6 Our First Encounter, 1

After passing through the small valley that was Bunyan's Cut, the platoon left the worn path for a smaller one, and as they entered the flatlands, in which one could see miles in any direction the mountains that walled it off, the wind picked up to a whirl, screeching nachraps heard across the lightning bowl.

"So this is your storm season," said Jacob as he tucked his head into his coat hood. "I hope this will satisfy the farmers."

Sascha listened to the nachraps, and pointed to their right at the point where the edge of the mountain bowl dipped. "There. Look at their size."

Jacob searched, only the outlines of the ridges visible against the indigo watercolor sky. He saw them. The shadow of something huge in the downpour, a tiny thing among giants, but up close…

"My father told me when he was a boy he saw one of those pick up his friend's brother" said Sascha. " It grabbed him, and carried him off. The search party never found him. Friend's dad, whose name was Karl, went to look for him, was out for months, just watching. My dad said when he'd see him he'd just be staring into the distance, out in the sky. When he was fifteen, he was walking back home when he saw Karl out in the field, just looking, like he'd been doing all those months. He treaded slowly, but Karl still saw him. He looked my dad straight in the eyes, a crazy look on his face, my dad said, but a really sad one, too. The kind of face you get when you're remembering something, something from… a long time ago. He looks my dad in the face, and says, 'They got him. They got him.' Just like that, and my dad could have sworn he was still saying it when he walked away from the guy. Daughter was stolen away just the same a year later. Karl couldn't take it anymore, my dad said. He'd gone and left my dad's friend and disappeared into the fields for three days. He came back on the third night, and didn't say a word. He still had his rifle, his clothes were only wet and a bit dirty, but his nails. His nails were bleeding, all clawed off, like he'd been scratching a wall for hours and hours." Sascha sighed. "And a few weeks after that, he died. Never told anybody a word of what happened after he came back. Orphaned his last child into our family. I still wonder."

Jacob had gone quiet. "What do you think is out there?"

Sascha smiled. "Do you plan on going and finding out?"

Jacob shifted in his saddle, and he imagined bleeding nails, cracked and peeling, pink flesh throbbing. A conviction spread across his face, a curiosity. "Maybe one day."

"I won't be going with you, I'll tell you that much."

"Wait," said Jacob, looking around like a telescope swiveling. "When-"

"You worry wart. Don't sweat it, they only hunt at night Even if you were out in the open, like here, they wouldn't be able to catch you on your horse. They don't like noise or groups, and their clumsiness makes picking up fast moving prey impossible. They're a bit like you, then."

Jacob wrinkled his nose and wobbled his head in annoyance.

The field grew barren, and in the mist it looked black. Rods jutted out of the ground every few yards, long, thin poles that were sporadically struck by lightning, metal rods laid out on the land like a great net vibrating with energy as it pulsed into underground boxes and machines. They came across their first home, a dome half-hidden in the ground, smooth as a bowl, a creamy, soft glow emitting from the thin windows. The net hugged it on all sides but for a piece of the road that cut off and dropped to the doorstep.

"Strange…" said Sascha.

"What's going on?" said Aristea.

"I'm just used to seeing more activity around these. Looks like maybe nobody's home."

As they went deeper into the flatlands, a burnt smell wafted out of the earth itself, broth at the bottom of a canister, shocks of life all around them-

"Oh, god." said Aristea.

"What's spooked you this time?" said Huoyan.

The platoon came to a full stop, and Jacob leaned to the side to see past the soldiers up front, closer to Aristea. There was something on the ground, and as Mordeci moved through the dark, something appeared - the beginnings of a head, then a torso, then the limbs - a corpse.

"Watch your backs." said Chui, who had begun to draw his weapon before Arlo yelled the order.

Jacob unstrapped a rifle from the side of his Bart, wondering if it would be any better than the pistol from all the rain. His fingers were numb and pruned, each dart of rain spitting on him fiercely.

