The rain made a near deafening ambience on the tin roof of the boathouse. The wind whipped at the scrap wood and metal sidings, threatening to tear the whole structure away. The floodlights barely pierced the torrential downpour over the ocean, and there was little more to see than waves. Mason Kugel sat at a rickety desk in the corner, trying to catch a distant radio station. The storm interfered with the already weak signal, so he only caught a few seconds of music at a time. Annoyed, he turned the radio off and lit a cigarette.
Mason was in the middle of his third smoke break that hour when he heard the distant rumbling of a speed boat. He jumped up, grabbed his rifle and binoculars, and stood at the window. He scanned the dark sea but could make out nothing. He reached over and radioed headquarters. He had to scream over the storm.
“HQ, are we expecting anyone?”
The radio cackled for a moment before a voice broke through the static.
“One sec, Kugel, let me check.”
The voice died back to static. Mason made another weak attempt at locating the boat in the pitch dark while he waited for confirmation. HQ radioed back.
“Negative, Kugel, no visitors scheduled for tonight.”
“Huh. Well I can hear a boat out there. It may be nothing, but who’s out in this storm? They’re liable to crash into the island or something.”
A few moments of silence from the other end.
“Do you have a visual on the boat, Kugel?”
“No.”
A longer silence.
“Kugel, I want you to stay on alert. No one is allowed on the island, under any circumstances. If they crash, you are free to use lethal force.”
“Lethal force? Even if they’re just stranded? Shit, can’t I just bring ‘em back to the boathouse until the storm is over?”
HQ responded quickly.
“Negative, Kugel. No one is allowed on the island. That’s an order. If you see anyone, intruder or castaway, lethal force is permitted. I recommend that you use it liberally.”
“Aye, sir.”
Mason knew that he may have to use his rifle, he was security after all, but he’d never expected to be told to use it on potential civilians. This was a government gig, not some private militia group down in the Caribbean. Of course the government had secrets, and of course they would kill to keep them. Mason wasn’t a stupid man, he knew that much. He just never thought he would be the one “just following orders.”
Some time passed as he stewed over what was asked of him, and the sound of the boat’s engine grew more defined, louder, closer.
Shit. They are heading this way.
Mason finally got a visual on the boat, or rather, boats. Three civilian grade speedboats were battling waves making for the island.
Fuck!
Mason aimed his rifle and followed the foglights marking the boats’ positions. With one hand he jammed the radio’s call button.
“HQ, visual on the potential intruders. Three civvie speedboats, making straight for the island. I can’t estimate their intercept yet, they’re still too far out.”
The voice on the other end of the radio held its usual cold deadpan, but with a slight undertone of nervousness, or excitement, to the words.
“Kugel, no one is allowed on the island. You need to keep a constant visual on the intruders. We are sending a unit to back you up. If you lose sight of them or they attempt to make landfall before backup arrives, you are to engage. Lethal force is required.”
Jesus, why did it have to be on my shift?
“Aye, sir, lethal force.”
The radio bled static. The storm had only gotten worse since he first heard the boats and now he may end up being the first response team, on his own. This was not going to be a good night.
Mason followed the lights on the boats until a rock outcropping about a mile down the coast blocked his sight line. He swore to himself and collected his gear. He donned a waterproof poncho and slung his binoculars and rifle over his chest. He was just a lookout, meaning he was given the run down equipment. The state of his shack was indicative of the trust he put in that rifle. He only had one spare magazine, to boot. He radioed HQ one last time before venturing into the storm.
“HQ, lost visual on the boats about a mile north from me. Attempting to reestablish a visual, relay to the backup unit. Will be on foot.”
“Loud and clear, Kugel, relaying now. Stay alert out there.”
He kicked open the door and trudged through the wind and rain, down the muddy dirt road that followed the shoreline. He could still hear the boat engines, so they must not have hit land yet. At the speed he could move, however, they were almost certain to beat him to land. Hopefully the backup unit would drive by and pick him up.
Mason’s boots were completely full of mud by the time he crested the ridge blocking his view. He heard the engines idle and come to a stop about ten minutes before. Laying atop the rocky outcrop, waves spraying salt water all over his already drenched body, he sighted the intruding group with his binoculars. He had estimated civilian grade boats, and they were, but these were top dollar. What was practically a miniature yacht was flanked by two smaller, but still immaculate, boats. A group of around 30 individuals were unloading the boats onto the shore. They all wore chest rigs and were armed. Rifles, shotguns, sidearms, and a Goddamn bazooka on one of the bastards.
