Siege of Station 19 Read online

  The creature’s tail shot through the air like a javelin and buried itself in Hammerstrom’s chest. The old sergeant’s eyes went as round as hubcaps, a pitiful groan escaped his lips, and he collapsed to the floor. He shivered once, head to toe, and then was deathly still.

  The wounded creature was on its feet and charging down the hall at Love within the span of an eye blink.

  Love had his revolver out and he fired point blank into the monster’s face as it closed the distance between them. The bullet smashed open one of the bulbous eyes and it popped like an egg yolk, spewing fluorescent goo. The beast slid to the floor like a deflating balloon.

  Love rushed and knelt beside Hammerstrom. He checked his pulse. There was none. He noticed the man’s lips were already cyanotic. He was turning blue. It was happening too fast.

  Much too fast.

  Love clapped a palm to the sergeant’s forehead. He was already cold. It was far too soon for him to be this cold. He wasn’t even dead two minutes yet! Love’s mind flashed on some kind of strange poison or unknown venom. What on earth could do this to a man? He checked Hammerstrom’s body for blood or signs of obvious injury. Aside from a small amount trickling from the wound where he’d been stung, there wasn’t a drop. He didn’t die from blunt force trauma.

  The men in the cells were pleading, crying, begging, except for Torres, who had curled up on his bunk and apparently gone to sleep.

  Love shouted the men quiet. “You are safe. The danger is over.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mootz rubbed his forehead with an open palm. “I am feeling very unsafe in here. Unbelievably unsafe!”

  “He shot that thing three times!” the kid kept saying. “He shot that thing three times and it didn’t kill it! What the hell are these things, man?”

  “Dude, I am scared shitless! Please get me outta here!” cried Butch, twisting his hands together in front of him in an attitude of prayer. “I don’t wanna die! Not in here like a rat in cage. Not me, man, not that. Please, please! Don’t leave us in here!”

  “Just calm down,” Love ordered them. “The danger is past.”

  Butch pointed to the broken window across from their cells. “We are like hostages in here, man. They could come for us at any moment. You can’t leave us trapped in here to die like animals!”

  “Calm down,” Love repeated. “The danger is past. The threat is over.”

  “Who are you kidding?” whined Butch. “You don’t give a shit about us. We’re just a bunch of convicts to you, right? You don’t care.”

  Love went back to Hammerstrom’s body and called, “Smith!”

  When the deputy appeared in the hall, Love gestured to the Sergeant’s corpse. “Help me move him.”

  Smith stared at the body. He looked at the gaping window and then at the cells. Finally, he asked, “Where to?”

  Love pointed to the cell on the other side of Torres where the sick inmate known as Shit-bag was collapsed on the bunk. “In there for now.”

  They opened the door and Love walked in and poked at Shit-bag’s shoulder. “Hey, wake up,” he called.

  Shit-bag didn’t move. Love bent down and gave him a closer look. The convict’s eyes were open, mouth trailing a crusty stream of black blood and dried saliva. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Damn,” Love muttered, checking for a pulse with two fingers to the man’s neck. “He’s dead.”

  Love and Smith stashed the sergeant’s body next to the inmate’s corpse, covering them with a woolen blanket, and marched out and examined the dead beast in the hallway.

  It was humanoid, vaguely bi-pedal. It had an elongated torso, muscular legs like a frog, and rows of spikes running in a ridge down its back, ending in a lengthy barbed tail. A flexible, folded membrane under the arms served as wings, yet the creature’s physique seemed too heavy to be capable of flight, too dense. The skin was green and smooth, not quite scales and not quite scutes. There were short, stiff, bristly hairs distributed along its head near the mouth and bulging eyes, like the hairs on insects. The beast stank like moldy garbage. Smith toed it with his boot. “Look at that weird skin.”

  “And those eyes,” commented the lieutenant. “It looks like a bug and a lizard had a baby.” He shook his head. “This is like nothing on Earth.” He thought of the meteor showers. Could there be a connection? Was this thing from outer space?

  “What are we gonna do with it?” Smith wrinkled his nose at the stench.

