I pushed off the ground and danced sideways as I reached for my own knife. The Wilson Tactical Combat Rapid Response folder sprang out of its holster and thudded into my palm and I flicked the blade open with a snap of my wrist. The German saw the knife and smiled. My blade was only three and a half inches long.
I smiled, too. There’s a reason I prefer the shorter, lighter weapon. It’s so light that it puts no drag on my hand speed. He darted in, trying to close the deal with a fake lunge and high short-slash across my throat. He was good and the tip of that knife nicked the point of my chin as I lunged back, but I caught him, too. The key to good fighting is never purely attack or purely defend. There needs to be elements of both in play, otherwise the fight is too long and too fair. As I slipped his cut, I whipped my blade in a very tight slap down across his forearm. The speed and force of his own attack added cutting length and depth to my counter.
A stupid fighter pauses to admire his work. In the movies there’s an exchange of witty taunts, or there’s banter. In the real world, it’s all about killing the other guy as quickly and efficiently as possible. I had a moment, so I took it. His lacerated nerve endings tricked him into recoiling from my cut, and I followed that reflex movement with an attack, elbow-checking his injured arm, cupping my hand around the back of his neck, stepping my right leg in around the back of his leg, and leg-wheeling him down to the ground while my blade chased his throat down and cut him from ear to ear.
Very quick, very messy. His heart stopped beating and the arterial spray hissed down to nothing. I pivoted toward the rifleman, saw a dark bubble form between his parted lips as he struggled to breathe. I clamped a hand over his mouth and corkscrewed my knife into his heart, felt him settle back, removed my hand as he let out a last wet breath against my palm.
The whole fight took about two seconds. From when the rifleman had tried to frisk me, call it five. Fights should be short or you’re one of the dead ones on the ground.
I cleaned my blade on the rifleman’s clothes and my hands in the surf. My SIG’s barrel was choked with sand but I holstered it anyway. Something caught my eye and I peered out to sea and saw moonlight glinting on the conning tower of a submarine. A U-boat? Probably.
I think that’s when the shakes hit me.
I’d survived the moment, but this wasn’t my moment.
There was no reason to stay where I was, so I moved along the beach, running fast in the cold moonlight, trying to find my way out of here.
It took only a few minutes to run to the end of the atoll and then I skidded to a stop. That end of the island was mostly flat and sandy, with trees rising up from the middle of the arms that reached around a kind of small bay. I expected to find nothing but empty sand and dark trees.
That’s not what I found. I stood staring at something that continued to shove the world toward a steep drop-off into the impossible.
The T-craft was there.
It lay in a bowl of ruptured earth at the end of the long impact trench, with burned and shriveled trees on either side of it. But that couldn’t be. The moon was wrong. There was a German U-boat in the water and I’d killed two Nazi frogmen. It was night instead of day.
Then I heard a sound behind me, and as I turned, I knew whatever it was could not be good. It wasn’t.
A ship rose up on night-black waters and then slammed into the hungry teeth of the line of sharp volcanic rocks. Not a World War II submarine. Not a modern navy destroyer. This was an old wooden ship. A brig, I think, though I’m no expert in sailing ships of the nineteenth goddamn century, and I’m pretty fucking sure I was watching one tear its guts out on the rocks. The impact jerked the hull to a stop with such force that several masts snapped, dragging rigging and sails down. I saw men fall, heard them scream as they hit water or stone or debris.
Then behind me a dog barked.
I whirled.
And there was Ghost, running from the exploding forest wall, chased by bits of torn aloe and palm. Top and Bunny dove for cover and I stood there like a goddamn idiot, too shocked to move, or speak.
Or duck.
A big piece of tree trunk slammed into me and I was gone.
-7-
PALMYRA ATOLL
TIME AND DATE UNKNOWN
_______________
It was the sound of metal clanking on metal that woke me.