"Dismount your horses," ordered Arlo, sliding off of Yannis' old stallion. The others followed, Jacob clutching his rifle as he fell off, pants getting wet as he brushed the saddle. He holstered his pistol as well, and clumsily hurried to where Arlo was gathering Squad Nima by the lightning pipes, Squad Zimmer at the opposite side of the road by identical pipes. "Shoot anything that moves," said Arlo.

Jacob pressed his face onto the freezing barrel, the flesh separating from his bone as the cold dug in. The field was black, swirls of the demons bending across the plate illuminated with the flashes of lightning every few seconds, cover for anybody approaching. He thought his nose was running, but couldn't be sure. His knee sunk into the mud, boot squelching as he shifted. Sascha sniffed next to him.

"What's out there?" Sascha asked himself.

"I hope it stays out there…" said Jacob.

"Jacob. Your safety's on."

"Oh." Sascha was correct, and Jacob quickly flicked it off.

"Did you expect to get this wet so soon?"

"If it floods don't worry - I'm a great swimmer."

"That's just what I needed in my life-"

The lightning flashed again but this time-

There was a figure out there.

"Oh-"

"You saw that as well?" said Sascha.

"I saw that alright…" said Huoyan from next to Sascha. "I saw that…"

"Sights trained, recruits…" said Arlo calmly.

"My hand's freezing to my barrel." said Jacob.

"Shut up, will you?" whispered Aristea sharply.

"Talking keeps him calm," said Huoyan, turning towards her. He was next to Jacob, and his voice boomed in his ear in the silence. "It's the same for me-"

"Keep your eyes down the barrel!" snapped Aristea.

"Recruits…" said Arlo urgently.

Huoyan heatedly looked down back down his sights, and the-

Lightning flashed-

Huoyan fired-

The side of Jacob's face exploded. Collapsing in the mud, his left eardrum rang into his brain. He shot my ear off, he shot my ear off-

His right ear clogged with mud, shouting and what might have been gunshots, or was that lightning-?

"Get out! Out! Out of the way!"

"Don't lower your weapons-"

"What's happened? Tell me something! Get back!"

He opened his eyes and flinched as a drop landed in his right eye, and squinting, he saw people hovering over him. Something warm touched his face. "I'm fine." he said. "I'm good."

Arlo hauled him back up to a crouch. "Can you hear?" he asked.

"Not out of my… my left ear." Jacob felt mud all over his face, and water had eaten into his shirt and was under his vest and coat.

"God dammit." Arlo rounded on Huoyan, and past him Aristea moved her cheek slightly to watch over her barrel. Arlo grabbed Huoyan's collar and brought him forward. "What were you doing, huh?"

"The discharge was accidental, xiansheng-" said Huoyan, out of a breath he'd never lost.

"An accidental discharge? Accidental? I'll tell you what an accidental discharge is - it's when an idiot fires into an empty field and blows out the eardrum of his fellow soldat, and the captain has to shoot him for it." Arlo pressed his gun onto Huoyan's chest, one arm looped around him like an old friend. Aristea flinched, and Sascha moved next to Jacob, both tensing. Jacob was aware that none of them were focused on the field anymore.

"Then he has to write in the report about how his gun accidentally discharged and killed the idiot." said Arlo-

Jacob looked into the field, raising his gun as the others kept their focus on Arlo. Was there anything out there? He looked down the barrel-

They were everywhere.

"Sascha." said Jacob weakly, voice rattling.

"Huh?"

"Get your gun."

Sascha looked back out into the field, and at the next lightning flash-

"Oh god-"

"In the field!" screamed Jacob, opening fire. His ear thrummed with every shot, and in an instant Arlo and Sascha were both next to him, firing out. He could see the men now, dozens scattering through the field, weaving in and out of and behind the poles, bullets buzzing about like light bugs in both directions. Jacob looked over his shoulder as a bullet whizzed past his head from behind - they were surrounded.

"The horses!" said Aristea, gasping as a few of the creatures crashed into the mud.

Jacob turned to Huoyan as he reloaded, cranking pellets into the steam rifle as a bullet hit Huoyan in the face. He catapulted back, and Jacob was on him in an instant. He's dead he's been shot, that's so much blood-

Huoyan screamed as blood gushed out of his jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head, and Jacob felt his chest squeezing as he fumbled over him, not sure what to do. He was shoved out of the way, and he raised the rifle to see recruit Nathaniel aiding Huoyan, applying pressure and lifting Huoyan up.

