Across an ink stained open plain three forms shuffle across the terrain. John is dragged standing between Book and Commander Sheppard; while she scans their immediate surroundings with the rifle extended in one hand. Distant screams whistle up to them on the gentle breeze while their eyes remain dipped in darkness. Impotent gunfire thunders up from the town below them.
BOOK: (whisper) Can you see any of them?
I can't see a thing.
COMMANDER: I can. Don't worry.
None of them are around.
BOOK: How do they do it?
Their hearts seize upon
an especially loud scream.
COMMANDER: Well... the one that I'm not
really familiar with apparently sucks
your soul dry and that makes
them harder to kill after.
BOOK: Damn.
COMMANDER: Something like that.
BOOK: And the other?
COMMANDER: I was supposed to have killed
every last one of them. Years ago. But they killed
my crew just before I came here. They're Reapers.
I figure the Reapers got ahold of the Wraith.
It wouldn't work the other way around,
I don't think. They take anything
organic and turn it into themselves.
BOOK: Well then we can't let them stay
down there in the town. There will be
more of those demons come morning.
COMMANDER: I think it's already too late.
The next scream wakes John.
JOHN: What's that?
COMMANDER: You need to be quiet now.
JOHN: Who are you?
COMMANDER: You don't know?
Through her night vision she witnesses
his blind eyes attempt to scan her face.
JOHN: I can't see you. And I don't
recognize your voice.
She looks to the town.
COMMANDER: Take good care of
him Shepherd.
BOOK: Of course.
COMMANDER: And stay low.
Bolstered by the armor, she powers on ahead toward the town in super-human stride, but lacks the depth of field to miss falling off a sheer cliff that is high enough to leave her well aware of suddenly plummeting. She hits. And she rolls across the ground losing her rifle behind her in the tumble.
The visor is cracked down the middle.
A Husk turns and sees Commander Sheppard getting to her feet. With a hiss seated behind the jaw (a trait belonging to Wraith) the Husk raises its right hand high in the air and rushes Sheppard while accompanied by two others.
She sees them coming and engages the omni blade. She stabs the first, slashes the second from head to trunk and the third tackles her full on and sits on top pressing the crack in her helmet with the feeding hand before getting kicked off. Sheppard finds the rifle through a locator in her HUD and scrambles for it.
Sheppard is feet away before getting nocked down again and holds the turned Wraith at bay by the bottom of her boot while clasping the rifle in her hand. She shoots the Husk dead in a burst and at the sound of the shot more Husks turn their heads.
Half a dozen from the horde pour out from the darkness and she mows each down in turn, but the last two manage to break the armor in several places before getting shot as well. They caused a failure in one knee and Sheppard is unable to turn her waist.
The commander is forced to engage the releases and pry herself from the armor for the lack of mobility and decreasing visibility in the helmet. Now she returns to scanning the night by her rifle scope. The screams still ring out from the town, which provides a direction to turn to.
One man's family crouches in the corner of their single-room cabin as he bursts through the door and secures it behind him. He commences reloading the lever action rifle without even glancing to them. The mother pulls herself free from the three children and clasps their hands around each other so that she can interrogate their father.
MOTHER: Where's Billie?
He doesn't look at her.
FATHER: Just keep out of sight.
MOTHER: Where is he!
She bights her teeth screaming the question
and he grabs her arm to impress the desperate
need for whispers and speaks in low tones.
FATHER: They took him.
She moves for the door and
he keeps hold of her arm.
FATHER: No one is coming back
from being out there.
The only window shatters before the Husk that bursts through to take the father whose screams fade into the night. Rifle fallen at her feet, the mother stares into the naked air before her and the very walls of the cabin fall away around her vision before this sight. There will be no keeping the horde out. And as she stands stiff and dumb at her own reckoning the children stifle their crying from the cold corner. A stray whip of night air blows out their candle light.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Barrels spill across Commander Sheppard's path and a flailing metal smith tumbles back with a Husk scrambling on top of him to feed. She blasts the Husk in the head and with a single gasp from the smith he disappears into a shop and locks the door.