I opened my eyes and realized that I wasn’t stretched out on the ground or hanging in zero gravity. I was on my feet. Daylight was warm on my face and there were insects buzzing in the humid tropical air. The greens of the surrounding forest were very green. Intensely so. Unnaturally bright, as if lit from within each leaf. The same with the blue water I glimpsed through the trees, and the sky above was eye-hurtingly vivid.
The metal clank sounded again and I turned. My body was strangely leaden, as if I were sleepwalking. I saw Top and Bunny. I saw Coast Guard and navy. A couple of marines, probably from the Michael Murphy. But there were other people, too. Men dressed in clothes from some weird mix of History Channel wardrobe department. Heavy coats with embroidered cuffs and fringe epaulets, barefoot bearded men in ragged shorts and simple shirts, Germans in the uniforms of the Kriegsmarine, people dressed in lab coats and others in casual sailing clothes from throughout the last century. There were at least three hundred of them.
They each held a tool of some kind. Some of the tools looked vaguely like wrenches or drivers or hammers, but many were so strange that I could not even guess at their purpose. Everyone who held a tool, though, seemed to know what to do with it. All across the bowl of the impact point, all around where the T-craft lay, men worked. Some carried pieces of metal or plastic, but most were hard at work doing repairs on machines. And again, I had no idea what any of the machines were. Some were of metal, but most seemed to be blends of metal, plastic, cloth, and something else, something that pulsed and throbbed and looked as if it were alive. Maybe it was alive.
The T-craft was propped up on some kind of hydraulic struts, and as I watched, Top and Bunny helped two German U-boat sailors lift a glowing device into place and hold it there while a navy helicopter pilot, still wearing his helmet, set to work with a kind of spot welder.
It was then that I realized I was not standing still. I looked down at my legs and saw them moving, walking. And I saw my hands. There were tools in them. A long, flat device with curling wires sticking out of one end, and a pair of something that looked like pliers but had bright blue glowing pads on it. I watched myself walk over to where a piece of machinery lay on a plastic pad near one of the hydraulic jacks; I felt myself kneel; I stared as my hands went to work on the device, using the tools with a precision and efficiency that did not belong to me.
I was aware, somehow, of being watched, but not by the other men. Or by Ghost. Or, in fact, by anyone I could see. It was as if the watcher were inside, looking out through my eyes. Watching me work but also studying me. There was some dried blood on the back of my wrist, a few drops I’d missed when I’d washed in the seawater. I raised my arm—or, it raised my arm—and I felt my nostrils flare as I sniffed. As it sniffed. My mouth spoke a single word.
I can’t spell it or repeat it because the word did not fit into my mouth. It was too awkward, too strange, better suited for the construction of some other kind of throat. And even though it was a word in a language I had never heard before, I knew what it meant.
Savages.
I knew as surely as I know anything.
My hands returned to their work.
The day passed. Seconds into minutes into hours.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep. I don’t remember when the lights went out. I don’t remember floating away.
-8-
PALMYRA ATOLL
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 7:19 AM
_______________
Ghost woke me up.
He nudged my face with his muzzle, whined. Licked my nose and mouth. Barked once. He did everything short of bite me.
I woke up.
It was still daylight. I blinked and looked at the sun. Low on the horizon. Sunset? No, that was impossible. We were on the wrong side of the atoll for that.
We …
I realized that I was in the RHIB with Top and Bunny. In the water of the entrance to the lagoon. Drifting, turning slowly in the sluggish current. Ghost stood over me, staring at me with frightened brown eyes. He barked again, loud and sharp, and it chipped away a big chunk of my stupor. I sat up.
Top and Bunny were groaning softly, turning over as they moved upward from sleep to that pre-wakefulness where dreams and reality have no perceptible difference. I looked at my hands, my arms, expecting them to be badly sunburned, or covered with cuts from the debris from when the aloe plant and trees exploded. I looked at my palms, expecting to see calluses and blisters from using those tools for so many hours.
But, no.
“… to Cowboy…”
A fragment of sound in my ear made me jump, and I looked around.
