Pain Bringer (The Constant War Book 2), page 24
Such the gentleman.
He never did that for her when they were together.
Not that they’d really been together.
Char tried to focus. They were here to investigate signs of life, even if all appearances pointed to a complete absence of it.
This world was vacant.
Empty.
Char turned away from the ocean view, setting her sights upon the settlement of her not-so-long-ago ancestors.
A wall of apartment buildings was offset from the beach by fifty meters. Structures retreated to rot, returning to the Earth from whence it came. Even on this desolate planet, entropy was at play, toying with the leftovers of civilization.
The remnants of another life, a history that was hers, yet unfamiliar.
Alien.
A rose-colored boardwalk split sand from concrete like a moat between nature and civilization. Narrow alleys raked paths through the buildings, corridors providing access to ancient ruins—paved asphalt streets lined with parking meters, mechanical vehicles turned to rust, and faded billboards depicting exciting locales.
“We’ll go on foot from here,” said Wilkins over the comm.
Char reached into the Painbringer, grabbed her satchel, shoved her first aid kit and supplies into it, and slung the satchel over a shoulder. She pulled a release lever at the base of the cockpit. A hatch popped open revealing a secret compartment—the mecha’s hidden gun vault. She removed the S-93 service blaster. Nothing fancy, but there was no point taking chances.
Char slid off the nose of the Painbringer, landing in soft sand. She thumped the side of the mecha for luck. “Don’t go getting into trouble without me,” she told it, as if it could answer while she was unplugged.
She skip-hopped several steps, catching up with the others already heading into the remains of the coastal beach suburb. At the sight of her, Fairhaven double-timed it, moving to the front of the pack.
The platoon had landed on what was called the United States of America. The U.S.A. Where the majority of Heaven’s residents originally came from. It was an unfamiliar moniker to her. Up there, in Heaven, division was made mostly by the station you resided on more than nationality or ethnicity.
Heaven.
The Sakamoto Six.
China’s Death Star—she still couldn’t pronounce its actual name.
Virtually all the last remnants of the Americas, North and South, called Heaven home. The U.S. of A. had spearheaded the event that came to be known as the Exodus, and thus, received all the credit—whatever that was worth.
Nothing.
It was worth nothing.
They had landed on the country’s western coast. California. More specifically, Newport Beach. A bay was created by a thin strip of land that followed the shape of the coast. The wrist display called it Balboa Peninsula.
This world, that had been so familiar to her great-grandfather, felt like a fantasy to her. Like something out of a fairytale, something that should have been filled with dragons and sorcery.
She double-checked her wrist display. A cyan blip pinged several hundred meters to the east, life signs emanating from a nearby building. Confirmation that Dr. Scott’s findings had been correct. They weren’t alone on this planet.
She had never doubted it.
None of them had.
The crew crept through the alleys in loose formation, spread enough to avoid friendly fire should the need to send a super-charged volley arise. A need that seemed preposterous under the given conditions of Earth.
They were barely greeted by a soft breeze, let alone anything that would warrant counterattack.
Besides the environment itself, of course.
Char readjusted her mask, making sure it was centerline. A nervous tick.
The buildings were double stacked. Streets cut into blocks. An alley laterally bisected them, providing backside access. Occasional debris and collapsing structures blocked off major sections of the passage. From the looks of the buildings facing the boardwalk, the narrow alley behind them provided the only street-side access.
They came upon an opening.
In their hey-day, these empty spaces of land were called parking lots. At least, that’s what Char thought she remembered from her studies, but she never really did that well in classes. It was an open tarmac of black asphalt mixed with a sprinkling of glass that gave it a shimmer.
The sign marking the turn-off was weathered, but perhaps a testament to her ancestor’s beliefs, or maybe their god just did touch-ups on the weekends, the sign was still legible.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
A Catholic church.
Char had a vague recollection of Christianity. They were all Jesus worshipers, but she couldn’t recall the difference of this particular sect from any of the others. All Christians were vaguely similar. In fact, all religion was vaguely similar when you got right down to it.
The church was a humble building, especially given waterfront property in Southern California. Like most SoCal architecture they encountered, the church was Spanish in style, white plaster walls supporting salmon terracotta tile. On the corner, a bell tower rose above the gridded community. An occasional breeze caught the bell’s clapper, echoing a resonant chime.
Wilkins raised a hand, signaling for movement into the courtyard, but Fairhaven was way ahead of him, already halfway across the compound.
There Char saw it.
The first signs of the plague—what those that stayed behind called the Rapture.
On the front steps of the church, two corpses were frozen in time. Their bodies were melted into the pavement, reaching out—for what, Char couldn’t tell.
She had read of similar occurrences throughout history: human statues preserved in ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius; atomized silhouettes blasted into the walls from the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seeing these people first hand provided a direct sense of connection to the events that the history books failed to capture.
The near eradication of a species.
Her species.