  “I saw some empty rooms off the hallway back here. That’s where the evidence lockers used to be, I think. Lets haul it back there.”

  “Thank you, man,” called Butch as they dragged it out. “Save us from the stink. That thing smells like rank pussy.”

  “Now get us outta here,” Mootz added. “We shouldn’t be back here unsupervised. Come on, man. Please!”

  Love and Smith dumped the strange carcass in the evidence locker and ignored the convicts as they passed back out through the holding area. The shouts and curses from the men in the cells followed them down the hall.

  “Stupid fuckin’ Po-Po!” the kid cat-called.

  “Savin’ your own asses,” cried Mootz. “Leavin’ us to die. You cowards! At least block the window with something!”

  Everyone in the foyer ignored the taunts. They were grouped near the front desk, hollow-eyed and grim. Juanita, Tiffany, Martell, the two deputies, and Love. Fireworks crackled in the distance, sounding like small arms fire.

  “Where’s Matt?” asked Juanita. “Where is Sergeant Hammerstrom?”

  “He, um, didn’t make it,” Love stammered awkwardly.

  “W-hat?” cried Tiffany. “Did those things get in here?” The panic in her voice threatened to infect them all. Love jumped on it with both feet.

  “The danger is past,” he said firmly. “I am going to go to my car and use the two-way radio.”

  “That other car bashed into your car!” wailed Tiffany.

  “Calm down!” Love snapped. “The radio will still work.” He strode to the front door. His fingers closed on the handle. He began to tug it open

  “I am not so sure about that,” Martell piped out.

  Love stopped and turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “The radio on our bus wasn’t working so hot.”

  That’s right, Love remembered. The captain had said the radios were on the fritz and Love had said something silly about the meteors…the meteors…there had to be a connection. Didn’t there?

  ««—»»

  Butch was cowering on the floor under his bunk. Mootz too. The kid sat atop his mattress with his chin resting on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs, staring at the broken window with wide, frightened eyes. The pop and frazzle of distant fireworks made them all jump.

  “Man, this is insane,” whispered Mootz. “What the hell are these things? And where did they come from?”

  “Maybe they’re some kind of mutated iguana or some shit,” Butch ventured. “From all the pollution on the other side of the border, you know? Juarez is like a toxic waste dump. Hell, all of Mexico is.”

  “Maybe they ain’t from around here at all,” said the kid. “Maybe they came down in the meteor showers.”

  “Nah.” Mootz waved him off. “Gotta be some kind of secret weapon cooked up by the government. Something to scare the crap outta the Russians.”

  “Yeah, right.” Butch snorted derisively. “Ronnie Reagan’s pet monsters are gonna help us win the cold war.”

  “Makes more sense than little green men.”

  “None of this makes sense.”

  “No, dude. I’ve heard about things like this,” Mootz went on eagerly. “Artificially created life forms grown in secret underground bases. They train them to kill whoever they want. It’s all tied in with the department of defense and their super-soldier projects. Really hush-hush stuff. They’ve got different ways to brainwash people and control their minds with cybernetic implants. They’ve got this super-meth that they give the brain-washed sold
iers and they don’t have to sleep or eat for weeks. It’s crazy.”

  “How did you hear about all this, if it’s so top secret?”

  Suddenly, the kid sat bolt upright on his cot like someone had jammed a cattle prod up his ass. “Quiet! Quiet! Shut the hell up!” He strained to hear in the sudden silence. Very faintly, someone outside was crying in a weak, beseeching voice.

  They heard it in the rest of the station, too. A man’s voice, the pain and desperation ringing through. Tiffany’s hands flew to her ears, pressing hard. She didn’t want to hear. Deputy Smith hissed from the window. “Listen!” His eyes wiggled in their sockets. “Someone is out there.”

  The voice rose, soaring and gaining in pitch, and faded away to silence, only to start back up again a few seconds later. Love and the marshal crowded up next to the deputy at the window. The voice outside kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

  “What is that? asked Love. “What is he saying?”

  “It is Spanish,” said Juanita.