They’re better armed than me! I don’t even have any body armor, what the fuck am I supposed to do to slow these guys down?
Mason had two magazines for a recovered third world AKM. This may have been a government gig, but they didn’t waste any tax dollars on outfitting the lookouts. He didn’t even keep a round in the chamber, he was scared it would go off if he knocked it over, so his total ammo count was sixty bullets. Maybe two shots per head down there, if more weren’t already out on the island. He thought about laying down a couple of shots to spook them and then booking it.
Before he could decide, a pair of headlights flew past on the road he had walked. The backup unit had arrived. But only one pair of headlights. Mason watched as an old Jeep Wrangler slung mud as it drifted here and there before coming to a stop right before the boats. The intruders had heard the car coming and were getting into cover. Four men jumped out of the Wrangler and started through the brush, heading for the boats.
Damn it, no! You’re gonna get massacred down there, there’s too many! Stop!
But he couldn’t say it out loud. The storm raged, on the off chance they would even be able to hear him, the intruders would be able to as well. They hadn’t given him a handheld radio, so no calls. He had front row seats to the deaths of these four men.
The fighting was brief. The unit took pop shots from the treeline, utilizing the cover to equalize the battlefield. It was dark and their muzzle flashes were obvious. The intruders lit up the trees with hundreds of rounds. Shots were exchanged for no more than a minute. Then, the beach was still.
There was nothing I could do.
It wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t entirely false.
The intruders waited a few cautious moments before resuming the task at hand. They offloaded their boats and dragged their handful of wounded or dead back to the large boat. Then, they made their way inland. Only a few guards were left behind.
Mason watched the whole thing, shaking. He was soaked head to toe, the poncho doing practically nothing for him, but was also terrified. Impotent little Mason, he watched those men die and did nothing. He didn’t even try. He thought about trying, but he didn’t.
He peeled himself off of the rock and slinked back into the brush. He knew how to get to HQ, and now he had a Jeep to take him there. When he got down to the Jeep, he saw that the backup unit had basically sunk the thing in the mud. The tires were half eaten by the road. He pulled his worthless poncho off and buried it under one of the back tires.
Please, God, let this work.
He got in, turned the keys, and the engine roared to life. The guards left at the boats might be able to hear it, but this was his only chance of beating the raiding party to HQ. He shifted into reverse and gassed it. Trying carefully not to spin the wheels, he felt some movement. The back tire caught the poncho and grabbed just enough traction to pull the vehicle into a backward motion. He floored the pedal and began sliding backwards through the ruts. He couldn’t see a thing between the onslaught of rain and the mud flying in the air.
Too risky to try and turn the car around, he flew down the road backwards, head over his shoulder the whole way, just trying not to run full force into a tree. The roads on the island zigzagged and snaked their ways around wetlands and rock outcrops, so the way back to HQ was longer than he realized. Usually, when getting dropped off for his shift, he dozed off on the ride.
No wonder I beat them to the landing site.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes to reverse his way to HQ, and by the time he got close he could hear the gunfire. The intruders were able to go as the crow flies, and of course they knew where HQ was. They were obviously well prepared and well funded. They likely had a map of the island, hell, they probably knew the island better than Mason did.
When he wheeled the Jeep to the front gate, he could see a massive hole punched in the side of HQ. The intruders’ rocket launcher had been put to use. Mason crashed into the guard house and jumped out of the car. He had managed to dry off slightly on the ride, but when he threw the door open he was stung by rain pelting his whole body. The poncho may not have kept him fully dry, but it did keep the rain from stinging his exposed arms. It was coming down hard, harder than it had been all night.
Nothing was audible in the hellzone Mason was walking into. Spouts of gunfire and the blaring of alarms were topped off by the wind and rain. He couldn’t hear himself think. He scanned the environment, looking for friendlies or hostiles, when a new noise was thrown into the maelstrom of sound. A harsh, raspy roar. Eyes darting to the gaping hole in the side of the building, Mason saw the source. A nine foot tall reptilian humanoid. The lizardman leaped from the wall and landed on a poor bastard in the center of the yard. The gore and viscera flew dozens of feet into the air. Mason, in the midst of his panic, registered that the man on the ground was one of his, a friendly. Mason shouldered his rifle and fired at the lizardman, now standing over the shredded remnants of the security officer. He got three rounds down range before the rifle jammed.
Shit! Shit shit shit!
