Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

"Can't be helped. The team is exhausted. We're better off trying to defend a position here than keep moving."

"What about Nina?" Shep asked. "Did the Rev get that thing out of her yet?"

"He was just going to do that. He said it should be easy, though. Must've been some sort of sleeper implant that didn't balloon up until activated. He grabbed those enzymes he needed from the facility before we bugged out; took the shit right out of the walls."

Shep dismounted and handed the reigns to Cassy Simms who stood watch on that side of the camp. Like the others, her eyes sagged and she walked sluggishly. Pure exhaustion.

Stonewall split off to help Cassy with the horses while Jon and Shepherd approached Reverend Johnny's tent. They found Tolbert outside on his hands and needs coughing.

He struggled to tell them, "I never saw her coming."

Johnny stumbled from the tent with a hand grasping the back of his neck.

"I didn’t get it yet… ouch…blasted girl."

Jon glanced to his left and saw Nina running toward the rows of ninety-foot tall vertical red brick kilns.

Tolbert mumbled between hacks: "My pistol…she's got my side arm."

Jon muttered a curse and joined Shepherd in pursuit…

…Nina darted between the old vertical furnaces that resembled smokestacks, dashing in and out of the long evening shadows. Her eyes worked back and forth, the handgun wobbled nervously; she stumbled every few steps. Finally, she navigated the maze and emerged at the rear of the tightly grouped structures. A short patch of woodland that might provide cover beckoned.

Nina sensed movement behind. She turned and pointed the gun at Jerry Shepherd.

"Nina," Shep spoke with his hands raised palm-out. "You put that gun down, and get back here so we can fix you up."

Brewer stood off and watched.

"All I can feel is anger. Is hate! Why is that?"

Shep said, "It's that thing they put in you. We have to get it out."

"Is it? Are you sure? All I've ever known…all I've ever done is hurt and kill. Is that all there is to me?"

He stepped closer. Just a little. She backed off.

"They used that against me! Programmed me like some kind of robot!"

Shep said, "Once we take that thing out of you, you'll be fine. It will all be fine."

"I…"

"No. You do it. Now."

Nina batted her eyes and cast them to the ground in an expression of guilt, dejection, and embarrassment, like a contrite teenager accepting punishment.

Shepherd grabbed the hand holding the pistol. He slowly twisted her wrist. Nina did not fight but she did not willingly surrender the gun, either. She grunted as the older man forced the weapon from her grasp.

Nina staggered to one knee and held her wrist.

"Trust me, Nina. Whatever that thing has done to you, you still know you can trust me."

She stood again, sheepishly, and let Shepherd lead her away…

…Except for Tyr, Trevor lay alone on a blanket under the white canopy hastily hung between a tree limb and a wagon. His expression did not change. His eyes saw, but not the tent: they saw hours of torment. They saw the torture-spider and bore bugs. The instruments of anguish long gone but the feeling remained; ingrained in the memory of his skin and his nerves and the pain centers of his brain.

A visitor entered the tent. Tyr raised his head but lowered it just as fast.

The Old Man sat on the ground and crossed his legs.

"Dirty pool," he said in a hushed voice. "That’s what this is, Trevor. The rest of us have been playin' by those rules but it seems some think they don't need to be following the script. And that's how we got here, Trev. Nothing right about this. No, Sir."

Trevor did not respond.

"Can you even hear me? I 'spect not. Not over the sound of all them screams. Yeah, I can hear them. Not a scratch on the outside, but your insides are more scrambled than an omelet, ain't that so? Your soldier-girl, they're yanking that slug-thing out of her right now and she'll probably be right as rain. But what they put in you…well, ain't no cure for that."

The Old Man held his hands over Trevor's body, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath…but the breath sucked in something other than oxygen.

"A man can take a lot of pain, but what they did to you…you can still feel all of it, can't you? That was the point. Get to your mind through this body of yours. Trevor-you listen to me-this wasn't supposed to go like this. Ole' Voggoth pulled a fast one. Now I can go and cry about him breakin' them rules but by the time that gets all sorted out this thing would be done and over with you on the sidelines. So here's what we're going to do, Trev. We're going to right the ship, as it were. We're going to settle the score. Now I can't make the nightmares go away; they're a part of you from now on. But I can dull them a little. Make them bad dreams: old, old memories. Take away the bite, as it were."

The Old Man sat next to Trevor for several minutes, but before he faded away, Trevor's eyes slid shut and he slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.

– The raiding party traveled for four nights to reach home. Trevor spent most of that journey asleep in the rear of a wagon. For him, the trip took the form of flashes from explosions and flares, and sounds from gunshots and roars.

He did not see the statue-like stone soldiers, the flying flower things, or the hippopotamus monsters with eyes on stalks.

Late in the afternoon of November 22, Jon Brewer’s successful rescue party arrived at the main gates of the estate. There the wounded, bruised, but ultimately victorious group received a welcome deserving of heroes.

To the surprise of all-particularly the rescue party-Trevor stood and walked off the wagon under his own power. He had not spoken a word for four days; Reverend Johnny figured he was locked into a waking coma of some kind, or completely insane. However, when the wagon stopped in the driveway, Trevor Stone stood and walked-with a stumble-into the mansion.

Trevor offered no explanation because he had none; he did not know how he had escaped the prison of screams in his mind.

Eventually, however, night came. Trevor would spend those nights alone in his bed, haunted by images of spidery shadows slinking along dark ceilings; of sickly mouths gnawing; of deadly swarms creeping. More than once he woke with a scream muffled behind locked lips and sweat dripping from every pore on his trembling skin. Yet they were only dreams, and they held little power over him. As if, perhaps, he had imagined the whole ordeal.

While the people welcomed Trevor home as a hero they eyed Nina with suspicion, no matter how many times Johnny proclaimed her free of implants.

Nina slipped away quietly to the sanctuary of her apartment, and there she stayed for a long time.

20. Storm

Jon Brewer faced his biggest decision of the conflict. His next move would determine victory or defeat.

A field blanketed in dead leaves served as the battleground. Overhead a blue sky, but in the distance gathering clouds suggesting that the surprising warmth of the afternoon was a prologue to an evening of storms.

But that would be later. For now, all depended on Jon’s next move.

He shared his plan with his unit: Tolbert did not like the idea but Benny Duda (Stonewall’s 12-year-old bugle boy) and Kristy Kaufman appreciated the creativity of the strategy and felt certain the enemy would be taken by surprise.

Jon moved his troops forward and grabbed the oblong, air-filled weapon from the ground.

Across the line of scrimmage waited the enemy: Dante Jones in front of Jon; Dustin McBride guarded Benny Duda; Woody "Bear" Ross squared off against Tolbert; and Kristy had drawn coverage from Anita Nehru.

Jon shouted, "Hut one! Hut two! Hike!"

He pulled the football close to his chest and dropped three steps back.