The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Read online

  He turned as Rudenko burst into the room, half a dozen men behind him, weapons at the ready.

  “Kapitan?” The NCO stopped beside his company commander and looked at the rat. He grinned. “A shame that we could not have interrogated it.”

  “It is cooked and ready to eat if you are hungry, my friend.” Mikhailov clapped the older man on the shoulder. He didn’t show it, but his insides were quivering like jelly.

  “You know that I prefer them raw, sir.” He trained his weapon around the lab, taking in the destruction that appeared in the beam of his light. “Aside from this rat, sir, this place is empty. The other side is clear.”

  Mikhailov nodded. “I agree. Let us move on to the greenhouse buildings.” He paused, looking at the rat again. “If anything is in there, it certainly knows now that we are here.”

  * * *

  The connector to the first of the huge greenhouses, like the hallway back in the lab building, was pitch black. None of the lights worked. The power was obviously out, but that was not all: some ceiling fixtures had been smashed, the shattered remains of the long fluorescent tubes crunching under the men’s boots.

  The platoon moved through the connector with half the men hugging the left wall, the other half the right. When the first pair of soldiers reached the double doors leading to the first greenhouse, they stopped and looked back at Mikhailov.

  He signaled for them to proceed. The first two men pulled the doors open, while the rest of the platoon rushed forward into the darkness.

  As he stepped beyond the doorway into the greenhouse, Mikhailov sucked in his breath through his clenched teeth. He had known the buildings were big, but his view from the helicopter could not have prepared him for how cavernous they truly were, especially in darkness. For a moment, he felt as if he’d stepped into outer space. The flashlight beams seemed tiny and utterly inadequate to the task at hand.

  “Spread out.” Rudenko’s hissed command was followed by the sound of quickly moving feet as the men of the platoon moved out along a walkway. A strip of concrete about two meters wide, the walkway appeared to extend the length of this side of the building.

  Mikhailov was not sure what he expected, but this was not it. As he adjusted to the eerie vastness of the building, taking in what was illuminated by the beams of the flashlights as his men spread out, he saw…nothing.

  He saw a raised frame, about knee high, that ran beside the walkway. Kneeling down to take a closer look, he saw that it contained nothing more threatening than soil.

  “This greenhouse is empty,” Rudenko said quietly.

  Da.” Mikhailov reached out and scooped some of the dirt into his hand. Instead of the nutrient-rich loam he expected, the soil felt gritty as he rubbed it between his fingers. Bringing his hand to his nose, he could find no trace of the earthy smell that was typical of good growing soil. He may as well have been holding sterilized sand.

  With a sudden shiver, he tossed it away and dusted off his hand on his pant leg.

  “Look at this.” Rudenko shone his flashlight along the surface of the soil. There were regularly spaced holes, about as big around as his open palm, stretching off into the distance. And the soil looked very smooth, as if it had been tamped down. Leaning forward, he shone the light into one of the holes. It wasn’t smooth, like the hole had been dug or drilled. It looked like the mold into which one might pour plaster to make a cast of a plant’s roots.

  Mikhailov grunted. “Odd. You wouldn’t plant anything in holes like that. And if the plants had been harvested…”

  “The soil would be greatly disturbed. And there wouldn’t be perfect holes like that, as if the roots had been dissolved away.” Leaning closer and whispering so the men could not hear, Rudenko asked, “Kapitan, what has happened here?”

  Mikhailov looked at him. “From the information that Jack and Naomi sent me, I know the harvester larval form consumes great quantities of carbon, among other things. This would explain the plastic and rubber that disappeared from the cars and devices like the computers. Even the plants and bodies, which contain much carbon and other elements the harvesters must need. I do not relish the thought, but that could easily account for what we are seeing.”

  Rudenko just stared at him, and Mikhailov knew what he must be thinking. Including the plastic and rubber from the cars, plus the corn stalks here, the amount of carbon compounds and other materials that had disappeared from the facility must amount to some number of tons.

  “I now wish we had the rest of the company,” Rudenko whispered. Mikhailov had wanted to bring his entire unit, but had been turned down by the division commander in Novorossiysk. The general had not thought the additional manpower and expense of sending three helicopters instead of one was justified.

  “I wish we had a full regiment.” Mikhailov stood up, and Rudenko joined him. “We may need more than that if we have to chase these things down in the countryside.” He looked at the line of men that spread the full length of the building. “Have the men sweep forward across the field. I do not want to miss anything, especially if it might be something that can surprise us from behind. And have them beware of the holes. We don’t need any twisted or broken ankles.”

  “Sir.” Rudenko quickly passed the orders.

  With Mikhailov leading the way along the walkway that extended straight from the door to the lab building across to what he assumed would be the next connector, the platoon carefully advanced across the field.

  Much to everyone’s relief, they found nothing. There was only the strangely smooth earth and odd holes. Unlike in the lab building, there were no signs of struggle.

  “Maybe all the buildings will be empty,” Rudenko observed hopefully as the platoon moved through the connector to the second greenhouse.

  As before, two men opened the double doors and the platoon rushed into the darkened expanse.

  “Then again, maybe not.”