Up the street Sheppard witnesses muzzle flashes light up the night. One Husk scurries before them in retreat and shot down in the deep mud before it can flee. As she watches, the men continue standing in the street and scan the night seemingly unaware of her. But then also a flood of Husks pour out from the darkness and a couple alleyways and overwhelm the men, carrying them off. At this Sheppard ducks back to hug the walls of the buildings before continuing traversing the empty streets.
And the silence is broken by the crunch of glass beneath her boot. She scans to the right and Sheppard sees through the scope a terrified woman staring out with blindness.
SHEPPARD: Can I come in?
First she starts, but more-so in the eyes and
too afraid to bend down for the gun that
Sheppard cannot yet see.
MOTHER: Y- yes. Ma'am?
SHEPPARD: Please open the door.
The woman's stare breaks for the board over the door and removes it, but has the presence of mind to reflect when gripping the knob before turning it. She's terrified at the thought of letting someone in and has already distanced from the terror how the window represents a breach in their home.
Despite this mental break, she opens
the door stepping back to let Sheppard in.
Sheppard almost immediately steps on the rifle
and bends down to pick it up while
the mother closes the door.
SHEPPARD: You'll need this.
MOTHER: That's my husband's.
SHEPPARD: Husband?
She scans with the scope and finds
the three children in the corner.
SHEPPARD: Where is your husband?
MOTHER: I sent him out to look for Billie.
Sheppard crunches under more glass.
This sound makes their mother weep, which the children
rise from the corner to run over and cling to her.
SHEPPARD: Is there some kind of vault?
Any heavily secured place that we can get to?
DAUGHTER: Mr. Smithers has a lot of guns
at his estate.
SHEPPARD: How far away is this estate?
No one answers.
SHEPPARD: I assume that means too far.
The mother grasps Sheppard.
MOTHER: You can see! We can make it.
She nods at Sheppard, but is
really still trying to reassure
herself as she bits her lip
and glances toward the window.
SHEPPARD: I have a hurt friend on the
outskirts of town. We might not be able to
move quickly enough. Is there anything in town?
She shakes her head.
MOTHER: They're everywhere.
DAUGHTER: Mr. Smithers was an army doctor.
He keeps stuff for people.
MOTHER: That's right. You get us there
and we'll get help for your friend.
The door scratches the silence of the night. The family ducks back at the sound and Commander Sheppard leans out to listen. There are animalistic hisses of the Husks, but carried over the echo of distance. It is as clear as it's going to be.
Commander Sheppard emerges from the home and scans the street to her left. She stands with her back to the family and waves for them to come out. They line up along the front of the cabin. Sheppard passes them and scans the street to the right and leads the way down an alley. Just beyond this alley is the edge of town and the five of them head out on open field.
Book can hear shuffling nearby. Normally, he'd consider seeing if it were a burrow where he ought to place a snare. With these new demons out from the cave portal he isn't so sure of being hungry.
Then there is the telltale scream of the quick-and-dead. Such a terrible hiss that must prove the hollowness of the whole body. Husk was an apt name that the commander should us. But then there was a scream of another sort.
There was one who still had life who was attempting to save their soul from these monsters and they were discovered. Nothing else stood to explain that cry. It is fear of the soul. And he heard it. Shepherd Book heard it and now very far from friends. Oh the courage he had begun to take from among them. He had his own before.
Book unclips the P-90 from the colonel's vest.
The old man crawls down on his belly to a ledge to overlook the valley floor. He puts the scope to his eye and witnesses a young couple attempting to scale the rocks to his right. Half-a-dozen Husks trail them kicking up mounds of dust in their wake.
He duckwalks the perimeter of the ledge in quick step and lays down again in a new position opposite the young couple. Book finds the single shot setting and trains his eye on the scope. Fire. One Husk has fallen. It isn't dead and scrambles to its feet once more. He fires at a second one that has run up behind the first blocking Shepherd Book's view. That one is a headshot and succumbs almost immediately. But now the remaining Husks turn on the would-be sniper.