The corpses had been fleeing when the wave hit, petrified in running poses. Caught mid-step, forced to the ground, skin melting, fusing with the concrete beneath them. The nearest corpse looked like it had tried to brace itself with its right hand, but instead melted into the sidewalk, making it appear as if it was crawling in shallow water. The pair were dead before they stopped moving. A century’s worth of rigor mortis had taken place in a matter of seconds.
“Y’all seeing this?” asked Wilkins.
“Trying hard not to, love,” said Fairhaven, stifling a puking noise.
Char felt bile rise in her throat. She choked it down, pretending this wasn’t any different than any other mission. No different than investigating strange alien ships and stations—even those of the most gruesome kind.
But it was.
Very different.
Despite never having set foot on Earth before, everything felt distinctly familiar. Personal. This was her history. She felt as if what had happened to these people had happened to her. Had happened to all of humanity. Had changed the course of their futures.
And in point of fact, it had.
She wondered what the world would have looked like had they not been forced off this rock. How their lives, her life, would have been different.
The platoon moved past the bodies and entered the church. On the left hand side, a marble basin stood at waist height. Swirling dirt patterns were etched into the bottom, evidence that it had once contained water. They pushed into a narrow corridor. A large window without glass was cut into the left wall, giving them a view of the main room.
The church was filled to capacity, and then some. Pews were stuffed with worshipers sitting shoulder to shoulder, wedged together on uncomfortable wooden benches. Even the aisles were filled. People were on knee, heads bowed, facing a dais on the far side of the room.
Like the corpses outside, these too were melted, distorted skeletal remains. Petrified clumps of rotting flesh clung to the air-mummified figures. The only difference from those outside was that these weren’t running. Somehow, in their final moments, they looked serene, even as desiccated corpses.
How was that possible? How could you know impending doom was coming, death inevitable, and calmly sit waiting for it to wash over you?
Why hadn’t they chosen to evacuate the planet with the others on Heaven? What could have kept them here, knowingly facing the end of days?
There were so many mysteries Char felt would go unanswered.
Perched on the dais, an elaborate candelabra held candles burned down to the nub. A chalice was overturned. Above the dais, the statue of a man dangled on a cross. He was the symbol of their faith. Char knew that much. A strange symbol at that, but all religions had their oddities. Even the squiddies, with their steel rings, and energy hungry power orgies.
The dais was book-ended by two square rooms on either side, rooms that reminded Char of dioramas she made for school assignments. On the left was a paint-chipped statue of woman with plain features. She held her hand out in something reminiscent of a Buddhist mudra. A tilted table was in front of her at about hip height. On it, a battalion of wax stumps were arranged in rows, leading up to the statue.
The right room was a similar shape, but had a broken down piano. On the wall was a placard. The display wasn’t digital like Char was accustomed to. It had slots with numbered wooden signs that could be removed and interchanged. Their significance was beyond her understanding.
The platoon fanned out, moving through the main room. Wilkins and Dr. Scott took the center aisle, but Fairhaven quickly barged ahead. Char slowly tailed behind them. Marcia moved toward the painted statue of the plain woman. The rest crept along the outer aisles securing the perimeter.
People had died here. In worship. Came here knowing the end was coming. Came here, instead of staying home with loved ones—only from the looks of it, their hands clasped together with their neighbors, small children sitting on the laps of parents, they had been with their loved ones.
About two hundred in total.
Wilkins stopped at the front of the room. “Looks like we found life.” He cocked his head at the corpses in the pews. “Sorta.”
Dr. Scott fiddled with a device attached to his wrist comm. “The signal is not coming from them.”
“If not them, then where?”
Dr. Scott nodded toward the dais. “Up there.”
Wilkins looked up at the man hanging on the cross above their heads. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Fairhaven butted past them and was already up on the stage by the time Wilkins and Dr. Scott mustered the courage to enter the main room. On their heel, half a dozen Marines swarmed the altar. They came to an abrupt halt, looking at something on the ground behind the altar.
Wilkins circled behind the dais. “Good gravy.”
Char perked. There was so much sensory overload.
What were they looking at?
She pushed through a semicircle of Marines. “What’s the—oh.”
Finally, on this foreign planet that seemed so distant and removed from anything she knew about, there was something she had actually seen before.
In the floor behind the dais, a pucker-opening had torn the ground asunder. Purple-green flesh pulsated around a hole, encircling unknown depths. They were much like the openings she had encountered onboard the Sindarhe space station. It raised up a few centimeters, and then back down, heaving as if able to breathe. Around it, ridges formed a circular wall, like a rotting ant hill. But instead of dirt, these were crafted from flesh.
“Doc,” said Wilkins. “You mind telling me what in the name of gravy is that thing?”
Dr. Scott waved his scanner over the wall of flesh. He didn’t bother looking up from the device. In a hushed tone, he said to Wilkins, “I would imagine, even you could surmise an answer to that question. After all, you only have one name for it.”
“Sindarhe?” asked Wilkins.