  The beams of their flashlights revealed the frightening visage of stalks of corn, twice the height of a man, stretching away into the darkness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jack fell more than sat into his chair. The days since the vice president had told them they had to shut down SEAL had been a nightmare. It wasn’t the same, of course, as the fighting he had done in Afghanistan or against the harvesters. But with every employee he called in to his office to thank for their service and then dismiss, with every computer and piece of furniture he signed over to people from Homeland Security, he felt as if another nail was being hammered into the coffin of humanity’s future.

  While there was evidence that all the harvesters had been killed, no one could answer the question of where they’d come from. Were they an extraterrestrial species as many believed? If so, were there more of the things out there, lurking among the stars, that would eventually come to finish what they’d started? Humanity would have no consolidated defense if they did. Beyond a fairly small group of people who had direct knowledge of them, the world had been kept in ignorance about their existence. And even if the truth were divulged publicly, how many would believe it? Most would simply think it was another tabloid hoax. Alien invaders from Mars. Right. The power of denial was too powerful to overcome by simply trying to inform people.

  And the opposite extreme, if the evidence was overwhelming and undeniably credible, would be uncontrolled panic and chaos. Unlike little green men, who would stand out in the crowd, the harvesters were perfect mimics. Your husband or wife, your best friend, could be one. Or maybe an annoying neighbor, or your ex-wife or -husband. Who could you trust? And how many innocent people would wind up dead because someone thought they might be a harvester, or were merely using that as an excuse to get rid of someone?

  Jack’s people had been working on those issues as a sideline, trying to come up with scenarios to help other agencies like Homeland Security and FEMA formulate response plans. But there had never been any integration or cooperation, even under Curtis. He had kept the lid on too tight, not even all
owing anyone in other agencies to be cleared on SEAL’s true mission. And President Miller, of course, had pulled the plug on the entire thing.

  But Jack’s biggest worry was The Bag. He was sure in his gut that it was out there somewhere, that it hadn’t been just an administrative mistake in New Horizons’ shipping inventory. Everyone who had been working at the New Horizons plant where the seeds were genetically modified and then prepared for shipment had been killed when the EDS had destroyed the place, and no records had been kept anywhere else. The FBI had seized every computer, thumb drive, paper file, and anything else that might have contained information on the manufacture and shipment of the horrid seed the harvesters had created. An army of special agents led by Carl Richards had gone over all of it, but had come up with nothing on the harvesters’ operations. They had found other interesting tidbits, various violations of U.S. law that had put most of New Horizons’ executives behind bars and effectively destroyed the company, but that was all.

  But there wasn’t a shred of information, and no one left alive, who could tell them the fate of The Bag. It hung over Jack like the Sword of Damocles, even as his own power and ability to do anything about it was literally being pulled out from under him.

  “Shit.” Jack rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk and cupping his chin in his hands. He’d been at work for almost thirteen hours straight, trying to tie up as many loose ends as he could as the lights were figuratively and literally switched off around him.

  The secure phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Renee. He smiled, the first time since he’d spoken to Naomi and heard the news about her new job.

  He picked up the phone. “If you’re through with that Richards guy, I’m ready to elope to Vegas.”

  Renee cackled. “Oh, don’t you wish. I wouldn’t mind going to Vegas, though. I just need to convince my tightwad boyfriend that it might actually be fun.”

  Jack had to laugh at the thought of Richards in Vegas, casino hopping with Renee. “You’d wear him out in no time.”

  “I do, anyway. What a pathetic old goat.” Her voice turned serious. “How are you holding up, kid?”

  “I’m fine, just tired of this bullshit. Everybody’s gotten a pink slip. Now it’s just me, a few die-hards helping me to clear out, and the Homeland Security guys taking all the gear. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

  “Yeah.” Renee sounded dispirited. “I’ve still got my contract with the FBI, but they have me working on other stuff now. But I, uh, I’m still poking around, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a good thing. You’ll be the only one left with any sort of classified access.”

  “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, Jack, aside from your romantic obsession with me. I’ve got a couple of things for you. For starters, I tracked down Vijay C.” She had thought the world of Vijay, but for the life of her could never pronounce his last name. Jack had taken a cursory look into his whereabouts, but in the bureaucratic quagmire he was in, he just didn’t have the time. So he had asked Renee, who was far better at tracking down information, if she could take up the hunt. “He’s in a hospital in Hyderabad, India, in critical condition. He was in a bad car accident, apparently a hit and run by some sort of tractor trailer rig. There was a passenger in the car, another employee of the Andhra Pradesh Department of Agriculture, but he didn’t make it. I’m emailing you and Naomi the contact information for the hospital.”

  “Do they know if he’s going to pull through?”

  “It’s hard to tell from what I was able to find out. I ran his list of injuries by one of the medical experts here, an M.D., and she wasn’t very optimistic about his chances. Frankly, she was surprised he’d managed to survive at all.”

  “Damn.” Jack sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “He hasn’t been in touch with anybody for how long, since he left the States? I wonder what he was calling Naomi about?”

  “I don’t know. But Vijay wasn’t given to much in the way of social calls. If he were calling, it was most likely about business.”

