Chapter I- Under Siege

Private First Class Dylan Drake ran a hand through his sandy-blonde, buzz-cut hair, sighing nervously as he leaned up against the wall, near the beer coolers at the back of the store. He'd stayed back here the entire time since the mist had come, just as his friend, Corporal Charlie Zamorro, had done. They'd moved out of the way when those men had come towards the store-room in the back, and neither soldier had said anything when that bag-boy who joined them back there didn't return. Zamorro had just shrugged, a little sadly- it didn't matter. There was nothing either of them could do.

Their inaction held when the leading personalities of the Federal Foods market had gathered everyone in the back, and the store manager- a guy called Bud Brown, Drake recalled- confirmed that they were in a situation of some magnitude. That brought a bitter laugh from Zamorro, who only just managed to cover his mouth and move off towards the baby food aisle of the store. He kept up that quiet, crazy laughter even after the two soldiers were alone, and Drake had looked at him with real concern. Zamorro just shook his head, waving him off. "Oh, Christ, Drake," he said, clapping a hand over his mouth and chuckling. "They're just figuring it out. These dumb fucks don't even know they're dead yet."

Drake and Zamorro were MP's, sentries at Fort Baxter, full name "Joint Base Fort Baxter Military Experiment and Testing Facility". Baxter was a remote and obscure Army post out past the nearby town of Shaymore, jointly staffed since 1978 by Army and Air Force personnel. It was over an hour away from Bridgton, but when the mist had started rolling out of Fort Baxter- it had probably begun yesterday, and the problem, whatever it was, had probably been worsened by the storm- an hour had not been far enough.

Drake was eighteen to Zamorro's twenty-two, and while a competent soldier, Drake knew there were things he wasn't able to understand. He relied on Zamorro almost constantly to help him make sense of things- not the little things, like how to service a Humvee's transmission or break down a .50 cal- but the big things, like what in the hell had gone wrong with the Arrowhead Project and why they were trapped in a grocery store right now.

Zamorro had initially tried to avoid Drake's questions, constantly looking up and down the aisle they were on to make sure nobody else could hear. Finally, he gave up, and an hour before dark had told Drake what he knew.

"Fort Baxter is a testing range; it's a base for experiments," he'd said quietly. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Drake said, feeling more than a little nervous. He'd heard the talk about Fort Baxter, knew that the soldiers on-base and the civilians nearby all had their rumors about the Arrowhead Project and what it was.

"Well," Zamorro went on cautiously, "There was this one time. I was on guard outside of Test Bunker Five, way downrange. Somebody forgot to lock the door I was guarding. I went inside- just looked around for a minute. Lots of papers, drawings, weird fuckin' machinery… all I could figure out was, they were tryin' to go somewhere."

Drake stared, stunned beyond words. He had to try several times before finally speaking. "W-what do you mean, 'go somewhere'?"

Zamorro just shook his head, impatient. "I don't understand it myself, Drake. I'm a fuckin' MP, not a scientist. But I'm tellin' you- I saw some strange shit in there."

Pointing off towards the front of the store- and past that, through several miles of mist-shrouded Maine to whatever was left of the Fort Baxter testing facility- Zamorro again glanced left and right, making sure no one was nearby as he crouched on Aisle 9 with his friend and fellow MP. As he pointed off in the distance, Zamorro said in a low, deadly serious voice, "You think this shit has nothin' to do with that shit they were doing back on base?"

Drake desperately wanted to give an answer in the affirmative, but ultimately shook his head. "No, man."

Zamorro nodded. "Yeah. They were doin' some strange and powerful shit up there, Drake. I don't know just what, but I'm sure it caused all this."

"Yeah," Drake said quietly, feeling himself slowly regressing into the mental state of a twelve-year-old. "I bet it did."

The two soldiers had both been granted a week's leave two days ago, going off base in Zamorro's sports car. They were wearing their dark green Class-A dress uniforms, the primary dress uniform of the US Army since the end of World War II. Two gold chevrons on each arm proclaimed Zamorro's status as an E-4, a Corporal, while the single chevron and curved "rocker" underneath indicated Drake as a PFC. Pointing at one set of chevrons, Zamorro asked quietly, "Give it a week, man. Are we still gonna be in the Army anymore? Will it even exist?"

"I-I dunno, man," Drake answered uneasily.

Drake had been afraid ever since the mist had rolled in about seven hours ago. He'd heard the commotion up at the front of the store- listened as the first people rushed out into the mist- and not one of them came back. Drake had been afraid before, but now, somewhere deep in his mind, he heard a whisper of a nameless fear, too big to comprehend.

"Well," Drake managed to say, "You think- you think the police, they might-"

"Hey." Zamorro broke in, his expression dark and serious. "Fuck the police."