"Bandages!" he said, a smooth, fast voice.

Jacob sat there, frozen. His ear was ringing louder.

"Hey! You deaf?"

Funny you should ask.

Jacob scrambled through the mud, past Arlo, who seemed to know exactly where he was aiming, although it should have been impossible to land any shots in the storm. Jacob looked around, until he realized-

Supplies are on the horses.

"Cover me!" he said to Sascha, who nodded in reply, still firing. He crawled into the middle of the road, bullets getting closer. The first horse's saddle was gone, skidded yards away. He crawled further still, closer to Squad Zimmer, to the second dead horse - all the other horses had scattered. Shakily retrieving a medicine sack, he-

Froze.

A terrible shriek echoed down the flatlands, and a split second of a pause was heard in the gunfire. The guttural cry oozed with fury, a high-pitched scratch, like sliding a knife down cracked ceramic. Jacob remembered something - something Sascha had said.

The search party never found him.

"We have to get inside!" he roared at his squad.

Arlo slid over to him. "Recruit - what was that noise?"

"That's a nachtrap scream." said Sascha, grunting from behind the pipe. "It's coming - they don't - like noise."

"Mhm." He thought over their situation carefully as bullets danced around them.

Jacob looked around, breathing intensely. The firing didn't seem to have died down a bit - the world only grew wetter. He crawled to Huoyan, and helped Nathaniel with the blood.

"Were those bad noises?" asked Nathaniel.

"V-very," said Jacob. "Let's get him up - quick."

Blinking rain out of his eyes that dripped off the hood, the world sounding through a cup, he pulled a stretcher from the bag and unfolded the clunky thing, soaked through in the few seconds it had taken them to drag Huoyan onto it. Both squads were already hastily proceeding down the road to the next dome-

Another shriek.

Closer. Louder.

Blood rushed into his mouth. Had he bitten his lip-?

"On me!" shouted Arlo. "Retreat to the home!"

Jacob couldn't tell if they were sprinting or walking, he couldn't tell which direction they were going…

He heard a rush of water behind his ear, a wave of warmth spiking and washing over him simultaneously, and then somebody threw a smoke grenade.

The world disappeared in a rush of grey, a slice of heaven descended into the mud. The light bugs were angry, now, but all was drowned out in the patter of rain on his hood…

Pitter-

Patter

Pitter

Keep going how fast am I going am I moving my legs are gone I'm floating-

"Come on! Retreat!"

"Don't slow down on me now!"

The cloud turned to storm. The rain stopped for a moment as the world darkened. A deep shadow passed overhead, accompanied by a swirl of wind and a deafening shriek, that in Jacob's ears turned into a hum, that shook the earth itself, and surely it would all crumble in on itself now… the horn kept on for hours and days and years and wouldn't go away, and Jacob-

That was a limb.

Pitter

Patter

Pitter Patter pi-

There was blood, and now he was sinking in it yes that explained it, the world wasn't darkening it was drowning in blood - would he be able to swim in blood?

He felt Nathaniel behind him, pushing the stretcher. Huoyan cried on top of it. He couldn't see in the blood - in the rain.

Breathing.

pitter patter

pitter

In. Out. In.

The hum, the hum, it hurt him, it hurt to hear, like a death sentence, the forbidden call of it, or the call of-

The call of father.

And there was the dome! The dome loomed up and it wasn't much a bowl as it was a rubber one, and the door was open and there was screaming and-

pitter patter

pitter

patter

"Stop."

Jacob stumbled into a round, cramped room, and shakily put down the stretcher, and his eyes closed, turning the world black for second. "Stop," he pleaded. "Stop, stop."

He fell onto a hard floor, and something came onto him. His heart was the hum of the monster was the hum of the monster of the monster of father.

The monster's hum named father.

And then the throbbing of his ear squeezed out into a high cry, higher and higher until he was more mind than matter and why not just die on this floor?