Book puts a bullet in the chests of a couple more Husks who hardly recoil at the hits and the one that was shot in the head before begins to get up again. By this time the couple are beyond the boulders and continue without looking back. The old man gets up and runs before the Husks can reach the base of the shear cliff and begin to climb.
They are up top long before he is out of sight. He glances where he knows the colonel to be concealed and raises the P-90 over his head with one shot in the air. The Husks rush in. Like rabid animals, they furiously run on all fours. Thank Heaven they're not Reavers. They already seem to hate what they are. What's worse, they're endowed to make him the same. For with feet to spare the Husks restore themselves to pibedal locomotion and extend the feeding hand.
Two are shredded by the full auto fire, but the ammo is spent. Then an explosion engulfs them except for one that is sent sailing through the air toward Book. It swipes away the P-90 as he dips his head to the side and delivers a punch behind the non-existent ear to the creature. The Husk turns and thrusts its left palm to push Book back, but the old man guards with his elbow and uppercuts the chin following up with a series of body blows.
Part of the Husk gives like punching a tarp, but the other half of his knuckles bleed like punching steel. He grits through the pain with the knowledge he has no other weapons. Finally, the soulless being begins walking through the body blows as Book retreats back one step at a time. He gives up on punching, but then one more uppercut out of desperation, which dislodges the jaw.
The Husk recovers from the upturned chin and grips Book's shoulder as in a vice and raises the feeding hand for the final time. A spike emerges from the vestigial Wraith organ for the purpose of converting instead of feeding. As the spiked hand is about to be plunged into his chest, Book grabs the Husk by the wrist and begins to roll over the ground locked together.
They roll until Book's adversary is set dangling off the edge of the cliff which the commander had fallen down. Her suit's internal lights illuminate the floor below. Shepherd Book still has a vice in his shoulder and has no feeling in that arm. Except, the pain comes screaming back when he twists himself around so that he might kick the Husk off the rest of the way.
He finally dazes it into releasing his arm and disappears from sight. There is a thud. Book looks over the edge and the Husk lies in a mangled heap in the light of the power armor. And he winces for the soul that this thing once was and turns back to find his way to the colonel again.
In the darkness he smells the rotting Husks and realizes he is near where the grenade exploded.
He gives them a wide berth while trying to remain oriented. Then he hears labored breathing.
BOOK: Colonel?
JOHN: Did we get'em?
BOOK: Shhh… shhh. It's not
safe for much talking now.
There will be more.
JOHN: Can you help me up?
Book discovers John laying face down
several feet away from the hole they
were hiding in together.
BOOK: What are you doing here?
He drags the colonel back in their hiding place.
JOHN: I hope you know that
was my last one.
Book doesn't answer.
JOHN: Grenade.
BOOK: Oh. Thank you.
I don't believe I'll be going
out there again soon.
COMMANDER: Did you save them?
They both look up at the voice
even though they can't see.
BOOK: Yes. Yes, I believe so.
COMMANDER: This family claims to know
an estate they think will be safe for us.
The town was overrun long before
I ever got there.
Book nods absently.
BOOK: Do you think I might
get seen, too?
There is a light in the distance as they draw nearer to the estate. The house is well lit at each window and surprisingly untouched. They happen to pass beneath the arch of a wooden sign likely written the name and owner of the property. And in crossing this threshold an unseen security laser is broken as they pass.
After a couple more feet the house begins to stir.
Several men pour out into the night, each of them armed.
And then a porch spotlight adds a new blindness.
BOOK: Turn that off!
MAN: You do not give orders here!
BOOK: Watch us, but turn that off!
MOTHER: They'll see, sir.
COMMANDER: You'll draw them right to us.
MAN: Turn it off.
He approaches them to study each
by lamp light and scrutinizes Book.
MAN: Do I know you?
BOOK: You might.
It's hard to remember
someone like this.
MAN: Bring'em in.
The circle closes around them and
they are escorted inside the house.
MAN: Maybe now you recognize me,
Agent Omega 5th.
BOOK: I do at that.
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