  And business, to the survivors of the EDS, could mean only one thing.

  “Was there any information on who did this? If it was a hit and run, it might not have been an accident.”

  “I checked, but couldn’t find anything. Carl even gave me the green light to call the Andhra Pradesh State Police. They were very helpful, but weren’t able to tell me much more than I already knew. There weren’t any witnesses, and the vehicle that hit Vijay’s car hasn’t turned up. The police were sure it was a large truck based on the damage.” She paused. “His car was smashed flat as a pancake. They had to cut him out of the wreckage.”

  “Christ. Okay, keep tabs on him, will you? I’ll talk to Naomi and see what she wants to do.”

  “Will do. The next thing is sort of weird that I picked up on my news search.” Renee had created a set of automatic queries that constantly sifted national and international news services, blogs, and social media sites for anything she could think of that might point them toward The Bag. Almost everything the searches picked up was garbage, although a lot of it made entertaining lunchtime reading. “One of the Russian news services reported some sort of mysterious goings-on at an agricultural facility in the southern part of the country. It’s like one of those crazy things you’d see on one of those hokey paranormal reality shows. I would have skipped past it, except for one thing: the Army sent some airborne troops out to investigate.”

  “Not just police?”

  “Police had been sent, apparently, but they just went poof. So they brought the army in. The odd thing is that they deployed from Pskov, which is up in northern Russia.”

  “Pskov.” Jack suddenly felt queasy. “Mikhailov and Rudenko are stationed there.”

  “Yeah. The news didn’t say which unit, but it’s odd because there’s an airborne division and a bunch of regular army units in the South, not far from this place called Elista.”

  “Did you try to reach Mikhailov?”

  “Sure did. I sent him an email to the account we set up for him, but there hasn’t been an answer yet.”

  “Great. Any more good news?”

  “Actually, there is one more thing. Bad shit comes in threes, right? After taking a look at the shenanigans in southern Russia, I got a wild hair and did a few more searches for weird stuff. I came up with a couple more episodes for the paranormal freaks, one in southern China, and the other in southeastern Brazil. Both were within the last three weeks, and were eventually written off by the authorities as hoaxes.”

  “I have the feeling you’re telling me this because you don’t think it’s coincidental.”

  “Would I ever do that?” Renee snorted. “I was trying to figure out what common denominator these whacko places that I can’t pronounce might have. It took me a while, but get this: the places in China and Brazil were right in the middle of prime corn growing regions, and those two countries are the second and third largest producers of corn in the world behind the U.S. of A. That place in Russia is right smack in the middle of their corn belt, too.” She paused. “So was where Vijay’s car got creamed over in India. Only Brazil and India have harvest seasons this early in the year, but I’m sure the other countries have greenhouses for playing around with stuff off-season. Call me a skeptic, but I’m having a hard time swallowing this particular cornbread.”

  Jack snapped forward in his seat. “Holy shit. But you said that the events in China and Brazil were hoaxes?”

  “That’s what the local governments trotted out after a few hysterical news reports about mass disappearances. But both China and Brazil sent in police or army units to check things out, and found everybody where they were supposed to be. Mostly.”

  “What do you mean by mostly?”

  “They found the adults and older teens. The younger kids all seemed to be off at grandma’s house in the next village. There also weren’t any dogs or
other smaller animals around, and the same with big animals like horses and cows. They must all have been off visiting grandma, too.”

  The queasy feeling in Jack’s stomach had congealed into a cold metal ball. “The harvesters can’t mimic things that are much smaller or larger than their natural form,” he recalled aloud. “So they couldn’t mimic anything that wasn’t roughly adult human in size.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. No specific mention was made about cats, but I’m sure there weren’t any of those around, either.”

  “Did you tell Carl?”

  “What do you take me for, a dumb-ass? Of course I did. And the poor dear went straight to the new director. The stupid asshole tossed Carl out and swore he’d take Carl’s badge and gun if he ever came to him with such ‘patent nonsense’ again.”

  “Crap.” Jack paused a moment, thinking. “Okay, let me ask you something. Are we just jumping to conclusions here, reading too much into all this?”

  “Sure we are, Jack. This stuff I’m seeing could be pure crapola and might have nothing more malignant behind it than my Aunt Bernice.” Her voice lowered. “But we’ve both seen the boogeyman, and we know he’s real. And I think where we’re going to find him, if he’s still really out there somewhere, is in junk like this that otherwise we’d just laugh at in the grocery store checkout line. These news tidbits are potential indicators, but if someone who didn’t know about the harvesters checks them out…”

  “They’d just think it was a hoax,” Jack finished for her.

  “Bingo. If this pans out, Jack, we could have an epidemic on our hands.”

  “I know.” Jack had a hard time imagining the implications. Two dozen harvesters had nearly had the world in their chitinous claws. Granted, they had been here who knows how long and had time to infiltrate key areas of the government, military, and industrial infrastructure in various countries around the world. But if humanity ever faced hundreds or thousands of the things, there was no telling what hell might be unleashed. “If these incidents represent harvester infestations, they could only have originated with The Bag, right?”