Now Drake laughed, finding it alarmingly easy under the circumstances. Zamorro laughed too, and seeing his fire team leader and friend calming down, relaxing some, helped Drake do it, too. The two soldiers fell silent for a while, each trying to preserve some of the good feeling each of them had created. Zamorro leaned his head back against the shelf behind him, closing his eyes. Drake studied his uniform; he knew its badges, ribbons and insignia well enough, but it was still interesting, how highly-decorated Zamorro was for a 22-year-old soldier, one year away from finishing his five-year tour.

There were his silver Airborne wings and the wreathed helicopter emblem of the Army's Air Assault School, for starters. He was very proud of those. There was a number of service ribbons, an Army Achievement Medal ribbon- and at the top left corner of the group, the most remarkable of them all, the Soldier's Medal. Bravery off the battlefield was bravery nonetheless, and Zamorro knew something about bravery. He had never said anything about his Soldier's Medal in two years at Baxter, and Drake had never asked. He could never quite get the nerve.

Drake prided himself on being a superb rifleman- he'd been ranked second in his company in BCT- and an above-average MP. He had earned repeated praise from his drill sergeants in BCT and AIT, and had been a respected member of every unit he'd served in during his three years in uniform. But Drake considered himself to be only half the soldier Zamorro was. The dark-haired MP was not only physically strong, good in a fight, and practically fearless in the face of danger, but he was smart, too. Smart in ways Drake knew he'd never be. Zamorro could not only tell you what needed doing, how to solve most any problem, he could also tell you the details. The "why" behind things. Drake trusted him without question.

Quietly, Drake cleared his throat. Zamorro opened his eyes, blinking a little; maybe he really had been trying to doze off, or at least look like it. "Maybe we oughta help, man. Maybe we can help 'em…" he just trailed off upon seeing the look on the other young soldier's face.

"And who would wanna listen to us?" he asked, glaring at a pair of summer tourists passing by as they orbited the store. "We couldn't tell them anything useful without telling them we knew something about the Project. If we told 'em we came from that base- and I bet you the locals prob'ly know that already- they'd think it was our fault." Zamorro paused, looking pointedly at his friend. "There's a word for what they'd do to us. It's called 'lynching.' I don't know about you, Drake, but I don't fancy getting hanged by Susie and John Q. Public before the Things That Go Bump in the Night break in here and eat my body."

As usual, Zamorro was right. Drake quieted down, and for quite some time neither of them spoke. They just sat down across the aisle from each other, staring at the white tiled floor of the Federal, at the white ceiling, and now and then at each other. Before long, though, each man gave that last one up- the haunted, guilty look they each saw in the other's eyes- it was unsettling. Very much so. Each soldier saw something he didn't like- and knew it was all the worse because he was really just looking in the mirror, at himself.

XX

Finally, Zamorro got up and walked off, assuring Drake he'd be back. As the dark-haired soldier headed for the utilities and outdoor supplies aisle- 15 if he had it right- he thought with a little amusement of how childish Drake could be. He wasn't exactly the brightest bulb of the lot, and he was so loyal to Zamorro it was ridiculous sometimes. He got rattled if officers asked him too many questions, and in times of crisis generally just did whatever it was Zamorro did.

Quietly, as he found what he was looking for- a length of household rope, neither too thick nor too thin- Zamorro hoped Drake's loyalty to him would hold up this one time he really needed it too. Drake was scared, and so was Zamorro- and he knew they couldn't just hide out in this store forever. They were the only two wearing olive drab, and sooner or later these shell-shocked, panicked civilians would start looking for someone to blame. Nobody would make a better target than Private First Class Dylan Drake and Corporal Charlie Zamorro, and the latter grimly understood that no one- absolutely no one- would care if PFC Drake was a good kid and a loyal friend, one who had no real understanding of the Arrowhead Project at all. Zamorro, however, understood he shared a little more of the guilt. He'd had an idea of what was going on- in a sense, he had lied to Drake earlier.

The testing room he saw had a big, huge cylinder in the center, a massive tank with glass panels so the scientists and Army and Air Force officials could see in. Diagrams, schematics, progress logs- in just a minute or two of hurried looking, Zamorro had read over many of them.

They'd been trying to go somewhere, all right.

It looked like they'd done it.

Maybe that was the original plan- just to use some high-level, no-doubt-experimental technology to open a door. Just have a look, take a peek- and maybe see if entry to what was on the other side could be done safely. Yes, maybe that had been the original plan, but something had gone disastrously wrong.

Zamorro imagined, briefly, that last night's immensely powerful electrical storm probably had something to do with it. Equipment like he'd seen in that room was fine, no doubt, if kept tightly controlled by men who absolutely knew what they were doing. But add an asskicker of a storm into the picture, and a million things could happen. And from what Zamorro knew, from what he could guess, at what the goal of the Arrowhead Project had been… one bolt, one screw, getting knocked loose could mean one hell of a big mess.

A hell of a big mess.

Yes, Zamorro nodded to himself as he walked back to Aisle 9, We'd better make a choice soon.