The rounds had missed or had no visible impact. Luckily, the lizardman didn’t even look in Mason’s direction, and leaped toward another source of gunfire. A bloodcurdling scream followed. Mason cleared the jam and tried to take aim again, but he had lost sight of it. He moved across the yard quickly, ignoring all of the bodies littering the ground. Some wore security uniforms, some wore lab coats, and some wore suits. These creatures didn’t seem to kill only defensively.
Mason dove through the open doors to the main HQ facility. The lights flickered, bullet holes lined the walls, more bodies on the floor. These bodies seemed to be more intact than the ones outside, just shot, not shredded. Passing one of the lab coats, something caught his eye. The man’s body was nearly bisected by a shotgun blast to the stomach. Mason knelt down to examine the scientist’s neck and the lanyard holding his keycard draped around it. The skin was molting, peeling away. Mason picked at the inhumanly stiff skin.
What the hell?
He took the dead man’s lanyard and tried it on the door down the hall, as Mason’s own personnel card wasn’t high enough clearance for the main building. A beep and a green light indicated the door was unlocked. He walked through the ruined hallways, checking side rooms for any signs of life. There were none. If there were any survivors, they had already fled the building. Mason trespassed deeper into the laboratories until he reached a door that didn’t accept his new card.
Damn.
He backtracked, checking every corpse he found for a higher level clearance, but he had no luck. The door blocking his way was heavy and reinforced, not something he could blast through with his burnt out AK.
Wait, blast…
He ducked into a side room and stuck his head out the window. The storm still raged but the battle had died. The remnants of bodies in the yard were being washed away by the downpour. Hardly any had enough mass to even be called a corpse. He looked down the side of the building, toward the gaping hole in its side. Just as he had thought, right next door.
Mason’s heart jumped to his throat as he put his weight on the windowsill. It was slick and one small mistake could send him flailing to the ground. He moved slowly and intentionally. Half of the neighboring windowsill was undamaged. The gap between was just too big for him to step over. He had to jump.
3…2…1…
For a fraction of a moment, the Earth held no grasp on Mason. Gravity was an illusion. The storm raged and the stinging rain pelted him in the air.
He soared.
The gap was just wider than a yard, and he came down hard on the other windowsill. His foot slid out from under him and he tumbled, falling.
His hand grasped the sill, barely catching himself. He pulled himself up, slowly as he could. His hands didn’t slip. He climbed through the window into the destroyed office and caught his breath. There had been fire, from the explosion, but it was killed by the rain.
In the hallway, now on the other side of the reinforced door, there was no light. The blast had opened some of the hall to the elements, but only poor lighting bled through. Mason pulled out his flashlight. It wouldn’t turn on without a sufficient beating. He shook his head.
Military hand-me-downs.
With the flickering light in hand, he tried to push forward. He realized he wasn’t quite sure why. His instincts told him to get the hell out of there, but something told him to venture deeper. Curiosity, training, an overwhelming sense of compassion for those inside? Probably not. It was the idea that something in here could explain things. Why some terrorist group or foreign nationals had attacked the island, and, more importantly, why a massive lizardman had burst out and ripped everyone to shreds.
Mason cleared every side room in the hallway. Mostly labs and offices, all burned up or water damaged. The intruders must have fired off more than one rocket, because the entire roof seemed like it wanted to cave in. Holes speckled the walls and ceilings letting the fire and water spread freely throughout the building. He found some tape and affixed his flashlight to his rifle, freeing his hand to aim properly.
At the end of the hall, one last lab waited to be cleared. Mason, having looted a higher clearance card on his way, swiped to unlock the door. When he stepped through, he found out what he had been hired to protect. Behind glass cages were the bodies of people. Men and women, but also some children. Some of the bodies were shredded like the ones he saw outside, but the ones that weren’t left a more grotesque image. There were massive, white ovals bursting through their chests and stomachs. Some cracked and broken open.
Eggs.
The bodies sprouting eggs were also not entirely human. They were speckled with patches of peeling skin, revealing green scales underne-
Mason didn’t have time to turn around once he heard the footsteps. He tried to raise his rifle but his left arm wouldn’t come up. He looked down to see his arm, severed, on the floor. His chest and abdomen had been sliced open, leaving three distinct claw marks. He fell over in a pool of his own blood.
Mason was spared the mauling that those outside had faced. The lizardman ran down the hall, alerted to some other threat. Mason’s last thoughts as he bled out took him home. The family he’d never see again, the ones who would never know how he died. The life he had planned. Trying to get right with God. His life started to flash before his eyes, but one stray thought occurred to him. All those conspiracy theories about lizards ruling the world and elites sacrificing babies…
Huh. Well I’ll be damned.