The second RHIB was out there five hundred yards from the beach. The line snaked over the edge of our boat and vanished inside the seawater until it reappeared over their gunnels. Another sound made me jerk and suddenly a helicopter rose from behind the trees. A big Seahawk painted with navy colors. It wobbled in the air, then it rose and moved away from the island.
I heard the call again. It was Captain Tanaka calling me from the USS Michael Murphy. Top sat up slowly and held his head in his hands. I looked at my watch. It was running again. The last time I’d checked it was right before we crossed the dead zone. It had been 7:19. I watched the digital timer go to 7:20. At first I thought that it was simply starting up again, but when we compared our watches to those of the chief on the RHIB and the chronometer on the ship, they matched perfectly. As if no time had passed.
On the beach, I saw a handful of people come out of the jungle. Coast Guard and scientists from the conservancy station. Wandering a little as if dazed, but finding their footing. They stopped when they saw me. We all looked up at the helicopter, and then one by one we turned and looked toward the southeast end of the island. We could not see the burned trees or the torn ground. Not from that angle. But I knew what we would find there.
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
Only the scar on the atoll. Only the memory in our minds.
I stood up in the boat and ran trembling fingers through my hair, trying to understand it. Trying to convince myself that it had been a dream. I knew—absolutely knew—that we would not find sailors from any antique ships. No. Not anymore. I glanced over to the spot where I’d fought and killed the two Nazi agents. The sand was smooth and undisturbed, as if no foot had stepped there in many, many years.
So it was what? A dream? Some kind of shared fantasy? A hallucination brought on by forces as yet to be understood? Magic mushrooms blooming? Some kind of virus? Some freaky weather thing that affected our brain chemistry?
Somehow all of those implausible theories would find their way into reports filed by the different agencies and branches of service involved.
I knew different, though. We all did, though as the day wore on and the debriefings began, most of the people on the island said that they couldn’t remember. None of them were willing to say so while hooked up to a lie detector, though; and no one made them.
The thing that bugs me, though, and the item that anchors me to that little spit of land a thousand miles south of Hawaii is this: There are three dots of blood on the sleeve of my shirt. I had them tested. They’re not mine.
I knew they wouldn’t be.
We flew back to San Diego without saying much of anything.
I mean, what was there to say?
Back home Church asked us a thousand questions. So did Rudy. So did the navy. So did everyone. Everyone had questions.
But we did not have the answers.
Not then. Not ever.
POSTSCRIPT
The navy has since sealed off Palmyra Island. Access has been revoked for the Nature Conservancy and all other research organizations. Maybe that’s an overreaction. Maybe there’s nothing left. No threat, no weirdness, no nothing.
Maybe.
But, really, would you want to take that risk?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders series, the Dead of Night series, and numerous stand-alone novels in multiple genres. His recent novels include Dogs of War, the ninth in his bestselling Joe Ledger thriller series, and Mars One, a stand-alone teen space travel novel. He is the editor of many anthologies, including The X-Files, Scary Out There, Out of Tune, and V-Wars. His comic book works include, among others, Captain America, the Bram Stoker Award–winning Bad Blood, Rot & Ruin, V-Wars, the New York Times bestselling Marvel Zombies Return, and others. His books Extinction Machine, V-Wars, and Mars One are in development for TV/film. A board game version of V-Wars was released in early 2016. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse and the co-founder of the Philadelphia Liars Club. Prior to becoming a full-time novelist, Jonathan spent twenty-five years as a magazine feature writer, martial arts instructor, and playwright. He was a featured expert on the History Channel documentary Zombies: A Living History and a regular expert on the TV series True Monsters. He is one-third of the very popular and mildly weird Three Guys with Beards pop-culture podcast. Jonathan lives in Del Mar, California, with his wife, Sara Jo. For more information, visit his website, www.jonathanmaberry.com.