“It is Sindarhe, indeed.”
Wilkins put his hands on his hips and gave it a second glance. “Looks like a pile of manure to me.”
Dr. Scott leveled a perturbed look at Wilkins.
Bashfully, Wilkins said, “Sorry.”
“From what I can tell, this is the beginnings of a colony.”
“A Sindarhe colony?” asked Char. “How can they even survive here?”
“That is the question, isn’t it? They shouldn’t be able to. Nothing should be able to.”
Char leaned over the ledge, looking directly into the hole. “Why did they set up their colony inside a church?”
“Maybe they didn’t want to miss Sunday mass,” said Wilkins.
“They are not here because it is a church,” said Dr. Scott.
“Then why are they here?” asked Char.
“Do you want me to answer that?” Dr. Scott met her gaze, giving his question a second to sink in.
“No, I mean, well, I don’t get it?” Char flushed. “What’s the significance?”
“Food,” stated Marcia flatly. She’d been so quiet, so enthralled by the state of the church and those in the pews, so taken by the puckering opening, that Char had completely forgotten that Marcia was with them.
“That is precisely it,” said Dr. Scott. “Sustenance.”
“Food? I don’t see any—” Char surveyed the church, but all she saw was the fleshy rotting remains of those that had stayed behind. “They? Them? Here? They eat them?”
Char made a motion like she was about to dry heave. Her back arched and her body lurched forward, but she managed to keep it together.
Fairhaven, on the other hand, who was first to discover the pulsating pustule, was actually dry heaving. And immediately after that not-so-dry heaving. She ran into the diorama room with the piano, placed her hand against it, and doubled over in a hacking fit. She tore at the latches on the sides of her helmet.
“No!” Wilkins ran to her side. “Don’t do that.” He pulled her hands away from her head and embraced her, helping to support her weight.
“I—I—” she stammered.
“You can’t take your helmet off.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Fairhaven pushed him away. Her hands fell to her sides. Her heaving fit subsided. “I think I’ll be okay.”
Wilkins kept his hands hovering at a distance, making sure she could stand on her own, but was still readied to slap her hands away if she made a move for the latches on her helmet.
She staggered to her feet. “Yeah, I’m fine. Really. It’s okay.”
The whole crew was looking at Fairhaven. Wilkins pointed toward the exit. “We’ll be outside, getting some fresh air. So to speak.” He braced her and guided her down the aisle and out of the building.
One of the Marines scratched his head. He kicked debris at the pucker-opening. “This is just a hole in the ground. Aren’t we looking for life?”
“Yes.”
The Marine looked around the room. “So where are they?”
Char shook her head. “Oh no! Gross! Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder. We have to go underground?”
“It looks like whatever created these openings tunneled into the catacombs beneath the church.” Dr. Scott bent down on a knee and peered into the opening. “If we are to investigate this discovery of new life any further, then yes, we must journey underground.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fairhaven hung her head. She lurched forward, fighting nausea. Next to her, a white brick wall came up to her thigh. It protruded half a meter from the building, containing a trough of dirt. Presumably, flowers had been arranged in this bed at some point in semi-recent history, but now the surface was crusted over.
Behind her, she heard the butt of Wilkins’ M97B scuff against brick. His hand found her back, and gently caressed her in small circles.
She twisted, shrugging off his touch. “I’m fine.”
His pressure suit scrunched as he readjusted his position. “How are you feeling?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Yeah. Okay. Except you don’t seem fine is all.”
Fairhaven glared at him, a predatory thing. She wanted him to back down. To stop asking questions. To stop being so damn concerned about her wellbeing. She could take care of herself. But he held her gaze, unflinching. She couldn’t help herself. She felt a half-smile emerge. “My head’s still spinning a little.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. He leaned forward, nudging the edge of his pressure suit’s mask.
She squinted, her half smile returning to full snarl. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Wilkins forced a cough, then cleared his throat. “Char thinks it’s like before.”
“Before what?”
“Like before, you know, on their space station thing.”
“Back when we went…”
“Yeah. That.”
“So?”
Wilkins bobbed his head to the left. “I think she may be right. On the Sindarhe mission, I was sorta, you know.”
“You?”
Wilkins nodded. “I felt it.”
“Wait, last time you felt it, didn’t you and Char—”
“No!”
“Yes, you did.”
“I mean, that didn’t happen this time.”
“You felt the same effects as the last time you slept with Char, but this time, for completely inexplicable reasons, you didn’t actually sleep with Char?”
“I distinctly remember you and Quon getting more than friendly under the effects of Sindarhe. You don’t hear me making a big deal about it. That wasn’t us. We weren’t in control.”
“Quon…” Fairhaven whispered.
“Yes, Quon,” said Wilkins. “So stop it with this jealousy rigmarole. I told you, you’re the only one for me. You and the baby.”
“Right. The baby.” Absent-mindedly, she caressed her belly.
“Either you trust me or we should end it, right here, right now.”