  “What is he saying?” repeated Love. The others looked at him. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I am from Detroit.”

  “He is calling for help,” said Juanita.

  Love straightened from the window, hitching up his belt. “I’ll bet it’s the driver of that car that came crashing in here.”

  Smith squinted into the darkness but couldn’t make out much. “Could be,” he said. He thought he saw dark figures hunched near the palm trees lining the rear of the parking lot. He looked closer. Maybe it was just the yucca plants.

  “I’ve got to get to my car anyway.” Love looked around. “Who’s coming with me?”

  The two deputies looked pleadingly at Martell. Their eyes begged him to object. He gave them no succor. “Smith, go with him.”

  Smith frowned. Jones smiled. Then Martell added, “Jonesy, you post up outside the front door and cover them with your twelve gauge.” Now both deputies looked glum. He prodded them with a nod of his head. “How much ammo you boys got?”

  “I always keep twenty-four shells,” said Smith sullenly. “I’ve blown through a full mag.” He patted the pockets of his uniform. “I got sixteen shells left.”

  Jones said, “I’ve got eight shots.”

  Martell grimaced. None of them had been expecting trouble, at least not of this magnitude. They were not prepared for this. “Head ‘em up and move ‘em out,” he grumbled, trying to project a sense of confidence he didn’t feel.

  Smith handed his shotgun to Martell. Love waited until the two deputies were set, then slowly cracked open the door. The night air was hot on his face. Fresh beads of sweat popped on his forehead.

  He stepped out and moved on to the top of the small stone stairs. It was seven steps to the walkway. From there it was twenty yards to the parking lot. Another thirty to his car. He paused. The two deputies moved close behind him. Jones had his Remington up and at the ready.

  “Looks clear,” murmured Love. Smith nodded tightly. Love scanned the parking lot. The sound of the frightened voice drifted through the air, insistent and pleading. Love turned and caught Smith’s eye.

  “How do you want to do this?” the lieutenant asked. “Fast or slow?”

  Smith thought it over for a second. “Fast,” he finally said. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Love nodded. “Okay.” He braced himself. He was suddenly glad of all those years running track in high school and college. “I’ll use the radio in my car. You check the Nova.” He took a deep breath. “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go!” Love hissed. They took off running. Love was out in front and he dashed across the parking lot with his legs pumping, praying to God to protect his ass. After what seemed an eternity but was really only a few brief seconds, he reached his car in a breathless rush, sweating like Orson Welles on a treadmill. The windows had shattered from the impact of the crash. He twisted through the broken driver’s side window and snatched up the radio.

  Smith was at the Nova. A dazed Hispanic man sat crumpled in the front seat, his legs pinned under the dashboard. He looked at Smith with wild eyes and cried out in pain when the deputy pried open the door and reached in for him.

  Love put the microphone to his lips and punched the radio to life. Static squalled in his ears. He depressed the transmit button and spoke fiercely, “This is One-Adam-Twelve! Station nineteen.”

  More static.

  He tried again.

  Same result.

  He twisted the dial, searching for anything. Static hissed; the sound of the ocean in a seashell. It was like that on every channel.

  “Shit,” he muttered, tossing down the mic. The sound of the man bawling in fresh pain brought him around to the Nova. Smith was prying at the man’s legs, working them free. There was a lot of blood. The man twisted in the seat, eyes streaming tears, his teeth clenched tightly. Love guessed that the words flowing from his mouth were curses or prayers or a combination of both.

  He heard Jones shout hoarsely, “Here they come! Look out!”

  Love drew his .357 and spun to face the threat. He saw nothing but a curtain of darkness. He looked up. The sky showed a storm of meteors streaking across the horizon like fireworks. He heard the man scream as Smith forgot about delicacy and grabbed him under his armpits and hauled him out of the Nova with a tremendous heave, scraping the flesh from his shins, ripping his chinos to shreds, sliding his feet from his shoes and leaving them behind. Smith and the man toppled backward to the pavement, woofing sourly as the breath rushed from their lungs with the force of the impact.