ALSO BY JONATHAN MABERRY
NOVELS
Ghost Road Blues
Dead Man’s Song
Bad Moon Rising
Dead of Night
Fall of Night
Dark of Night (with Rachael Lavin)
Still of Night (with Rachael Lavin)
The Wolfman
Patient Zero
The Dragon Factory
The King of Plagues
Assassin’s Code
Extinction Machine
Code Zero
Predator One
Kill Switch
Dogs of War
Mars One
The Nightsiders: The Orphan Army
The Nightsiders: Vault of Shadows
Ghostwalkers: A Deadlands Novel
Rot & Ruin
Dust & Decay
Flesh & Bone
Fire & Ash
Bits & Pieces
X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate
NONFICTION BOOKS
Judo and You
Ultimate Jujutsu: Principles and Practices
Ultimate Sparring: Principles and Practices
The Vampire Slayers’ Field Guide to the Undead (as Shane MacDougall)
Vampire Universe
The Cryptopedia (with David F. Kramer)
They Bite (with David F. Kramer)
Wanted Undead or Alive (with Janice Gable Bashman)
Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead
The Joe Ledger Companion (with Dana Fredsti and Mari Adkins)
COLLECTIONS
Joe Ledger: Special Ops
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Strange Worlds
Tales from the Fire Zone
Hungry Tales
Whistling Past the Graveyard and Other Stories
The Wind Through the Fence and Other Stories
A Little Bronze Book of Cautionary Tales
ANTHOLOGIES (AS EDITOR)
Out of Tune vol 1
Out of Tune vol 2
The X-Files: Trust No One
The X-Files: The Truth Is Out There
The X-Files: Secret Agendas
Scary Out There
V-Wars
V-Wars: Blood and Fire
V-Wars: Night Terrors
V-Wars: Shockwaves
Aliens: Bug Hunt
Nights of the Living Dead (with George A. Romero)
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Baker Street Irregulars (with Michael Ventrella)
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Punisher: Naked Kills
Wolverine: Flies to a Spider
Marvel Universe vs The Punisher
Marvel Universe vs Wolverine
Marvel Universe vs The Avengers
Black Panther: Power
Black Panther: Klaws of the Panther
Black Panther: Doomwar
Marvel Zombies Return
Captain America: Hail Hydra
Marvel: Age of Heroes
Bad Blood
V-Wars: Crimson Queen
V-Wars: All of Us Monsters
ALSO BY BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT
NOVELS
The Worker Prince (Saga of Davi Rhii 1)
The Returning (Saga of Davi Rhii 2)
The Exodus (Saga of Davi Rhii 3)
ANTHOLOGIES (AS EDITOR)
Predator: If It Bleeds
Infinite Stars: Definitive Space Opera and Military Science Fiction
The Monster Hunter Files (with Larry Correia)
Little Green Men—Attack! (with Robin Wayne Bailey)
Galactic Games
Decision Points
Mission: Tomorrow
Shattered Shields (with Jennifer Brozek)
Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age
Beyond the Sun
Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales 6
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author and 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, and steampunk, for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Rot & Ruin, Mars One, and Captain America, which is in development for a feature film. He writes comics for Marvel, Dark Horse and IDW and is the editor of such high-profile anthologies as The X-Files, V-Wars, Out of Tune, Baker Street Irregular, Nights of the Living Dead, and Scary Out There. He lives in Del Mar, California. You can sign up for email updates here.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies and online and include stories in The X-Files and Decipher’s WARS. As a book editor working for Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta’s WordFire Press, he has edited books by such luminaries as Alan Dean Foster, Tracy Hickman, Frank Herbert, Mike Resnick, Jean Rabe and more. He was also the first editor on Andy Weir’s bestseller The Martian. His anthologies as editor include Shattered Shields with co-editor Jennifer Brozek, Mission:Tomorrow, and Galactic Games for Baen, Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6, Beyond The Sun, andRaygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age. He is also coediting anthologies with Larry Correia and Jonathan Maberry set in their New York Times Bestselling Monster Hunter and Joe Ledger universes. From December 2010 to June 2015, he hosted #sffwrtcht (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer’s Chat) Wednesdays at 9pm ET on Twitter as @SFFWRTCHT. Find him on Twitter and Facebook as @BryanThomasS or at his website: www.bryanthomasschmidt.net, or sign up for email updates here.