pine trees, rugged mountains laced with random snowfields rose higher and higher. Boggs took a breath of the clean cool air. Not like Earth air. At all. Things had gotten too hot on the home planet. They’d fucked it up really good: oceans of plastic, the shoulder seasons disappearing, with months of long drought that killed crops and triggered widespread famine. No one was able to control it. The planet had been set on a course that was unrepairable for generations.

Boggs led the way across the meadow as moist grass dragged along his camo pants, slicking his boots. Strange insects that looked like ticks and gnats scurried along the blades of grass.

“We’ve got life,” Boggs said. “Of the insect variety.”

As expected, the hand-held LifeForm meter beeped, and gave an “all clear” indicator in the shape of a green circle. Even on other planets, green meant go.

As Boggs hiked across the meadow, clouds swirled above, clean and clear and pregnant with rain. The air here was so much different than Earth, despite similar oxygen concentrations. The difference was the absolute absence of pollution. In the modern era, this was just not something human lungs were used to. Boggs noticed he felt lighter and faster, despite a valley elevation of 3,231 feet, approximately 2,000 feet higher than his apartment in Billings back on Earth.

Mawholla’s power was having its way with him, Boggs thought. He’d been on these missions before, on planets that were quite frankly, a joke compared to Mawholla: desert planets not fit for a god damn scorpion, or planets teetering between dying out completely, and still harboring a few random life forms. There were of course the sad lot of planets near Earth, solid ice, desert, and gaseous. Useless planets, really, at this stage in their existence. And Boggs had learned in all his years from space travel that planets were a lot like people. They just existed, did their own thing, and died.

In the end, that’s all this was. And he and Recon Elite Six were the spearhead for humanity, necessary agents for the ultimate survival before Earth fried like an ant under a magnifying glass. Not only could Boggs feel the power of Mawholla, but he could feel the power of his men, too. Fit as bull elk thanks to years of weight training and cardio work. Boggs didn’t want to say they were the “best of the best”, because that was a bullshit cliché. But they were good. Real fucking good.

Boggs’ LifeForm device beeped, this time revealing a yellow icon.

Caution.

The device wasn’t entirely sure what species lay before them at forest’s edge.

Which sucked.

A red icon meant the animal was dangerous, take no risks. There was a sense of comfort in knowledge. But the unknown? Not so much.

The great thing about T-Bone was he loved trouble. He glanced at Boggs, and Boggs gave a thumbs up. T-Bone inched ahead to tree line, his ZR-15 aimed and ready.

The rest of the squad aimed their ZR-15s without hesitation, as if purely on instinct. Boggs raised his weapon, expecting whatever was behind the ferns to launch right at them.

But it did not.

Instead a large moose-like animal emerged slowly, its ears pinned back. But this was not quite a moose, with much smaller ears, and very narrow eyes.

And it wasn’t quite healthy.

A chunk had been taken out of its rear, and the animal paced and whimpered.

“Holy shit,” Emoth said, inching closer to T-Bone, who was already crouching in the grass and way too close. “Something took a hell of a bite out of this bad boy.”

Blood trickled from the animal’s rear flank, and glistened in the dim sunlight.

“Anyone hungry?” Portman asked as he raised his rifle.

Boggs stepped over to Portman and lowered the rifle barrel with the palm of his hand. “We don’t have time for this shit,” Boggs said. “We have weeks of medically-approved sustenance, and a planet to explore. We can’t play gourmet chef right now.”

“Gourmet?” the young Staunch asked.

“Never mind,” Boggs said.

The moose-like animal limped off into deeper forest, and they never saw it again.

Recon Elite is available from Amazon HERE!

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www.severedpress.com

Copyright 2019 by William Meikle

Content

William Meikle
OPERATION: MONGOLIA

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