  Love heard Jones booming away with his shotgun. He looked around wildly. Still, he saw nothing. The parking lot was isolated in a sea of darkness. No streetlights, no lights in the station, only abandoned houses on all sides. Empty lots filled with dark shadows.

  Love helped Jones to his feet. The wounded man sprawled in the dirt, clutching his mangled legs, whimpering pitifully.

  Movement in the yucca near the fence line at the back of the parking lot made Love squint in that direction. Suddenly, glowing eyes began to wink open, all along the fence. The shadowy figures stepped out from behind palm trees and appeared from clumps of yucca. They had been sitting there all this time, he realized with a sharp jolt of fear. Waiting and watching.

  With his heart trip-hammering in his chest he grabbed the wounded man by one arm, Jones took the other, and they began dragging him across the lot. The station seemed a million miles away. The sound of claws on concrete came from behind them and then the sudden explosive noise of many wings taking flight.

  “Run!” Jones’s voice reached them. “You guys need to haul ass! Run and don’t look back!”

  They did the best they could, dragging the man between them. They moved like the most fantastically motivated contestants in the three-legged-man race at the county fair, hopping and stumbling. Fireworks exploded in the sky, joining the sound of the shotgun.

  Jones pumped the last round into his riot gun as Love’s feet found the steps leading up to the station. Love suddenly felt hot wind on his back. Claws whisked the air, inches from his exposed neck, and then Jones’s shotgun blasted something near his head, causing him to instinctively duck. He lost his grip on the man and they fell on the steps. Smith was dragged down by the weight of the wounded man’s arm around his neck. The three of them collapsed in a tangle. They struggled to find their feet, arms flailing, slipping on the concrete steps. Slinking shadows stalked across the vacant lots on both sides of the building, dozens of them, more than could easily be counted.

  A screeching shape barreled across the parking lot, flying only a few feet off the ground, zooming at them like a locomotive.

  Jones stepped forward, raised his shotgun—and clicked on an empty chamber.

  The thing hit him with the force of a car traveling at forty miles an hour. Love heard the deputy’s neck break as the creature plucked his skull from his shoulders like someone popping the head off a daisy. The deputy’s body flop
ped down and the creature zoomed off with its trophy.

  Love grabbed the wounded Hispanic man by the arm and heaved him over his back in a fireman’s carry and clawed his way up the steps. Smith scrambled to his feet, paused long enough to grab Jones’s shotgun, and followed Love inside, jumping over the headless corpse.

  Martell slammed the door shut. Tiffany and Juanita peeked over the front counter. Martell leaned against the door, bracing himself, expecting the creatures to try to force their way inside. But there was nothing except a sudden silence. A quick peek through the window showed an empty parking lot. “They’re gone,” he marveled. “What the hell?”

  “What are they doing?” cried Tiffany. “They attack us and then retreat and hide. What kind of animal does that?”

  “Maybe they’re playing cat and mouse,” Juanita suggested.

  Smith walked to the front counter and placed Jones’s shotgun down and proceeded to load it with fresh shells from his pockets. He was calm, almost too calm. His face was set in hard, grim lines.

  “Holy crap, oh, my god,” Martell breathed, pacing back and forth. “I ain’t never seen an animal that fast.” He turned to them with a wild look. “I have never seen anything like this!”

  Who had?

  Station Nineteen

  9:00 P.M.

  Butch was still under his bunk. The kid still sat with his legs crossed on top of his. Mootz had ventured out. Now he was at the bars between his cage and Torres.

  “Hey,” he called to Torres’ back. “What you doin’?”

  “Water-skiing,” came the reply. “What’s it look like.”

  “Were you really sleeping a while ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you were faking it,” Mootz said. “Trying to look all bad ass—”

  Torres was out of his bunk, across the cell, and had his hand through the bars and around Mootz’s neck before Mootz finished the sentence. “I am bad-ass,” Torres whispered. “I don’t have to practice.”

  “I—I believe you,” Mootz squeaked. “I didn’t mean no disrespect.” Christ, he was thinking. This little old dude is strong. “I was just tryin’ to make conversation.”